Few of Russia's rulers have decided to fight alcoholism. One of the brave ones was Tsar Nicholas II, who ordered prohibition in 1914. Effect? After three years, the tsar was dead, his empire crumbled under the weight of the drunken masses, and the Bolsheviks seized power.
In 1914, the Russian emperor commissioned the parliament to work on the anti-alcohol law. In 1916, the Duma enacted a permanent and absolute prohibition - the only thing left until its introduction was the acceptance of the tsar. However, Nicholas II did not manage to sign the bill.
On February 23, 1917 (March 8 according to the Gregorian calendar), strikes broke out in Petrograd. Other workers gradually joined the female workers of the textile factories. The hungry soldiers, thirsty for alcohol, had no intention of shooting at the helpless. Demonstrators quickly took over the city, capturing state offices and prisons. Workers, soldiers and prisoners found out that power was gone and no one was able to enforce the law.
Demonstration of workers in Petrograd, March 1917 (photo:public domain).
Outlaw Petrograd
The celebration began, and the main victims of social excitement were alcohol shops, remaining before the "dry law". Nobody was able to stop the hundreds of thousands of workers, rebellious soldiers, and newly released criminals roaming the streets of Petrograd. Armed gangs looted houses, warehouses and liquor stores - writes Mark Lawrence Schrad on "Vodka Empire".
Drunken demonstrators also massively stole cars, which they immediately crashed. Most of them, of course, could not drive, especially under the influence of alcohol drunk in industrial amounts. Fortunately, thanks to the prohibition that was prepared earlier, there was not much vodka in the stores, because things could take a much more tragic turn.
The article was based on the book by Mark Lawrence Schrad entitled "Empire of vodka. Drunken politics from Lenin to Putin ”(WUJ 2015).
All forces behind prohibition
Alexander Kerensky became the prime minister of the Provisional Government. It was not popular because it was not able to carry out the necessary and expected changes. He also upheld the Prohibition Act. Interestingly, the attitude towards alcohol by his deadly rivals, the Bolsheviks, was even more negative.
Better to die than trade vodka! - Lenin himself announced even before the revolutionary uprising. The immediate future will be a time of a heroic fight against alcohol! - echoed him Lev Trotsky, a leading Bolshevik agitator. They probably didn't expect that it was because of their lust for drunkenness that they would come to power.
The Nicholas Hall in the Winter Palace, where balls organized by the tsars were held. During World War I, it was used as a hospital room (a painting by Konstantin Andreevich Uchtomski).
The day that changed the world
The Bolsheviks decided to make a coup on October 24 (November 6). For several weeks now, the Kerensky government, now deprived of any public support, was stationed in the empty halls of the Tsar's Winter Palace. Lenin's supporters, undisturbed by anyone, won more offices and public buildings.
Meanwhile, theaters, cafes, shops and restaurants operated as normal, and the people of Petrograd did not show much interest in the handful of revolutionaries running around the city . What was needed was a determined and ready-to-do group of people who would take over the Winter Palace and drive the unpopular power out of it. Even the most talented oratorical agitator could not motivate the embittered workers like the information about the hectoliters of alcohol stored in the palace cellars.
Aleksander Kerensky in his office at the Winter Palace (photo:public domain).
Assault on cellars
The historic moment began - the capture of the seat of government became a symbol of the entire revolution. As the author of "Vodka Empire" writes:
In fact, a small and unorganized group of revolutionaries broke into the Winter Palace, many of whom passed by indifferently priceless works of art and other tsarist treasures, just to plunder the cellars as quickly as possible guilty .
These cellars can therefore be considered the first direct target of the revolutionary uprising. For many conquerors it was also the last stage of the fight for a better tomorrow. As Lenin's supporter, Władimir Boncz-Brujewicz recalled: In the wine cellars of the Winter Palace (...) many unfortunate souls died from being drunk .
Most of the revolutionaries, however, survived, Kerensky fled with his government, so the celebration began. There was a drunken chaos over which the new government was trying to reign ineffectively.
The wine boxes were thrown into the ice holes on the river, but crazy people dived after them and drowned in the Neva - wrote the aforementioned Boncz-Brujewicz - a drunken pogrom began when a drunken crowd, maddened and furious with joy, burst into private apartments all over the city.
Even the ruthless Bolsheviks found it difficult to control the drunken crowd (the picture shows Boris Kustodiev's "Bolshevik").
Revolutionary tension shook Bessie Beatty, the war correspondent for the San Francisco Bulletin, who was quoted in her book by Mark Lawrence Schrad:
We thought they would kill the entire population, but later it turned out that the sounds we thought were shots were not so deadly traffic jam shots, and the soldiers lying in the snow were not dead but drenched. ”
The drunken orgy lasted a long time, which disturbed the revolutionary leaders who were building up their fragile power.
Counter-revolutionary drunkenness
The desire for free drunkenness thus helped to overthrow the tsar first and then to seize power from the Bolsheviks. Thus Vladimir Ilyich Lenin understood perfectly well the threat posed by an uncontrolled, drunk crowd. He was aware that the mob might turn against him someday. The more so because the opponents of the Bolsheviks constantly informed the thirsty revolutionists about the alcohol they had just found, which turned into another drunken orgy. The leader of the communist coup knew that the only salvation would be iron discipline. There was no question of abolishing Prohibition.
Red Guard members in a bourgeois apartment (pic. Public domain).
When the Cheka, the Soviet secret service, was established, one of its main tasks was to suppress already counter-revolutionary drunkenness. The distillation of the grain was strictly forbidden. Moonshiners were simply shot.
The warehouses with the alcohol left behind were to be guarded by the military, which at first was unaware of the great responsibility that rested with them. To quote Schrad:
The usually reliable Preobrażeński Regiment, whose task was to guard the alcohol warehouses, "got drunk", the Pawłowski Regiment also "did not resist the temptation", similarly "submissive" others appointed guards.
The only genuine support from the authorities was the Red Guard, thanks to which it was possible to restore order.
Lev Trotsky lost the fight against drunkenness as well as the fight against Stalin (photo:public domain).
The triumph of the revolution, the defeat of prohibition
The Red Revolution has won. If we don't eradicate alcoholism, we'll drink both socialism and the October Revolution! Lev Trotsky shouted and warned. In this field, however, the Bolsheviks suffered a crushing defeat . Despite draconian punishments and prohibitions, moonshine was commonly driven, even during the great famine.
As early as 1922, it was allowed to sell wines and cognacs. During the deadly duel for Lenin's inheritance, the availability of alcohol was one of the topics of the dispute between Trotsky and Stalin. In 1925, it was allowed to produce 30% state-owned vodka, the so-called Rykovki. The scales of victory tilted in favor of the opponent of prohibition, Józef Wissarionowicz Stalin.
Bibliography:
Mark Lawrence Schrad, Vodka Empire. Drunken politics from Lenin to Putin , Ed. Of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow 2015.
About the drunk revolution and not only in the book:
Would the Soviet Union become a world superpower if not for vodka? How drunk politics in the 1990s contributed to the fall of communism and to the health problems of society? How could the Kremlin overcome the obstacles related to alcohol abuse and lead to social, economic and democratic prosperity?
The article was based on the book by Mark Lawrence Schrad entitled "Empire of vodka. Drunken politics from Lenin to Putin ”(WUJ 2015).
Schrad takes a close look at the 20th and 21st-century Russian state, where the famous drink replenishes the treasury and enables the manipulation of the people. Viewing Russia's history through the prism of a vodka bottle will help us understand why the "alcohol issue" remains relevant to Russian politics at the highest level today - nearly a century after it was dealt with in almost all other modern countries. Recognizing and tackling the devastating power of vodka's political legacy is perhaps the greatest political challenge facing the current generation of Russia's leaders and possibly the next.