Mikhail Gorbachev
One of the most dramatic and revolutionary
changes in Russian history is the
restriction of the consumption of alcohol.
Mikhail Gorbachev instituted his
anti-alcohol campaign on May 16, 1985 in
order to decrease alcohol consumption
by Soviet citizens and instead teach
them the rewards of moderation. Some such
rewards were a better life at home
with their families, more advancement in
their jobs, and better overall
health. Although Gorbachev's anti-alcohol
campaign was effective in
generating some positive changes, it eventually
failed, causing resentment
toward the leadership, worsening health issues,
creating illegal alcohol
production markets, and increasing the budget deficit.
When Gorbachev was
fifteen, he went out one day with his father and his
harvesting team. The
mechanics decided that it would be funny to play a joke on
the young boy.
They gave him a drink of pure alcohol, and told him that it was
vodka. He
drank it, and it utterly disgusted him. This was an important lesson
to him.
It made him not like alcohol, therefore making him want others to stay
away
from it. This could have saved his nation. Gorbachev noted, "After
that
experience I have never felt any pleasure in drinking vodka or
spirits"
(Gorbachev 37). That is important because if he had liked alcohol,
there most
likely never would have been any anti-alcohol campaign.
"Temperance was the
rule in the Gorbachev household on holidays, the men
might take one shot
glass of vodka or cognac in celebration, no more"
(Smith 38). The Gorbachev
family is an example of how alcohol should have been
used in Russia. They
drank in moderation, as opposed to others who drank simply
to get drunk and
were unable to control themselves while drinking. Gorbachev
wanted others to
be able to drink as they did, and he tried to set a good
example in order to
get his point across. However, his plans didn't work out as
he had suspected.
"Gorbachev saw alcoholism as an offense to the Soviet
ideal and a symptom of
weak personal morals rather than a failing of the Soviet
order" (Galeotti
58). He thought that people should be able to control
themselves while
drinking, and if they didn't it was their own fault. It is not
unusual that
he would initiate, as one of his first priorities after taking
power in March
1985, an anti-alcohol campaign. Alcohol had always been a large
part in a
Russian's life. "The Russians have always drunk vodka,"
former Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev once said. "They can't get by without
it" (Sudo 14).
Drunkenness had been a plague in Russia since the Middle
Ages; that is no
secret. However, for years the communist leadership refused to
acknowledge
the fact that alcohol abuse posed any problems. Periodically,
in
pre-revolutionary times and even during the first years of Soviet power,
the
authorities initiated missions against alcoholism, none of which resulted
in
success. By the time Gorbachev got to power, the drinking problem was very
much
out of hand in Russia. "Until Gorbachev clamped down on the consumption
of
alcohol in June 1985, the Soviets were literally drinking themselves
to
death" (Naylor 194). Alcohol was putting a profound strain on
society.
Consumption had skyrocketed during the Brezhnev era. This is
especially
significant considering it was already considerably high at the
beginning of his
era. In 1984, state revenues from the sale of alcoholic
beverages reached
fifty-three billion rubles, four times what it had been
twenty years before. The
alcohol issue became disastrous. "Nearly one hundred
and sixty-three
million out of a population of two hundred and eighty million
drink regularly;
as many as twenty million are alcoholics" (Sudo 14). With
that many people
in a society having problems with alcohol, obviously
something had to be done.
The annual loss to the economy from drunkenness
was an estimated eighty to one
hundred billion rubles. Alcoholism was the
third most common ailment, after
heart disease and cancer. The life
expectancy of men was declining. Infant
mortality rates were rising. Health
of present and future generations was being
corrupted. "It was also
responsible for most marriage breakups"
(Morris 48). Wives had become
desperate trying to save their marriages, with
their husbands practically
drinking themselves to death. Crime, corruption, and
cynicism were all
increasing. Drunk drivers were responsible for fourteen
thousand traffic
deaths per year. "Alcoholism was probably the largest
single cause of a
stunning increase in the Soviet Union's crude death rate"
(Kaiser 101). In
1964, there were about seven deaths per one thousand citizens.
This
statistic grew to almost eleven deaths per one thousand citizens in
1985.
There are many causes for this widespread drunkenness. One reason
is the poor
living conditions. Another is the hardship of every day Russian
life. Economic
conditions were very difficult. A third reason is the cultural
backwardness. A
fourth cause is the "oppressive social atmosphere which
pushed weak natures
to use alcohol to drown their feelings of inferiority and
their fear of harsh
reality" (Gorbachev 220). The people were so vulnerable
to alcohol; they
needed it to feel superior and to step away from the truths
of life. They looked
for another outlet, alcohol. A last reason is the
leaders' example. It is very
common to find alcohol at their banquets and
receptions. In the early 1980s,
there was a strong public pressure on Party
and governmental agencies. They were
receiving a flood of letters, mainly
from wives and mothers. In these letters,
there were frightening examples of
family tragedies, industrial accidents, and
crime due to drunkenness. "It was
impossible to read these women's bitter
outpourings without shuddering. The
saying that the wives and children have shed
as many tears as men have drunk
vodka is apt indeed" (Ligachev 336). The
women were begging for something to
be done about this horrific alcohol problem.
They were becoming desperate
to save the lives of those whom they loved. They
now left the problem in the
government's hands. A decision was made to begin a
campaign against the evil
alcohol problem. A list of decrees was written and
brought to the Politburo:
However, when the draft of the decrees was submitted
to the Politburo for
discussion, its members, driven by a noble desire to wipe
out evil without
further delay and rendered even more zealous by their own fiery
oratory,
decided that the proposed measures were inadequate and that more needed
to be
done (Boldin 101). It is a possibility that if the Politburo hadn't been
so
enthusiastic and passionate, they wouldn't have failed. I think that
they
should have started off with small changes. So many drastic reforms in
such a
short amount of time frightened the people, and they had nothing other
to do
than to turn to the bottle. They needed time to get used to the idea of
living
without alcohol, and the government didn't take this into account. I
think that
they were being impractical in these reforms, and they should have
taken smaller
steps in order to accomplish their task at hand. Officials of
Gosplan, the
Ministry of Trade, the processing industry, and farmers
defended the cause of
alcohol as best they could, arguing that the proposed
measures would cost the
state budget billions of rubles, ruin the grape
growers, and close down much of
the capacity of the wine-making.