Quote Originally Posted by LXNDR View Post
from me: people were waiting in line from eve to have a chance of getting the desired unprocurable book the next morning
This was exactly because the books were so cheap so that the people bought a lot of books. I just looked at books in my library and the typical prices of a tome (inscribed on all books in soviet times) are 2.20, 2.40, 2.60, 2.90. Bear in mind that 1 ruble was about 1 dollar at the time.

Of course this business was not profitable for the state (if not to count the indirect, difficult to measure profit from the more learned population).