This is in the context of WIAF but it may just as well apply to OTL as well.
Opium was grown in the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union in OTL, mostly the Kirghiz SSR. But so far as I've been able to ascertain, it was only intended for medicinal use. However, throughout the first two Five-Year Plans, the Soviet government was desperately short on hard currency to pay technological imports with, and relied on a number of expedients such as selling off artworks (and of course starving the peasants in order to export their crops). Domestically, as much as 20% of the government budget came from sales of vodka.
So what if the USSR had tried growing opium as a cash crop in the 1930s? After all, the British had done so back in the 19th century, and the French had set up a state monopoly on opium sale in Indochina, to say nothing of the Japanese's own shenanigans. The most profitable market would obviously be China, which would have required setting up smuggling rings in Xinjiang, certainly not impossible considering the length of the Sino-Soviet border and its remoteness from the centers of power. Local authorities could have been bribed if necessary.
Opium was grown in the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union in OTL, mostly the Kirghiz SSR. But so far as I've been able to ascertain, it was only intended for medicinal use. However, throughout the first two Five-Year Plans, the Soviet government was desperately short on hard currency to pay technological imports with, and relied on a number of expedients such as selling off artworks (and of course starving the peasants in order to export their crops). Domestically, as much as 20% of the government budget came from sales of vodka.
So what if the USSR had tried growing opium as a cash crop in the 1930s? After all, the British had done so back in the 19th century, and the French had set up a state monopoly on opium sale in Indochina, to say nothing of the Japanese's own shenanigans. The most profitable market would obviously be China, which would have required setting up smuggling rings in Xinjiang, certainly not impossible considering the length of the Sino-Soviet border and its remoteness from the centers of power. Local authorities could have been bribed if necessary.