Stalinism and alcoholism in the Soviet Union (1)

A brief note: In my previous multi-part series, I have always taken care to publish the instalments consecutively, without inserting essays on unrelated topics in between. This time, however, the approach will be different. Since the subject I intend to address under the heading “Stalinism and alcoholism in the Soviet Union” requires a broader investigation, it will take longer to complete the series. At present, I have no clear idea either how long it will eventually be or when it will be finished. For this reason, I shall also be publishing essays on other subjects between the instalments of this series. To make it easier for readers to follow the series as a whole, I will create a separate section under this title in the blog’s top menu. My aim, once the series is complete, is to revise the essays, link the texts together, and turn them into a short booklet.

I would be very grateful if you could share your views, suggestions - including source recommendations - criticisms and corrections in the comments section.

* * *

The fight against drunkenness and alcoholism: the campaign begins

Shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) on 11 March 1985, the Soviet leadership launched one of its first major policy initiatives - one that intervened directly in everyday social life and soon attracted worldwide attention.

On 7 May 1985, the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution entitled “On Measures to Overcome Drunkenness and Alcoholism”. On the same day, the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued Resolution No. 410, entitled “On Measures to Overcome Drunkenness and Alcoholism and to Eradicate the Illicit Production of Alcoholic Beverages”.

On 16 May, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree entitled “On Strengthening the Fight against Drunkenness”. With the publication of these documents in Pravda on 17 May 1985, the campaign was officially announced to the public.

The front page of Pravda, 17 May 1985, carrying the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU entitled “On Measures to Overcome Drunkenness and Alcoholism”. With the publication of these documents, the anti-alcohol campaign of the Gorbachev era was officially announced to the public.

For this reason, many sources take 17 May 1985 as the starting date of Gorbachev’s wide-ranging campaign against alcohol consumption and alcoholism. As one of the first major social interventions of the newly elected General Secretary, the campaign would soon have serious consequences not only for the everyday lives of Soviet citizens, but also for the USSR’s consolidated budget and, by extension, for the economy as a whole. (These effects will be examined in detail in later sections.)

At that point, the “magic” pair of concepts that would later become synonymous with the Gorbachev era - glasnost and perestroika - had not yet taken centre stage politically. The campaign therefore became identified with Gorbachev as the leader who had launched such a wide-ranging intervention immediately upon taking office - and, at times, also with Yegor Ligachev, because of his role in its implementation. Yet Anatoly Chernyaev’s diary entries for 1985 show that preparations had already begun under Gorbachev’s predecessor, Konstantin Chernenko. For example, in his diary entry of 2 March 1985, Chernyaev noted the following:

B.N. [Boris Nikolayevich Ponomarev] assembled all the deputies and staff of the Politburo on the occasion of another CC resolution on the campaign against alcoholism. He cited some numbers: four million are in compulsory treatment for alcoholism, hundreds of thousands of young people are in colonies and camps for crimes committed under the influence. Twenty-five percent of alcoholics are women.

As to the situation in our department, he spoke mostly about time, even though one of the direct causes for the Party bureau’s assembly was the fact that the other day Zhilin stumbled into B.N.’s office completely drunk... Straight off, one could name ten to twelve people who habitually walk down the corridors drunk. And Shaposhnikov is among them; he, however, simply does not come to work after a drinking binge-a day, two, half a day, using his deputy standing... and the drinking binges take place no less frequently than two to three times a week. (Anatoly S. Chernyaev, Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev (1985), trans. Anna Melyakova, ed. Svetlana Savranskaya, p. 23.)

This suggests that, even before 2 March 1985, a new Central Committee resolution on the issue was already at least in preparation.

In his diary entry of 6 April 1985, Chernyaev, referring to the Politburo meeting held two days earlier, wrote: “On Thursday the Politburo once again discussed the question of alcoholism” [my emphasis]. The phrase “once again” is important, since it indicates that the matter had already been discussed in the Politburo at least once before.

Soviet anti-alcohol propaganda poster, 1985: “Off Sick!” The poster depicts alcoholism as a problem that undermines work discipline and corrodes social life.

Chernyaev sometimes neglected his diary because of pressure of work or for other reasons, and it is therefore not possible to determine from it exactly when this earlier Politburo meeting took place. In his entry of 6 April 1985, however, he devoted considerable space to the discussions held at the Politburo meeting of 4 April:

Solomentsev was reporting. Nine million [people incapacitated with alcohol] have been collected on the streets. A million and a half are in compulsory treatment. Women constitute over a third of drunkards and alcoholics. Youth [constitute]-a half [of alcoholics]. But in the tsarist Russia, there were practically no women alcoholics, and no youth alcoholism. By the amount of alcohol consumed per capita, we have surpassed the pre-revolutionary Russia by two-and-a-half times. The straight loss is thirty billion rubles per year, and if we count the indirect consequences, then it is all of eighty billion [For example, the personnel of the sobering-up stations alone numbers at 75,000 people. But nothing is achieved by their work]. Meanwhile, the profit from the sales of vodka is five billion [rubles].

Gorbachev said that we are not talking only about the major social problem of the present, but also about the biological state of our people, about the people’s genetic future. And if we do not solve this problem, communism will be out of the question.

When Dementsov (deputy of the State Planning Committee) tried to “ask” for the vodka revenue clauses not to be repealed immediately, saying that it would be difficult to cover for it, Gorbachev derided him: you want to ride into communism on vodka!

Measures have been planned out: the manufacture of “bormotukha [cheap fruit liquor]” is to be completely abolished; the amount vodka produced is to be sharply reduced; the fines for home-distilled vodka will be not one or two hundred rubles, but one thousand rubles on first incident. All the subsidiary restaurants by the raikoms [regional committee] and obkoms are to be liquidated-for the leadership. Banquets are to be prohibited for many occasions. The punishment for coming to work inebriated for leaders at all levels should be an immediate and relentless dismissal, up to the expulsion from the Party. And all such cases are to be published in the press.

However, many at the PB (the question was discussed for two hours) reminded each other, that in 1973 a no less stern resolution was passed. Something was done for a year or two, but then the situation became even worse: the consumption of alcohol has since doubled.

By the way, something was said about the CC staff and about the international affairs specialists, who “in the performance of official duty” must engage in this activity. A warning has been made.

But what are we to do, when deputy head Shaposhnikov-the Chancellor of the staff!-leads all the department’s drunkards and sets almost daily records, at work as well! (ibid., pp. 39-40)

Chernyaev’s notes are significant because they show how the Politburo was briefed on the problem, what kinds of discussions took place, and what measures were adopted. Yet they also contain something more: the campaign touched not only on the problem of alcoholism, which was poisoning and corroding Soviet social life, but also on the decay within the Stalinist party apparatus itself - on its own drinking culture and the weakening of discipline in its own ranks. [*]

[*] One of the best-known and most striking examples of this problem in later years was Boris Yeltsin. A former senior bureaucrat who had emerged from within the Stalinist party-state apparatus, Yeltsin became the subject of numerous international scandals because of his alcohol-related behaviour, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

To be continued