That is a possiblity, for homes. Standard procedure: nice linen one used only on Sundays and for guests ( => needs to be washed less often, no new one has to be bought). As for pubs and self-service restaurants, nice linen ones, fuggetaboutit.

Another possibility is that Russia was different and never had those plastics (my first-hand experiences extended from East Germany to what is now Montenegro). Then again, we were in an economic community, the Ecofin, in which production of certain goods was centralised into single countries, and it may well have been that those plastic table cloths were all exported by the same company to everywhere.

So do you think it's related that genre?

Nnno, I don't dare to say that, just that the cinematography is re-used as tool for similar (but not identical) reasons. I note those eighties films were so depressing in an attempt to be realistic: they wanted to show life as it is not shown in either official propaganda or Western escapist movies, and what was missing from those was the dark and bleak stuff.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}