Who introduced the Prohibition? In the USSR, these times have come since the publication of M. S. Gorbachev in May 1985 of the corresponding decree on combating drunkenness and alcohol abuse. In connection with his introduction to the then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, many curses fell on the part of the country's population, expressing dissatisfaction with the decision.
The history of the ban on alcohol
Since ancient times, the consumption of drinks with a high alcohol content was not characteristic of Russia. It is known that before Peter I came to power and popularized debauchery and drunkenness, “shameful things” were not encouraged in society, and the hoppy products of natural fermentation — mead and mackerel (a drink containing 2-3% alcohol) were consumed on big holidays.
For centuries, the culture of drinking alcoholic beverages, wine and vodka, in public places, taverns and shreds was implanted with the permission of the reigning persons, thus replenishing the state treasury.
Russian drunkenness reached catastrophic proportions by the end of the 19th century, which became the reason for the State Duma's consideration of the project “On Establishing Sobriety in the Russian Empire Forever” in 1916. The Bolsheviks in the first years of Soviet power adopted a decree banning the manufacture and sale of alcohol, as well as strong drinks in 1920, but later, having realized the level of possible revenues from this area to the state budget, they canceled it.
This indicates that the struggle against the massive use of alcohol in large quantities before M.S. Gorbachev was already tried by the authorities of both tsarist Russia and the young Soviet state.
Dry facts statistics
It should be noted that the anti-alcohol campaign was planned in the USSR long before Gorbachev came to power, but because of a series of deaths among the top of the CPSU, it was postponed. In 1980, the Goskomstat recorded sales of alcohol products to the population 7.8 times more than in 1940. If in May 1925 there was 0.9 liter per person, then alcohol consumption grew by 1940 and amounted to 1.9 liter. Thus, by the beginning of the 80s, the consumption of strong drinks in the USSR reached 15 liters per capita, which exceeded the average global level of alcohol consumption in drinking countries by almost 2.5 times. There was something to think about, including the health of the nation, to the government circles of the Soviet Union.
There is a great influence that the decisions of the then leader of the USSR were made by members of his family. It is believed that his daughter, who worked as a narcologist, helped Gorbachev understand the degree of catastrophic situation with excessive alcohol consumption in the country. Absolute alcohol consumption per capita of 19 liters per year, personal experience of observation, and the role of a reformer and initiator of the perestroika program already selected at that time encouraged the then Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev to adopt the Prohibition.
The realities of the anti-alcohol campaign
From the moment Gorbachev introduced the Prohibition, vodka and wine became available in stores from 14:00 to 19:00. Thus, the state struggled with the drunkenness of the population in the workplace and leisure activities of Soviet citizens with the mandatory drinking of alcohol.
This led to the creation of a shortage of strong alcohol, speculation by ordinary citizens. Instead of money, people began to pay with a bottle of vodka for services and work of a private order; in villages and collective farms, people switched to universal settlement with bottles of moonshine.
The state treasury began to receive less financial resources, because only in the first time of the anti-alcohol campaign the production of vodka decreased from 806 million liters to 60 million.
It has become fashionable to celebrate the “dry law” (1985-1991) to hold celebrations and “non-alcoholic weddings”. For the most part, of course, vodka and cognac on them were presented in tableware for bottling, for example, tea. Particularly entrepreneurial citizens used kefir, a product of natural fermentation, to get intoxicated.
There were people who instead of vodka began to use other alcohol-containing products. And it was not always “Triple Cologne” and antifreeze. In pharmacies, tinctures of herbs for alcohol were dismantled, tincture of hawthorn was especially in demand.
Home brewing
In the days of the Prohibition, people began to look for ways out of this situation. And if before this only rural, now urban residents began to drive moonshine en masse. This provoked a shortage of yeast and sugar, which they began to sell on coupons and limited the issuance of one person.
In the years of the Prohibition, moonshining was brutally prosecuted under the law in criminal procedure. Citizens carefully concealed the presence of distillation apparatuses in their households. In the villages, people secretly drove moonshine and dug glass containers with it into the ground, fearing inspections by supervisory authorities. In the manufacture of moonshine, any products suitable for the formation of alcohol-containing mash were used: sugar, cereals, potatoes, beets, and even fruits.
The general discontent, which at times reached mass psychosis, led to the fact that Gorbachev, under pressure from officials, repealed the anti-alcohol law, and the country's budget began to be replenished with revenues from state monopoly production and sale of alcohol.
Anti-alcohol campaign and national health
A ban on the production of alcohol under the conditions of state monopoly and lobbying for the interests of large corporations is possible, of course, only in a country with a totalitarian regime of government, which was the USSR. In a capitalist society, a law similar to Gorbachev’s “dry” would hardly have passed approval at all levels of government.
The limitation of the sale of vodka and wine had a positive effect on the health of the population of the Soviet Union. If you believe the statistics of those years and its lack of commitment in the interest of confirming the correct decisions of the Communist Party, then during the anti-alcohol decree 5.5 million newborns were born per year, which was half a million more than every year in the previous 20-30 years.
The decrease in the consumption of strong drinks by men allowed to increase their life expectancy by 2.6 years. It is known that in the era of the Soviet Union and to this day, mortality among men in Russia and their life expectancy are among the worst indicators in comparison with other countries of the world.
Changing the criminal situation
A special item on the list of positive aspects of the ban on the sale of spirits is the reduction in the overall crime rate. Indeed, domestic drunkenness and very often the accompanying petty hooliganism and moderate crimes are linked together. However, it should be remembered that the alcohol niche did not remain empty for long, it was filled with the sales of underground produced moonshine, the quality and chemical composition of which, without the control of state bodies, often left much to be desired. That is, now, according to the Criminal Code, producers of "home-made" alcohol were brought to justice, who drove small and medium lots of this "stupefying potion" under unsanitary conditions.
Speculators did not fail to take advantage of such a restriction and introduced margins on alcohol sold from under the floor, including foreign production, which on average went up by 47%. Now more citizens have been prosecuted under Article 154 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR "Speculation."
Reasons for equating wine with vodka
Why was wine considered in this case similar to vodka in terms of the degree of detrimental effect on the body? Let us recall that the culture of consumption of mainly dry wines and champagne of the Brut type came to the territory of Russia in the 90s, when the borders were opened for uncontrolled import of goods from other countries. A global expansion into the market of countries of the collapsed Soviet Union began on the part of Western suppliers of food and drinks. Prior to this, “Port Wine”, a wine variety with an alcohol content of 17.5%, as well as “Cahors” and other varieties of alcohol-fortified wines were traditional and beloved among the people. Very popular among the population was "Sherry", called ladies' cognac for its high taste and content in it of 20% alcohol.
Thus, it becomes obvious - the culture of wine consumption in the USSR was not analogous to the daily consumption of light fortress wine in the southern territories - the republics of the Soviet Union and the Mediterranean countries. Soviet man consciously chose fortified wines in order to achieve fast intoxication without taking into account the harm of such an approach to the body.
American experience in introducing an anti-alcohol campaign
The US anti-alcohol campaign since 1917 did not reduce alcohol consumption per capita, but only contributed to the emergence of a mafia in this area and the underground sale of whiskey, brandy and other drinks. Smuggled drinks were of poor quality, crime increased sharply, people were indignant - there was an approaching time of the Great Depression. The state suffered losses from tax evasion from alcohol sales, and as a result, the US Congress was forced in 1920 to repeal the Prohibition in the country.
Negative aspects of the anti-alcohol campaign for agriculture and the country's economy
As in the case of the fight against drug addiction, when poppy cultivation was forbidden in household conditions, in the case of alcohol, the ban took the most ugly forms. It was decided to limit the cultivation of raw materials for wine production by deliberately destroying the best vine plantations in agricultural areas. Instead of providing the population of the country with selected grapes, it was predatoryly cut down in the Crimea, Moldova and the Caucasus. On the ground, the public mood and the assessment of decisions from above were negative, because many grape varieties were famous for their uniqueness, it took many years of farming to cultivate and introduce wine production technology.
The negative aspects of the Prohibition in the USSR (1985-1991) have consequences that are delayed in time. In almost one day in July 1985, 2/3 of stores selling alcoholic beverages closed in the USSR. For a certain time, part of the population who previously worked in the wine and vodka sales sphere was left without work. The same fate affected the inhabitants of Crimea, the republics of Moldova and Georgia, which during the Soviet Union were practically agricultural. Their economy was directly dependent on viticulture and winemaking. After the destruction of the republic’s wine industry by anti-alcohol law, they lost their income, which means that their population became dependent on state subsidies. Naturally, this provoked indignation and, as a result, the emergence of nationalist sentiments in society. The people began to be poor, the economy of the Soviet Union, and before that, did poorly with the subsidies of unprofitable industries and regions. And when the question of voting for secession from the USSR arose in these republics, the choice of the majority of their inhabitants became obvious.
Prohibition and modern Russia
Apparently, neither Gorbachev himself nor his entourage assumed the scale of the catastrophic consequences of the anti-alcohol campaign of 1985-1991, its influence on the distant future of many regions. The attitude of the population of the republics of Moldova and Georgia towards Russia as the successor to the USSR seems already insurmountable. Until now, they cannot restore the number of vines and their fertility in the Crimea and Krasnodar, therefore, the wine trade market for many decades is not occupied by domestic producers. Our state inherited a lot of problems from the former Soviet Union, including the negative consequences of the introduction of the Prohibition.