Those looking for a historical antecedent to America's anti-smoking hysteria should search no farther. It may have begun as so many of our century's tragedies began: with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's train ride from Zurich to the Finland Station in Petrograd, where he launched the Bolshevik Revolution. We quote from A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution, by Orlando Figes: "Lenin worked alone in his own compartment, while his fellow travellers, much to his annoyance, drank and sang in the corridor and the other compartments. Smoking was confined to the lavatory and Lenin ordered that all non-smokers should be issued with a 'first class' pass that gave them priority to use the lavatory over the smokers with their 'second class' passes. . . . It seemed from this piece of minor social planning that Lenin was already preparing himself to 'assume the leadership of the revolutionary government.' The 'sealed train' was an early model of Lenin's state dictatorship."
Is there a smoker in America today who doesn't feel as though he's been issued a "second-class pass"? The harsh glare of Lenin's example at last illuminates the shadowy motives of our anti-smoking zealots: Today tobacco -- tomorrow the world!