bridge in the SSSR

[Tim West]

Dear colleagues,

A friend was recently told that contract bridge was illegal in the Soviet Union, and 
she would like to find sources that might explain or refute this. A quick Russian 
google search yields only an anekdot that has Stalin playing bridge with members 
of the Politburo; an English site informs that he outlawed bridge because it was 
“bourgeois,” but it provides no documentation. Can anyone help, either 
anecdotally or with sources?

Thanks,
Tim West
Princeton Univ.

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