Stalinism and alcoholism in the Soviet Union (8)

Dizzy with success: The Campaign’s initial balance sheet

“Long live sobriety!” A scene from one of the officially staged demonstrations presented as expressions of mass support for the anti-alcohol campaign in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s.

In the second instalment of this series, we noted that the first cracks in the anti-alcohol campaign, introduced on 1 June 1985, began to appear within a very short time. Yet the Kremlin’s bureaucratic voluntarist approach paid little heed to these early warning signs, preferring instead to treat them as temporary and secondary problems. Thus, the period from the second half of 1985 to the end of 1987 became a phase in which the campaign was pressed ahead at full speed and with growing political self-assurance.

Local administrators, as if anxious to prove that they had correctly read the signals coming from the centre, virtually began competing with one another to report the quickest and most striking “successes”. The central authorities, for their part, took these reports as confirmation of their own line, and proceeded to raise the campaign’s initial targets and expect even more ambitious results.

Thus, the administrative mobilisation organised from above was rounded off by the appearance of enthusiastic support from below; the bureaucratic decision-making apparatus mistook the feedback loop it had itself created for genuine social approval. This evoked that familiar reflex deeply embedded in Stalinist bureaucratic culture: the bureaucratic voluntarism that had ignored the devastating consequences of forced collectivisation in 1930 was now reappearing, more than half a century later, as the notorious “Dizzy with Success” of the Gorbachev-Ligachev-Solomentsev drive for “sobriety”.

The press continued to hail the campaign as a historic turning point; it became one of the principal themes of academic conferences and symposia, and citizens’ “voluntary” initiatives were presented as further evidence of this general mobilisation. Yet this apparent enthusiasm was, to a large extent, a product of the familiar political mechanisms of the Stalinist bureaucracy: the impression was created that society was responding spontaneously and eagerly to the strategy charted by the far-sighted leadership, thereby proclaiming that the campaign had already become a success story.

To reinforce this optimistic picture, statistics were published purporting to show that the campaign had begun to deliver its intended results; the individual “success stories” featured in the press were likewise presented as behavioural models for society to emulate. This was the prevailing atmosphere throughout the rest of 1985 and for much of the following two years: the campaign was portrayed not only as necessary, but also as a historic initiative already on the path to success.

Within this atmosphere, prominent activists who were held up before the public and soon became the public faces of the campaign began to advocate not merely curbing the alcohol problem, but the complete eradication of alcohol consumption as an imminent, attainable and realistic goal. Encouraged by the “success” reports reaching them, Party and state officials likewise promoted a more radical line in the same direction. Thus, although the campaign had initially been presented as a struggle against drunkenness and alcoholism, it gradually evolved into a broader bureaucratic mobilisation aimed at re-disciplining society from above around the principle of “sobriety”.

The state’s intervention under the campaign took many different forms. At the initial stage, the implementation of the new anti-alcohol regulations was defined as the responsibility of the police and the judicial system; from the very outset, however, it was made clear that these powers would be exercised not loosely or merely for show, but firmly and decisively. Drunkenness, illicit alcohol production, illegal sales, breaches of workplace discipline and disturbances of public order were placed at the centre of the campaign’s legal and law-enforcement dimension.

A Soviet citizen accused of producing samogon on trial before a Comrades’ Court, beside a homemade distillation device.

One of the most visible areas of intervention was pricing policy. As a first step, in August 1985 the prices of fruit juices were reduced, while those of vodka, cognac, and fruit and berry wines were raised significantly; the prices of beer and table wines were left unchanged at this stage. Roughly a year later, in July 1986, further increases of between 20 and 25 per cent were introduced for vodka, liqueurs, spirits and cognac, while the prices of fortified wines were raised more modestly. These price increases were partly offset by reductions in the prices of certain household and consumer goods.

Official assessments of the campaign’s first months had already signalled that its implementation would be toughened. Reviewing the work carried out in September 1985, the Politburo defined the establishment of “sobriety” as a settled norm as “one of the most important tasks of the Party and the state”, and stressed that this task had to be carried out “firmly and without compromise”. A few days later, a more extensive Central Committee statement claimed that the campaign had received the “full approval and support” of the Soviet people, and that efforts to implement it were “gaining momentum everywhere”. Thus, rather than opening up a discussion of the initial problems caused by the campaign, the Kremlin bureaucracy declared it to be a line already vindicated in terms of both political legitimacy and mass support.

The same orientation was reflected in the new Party Programme adopted at the 27th CPSU Congress in 1986. The Programme required the CPSU to wage an “unrelenting struggle against crime, drunkenness and alcoholism”, and declared that, as part of educational and ideological measures, drunkenness had to be “steadily and consistently eradicated” alongside “manifestations of alien ideology and morality” and other “negative phenomena”. In this way, alcoholism was defined not merely as a public health or social problem, but also as a deviation threatening the ideological purity of socialist society.

The same tone prevailed in the congress resolution on the Central Committee’s report. The resolution stressed the “exceptionally great importance” of the efforts to establish a healthy way of life and eliminate drunkenness and alcoholism -efforts initiated by the Central Committee and said to be “actively supported” by the Soviet people. It was emphasised in particular that there could be no slackening in the struggle against this “evil”.

This language laid bare the bureaucratic logic of the campaign. The problem was not treated as a complex phenomenon whose social and economic roots had to be confronted, but as a deviation that could be “eradicated” through the determination of the Party leadership, the coercive power of the state apparatus and ideological mobilisation. In this way, the campaign moved beyond the initial administrative measures of 1985 and was made into one of the chief expressions, in the early Gorbachev period, of the regime’s claim to renew itself morally and ideologically.

“There is no place in factories for people like you!” A 1986 Soviet anti-alcohol propaganda poster by O. K. Kokhan.

One of the most important instruments used to bolster this narrative of success was official statistics. After more than two decades of statistical blackout, the published figures pointed to a rapid decline in alcoholic beverage production. Output of champagne, cognac and beer had remained relatively stable; by 1987, however, production of vodka, other spirits and wine had fallen to less than half the level reached in 1980. These quantities were also well below the production levels envisaged in the decrees issued at the start of the campaign.

Per-capita sales, expressed as pure alcohol, had also fallen sharply according to official figures: the figure, which stood at 8.4 litres in 1984, had dropped to 3.7 litres by 1988. The share of alcoholic beverages in total retail sales declined from 16.7 per cent in 1984 to 10.7 per cent in 1987, while the proportion of household income spent on alcoholic beverages also decreased significantly across all social groups.

Crime statistics were likewise presented in a way that supported this optimistic picture. According to the USSR Supreme Court, the campaign against drunkenness and alcoholism had led to “a significant reduction” in convictions for intentional homicide, rape, hooliganism and other serious offences committed under the influence of alcohol. However, no notable decline was observed in convictions for lesser offences, while convictions related to illicit alcohol production rose as a result of increased enforcement. Official sources also reported a fall in dismissals for violations of labour legislation, as well as substantial decreases in alcohol-related road deaths, accidents and injuries.

According to official figures, the first years of the campaign had also brought a notable improvement in public health indicators. In 1986, the mortality rate declined for the first time in many years, while deaths resulting from workplace accidents fell by one third. The birth rate rose, the share of healthy births among all births increased, and the number of divorces fell.

Although virtually all the relevant indicators pointed in the same direction -that is, towards a marked improvement- there were also significant regional differences. As before, mortality rates remained highest among the Slavic and Baltic populations, and lowest among the peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Even so, an overall improvement was recorded in every case. We shall not go into the details of these regional variations here.

In summary, the campaign’s initial results appeared encouraging. Even foreign correspondents conceded that by the end of the first year “positive and at times striking results” had been achieved, and that the new laws were being enforced “to quite a considerable extent”. Yet behind these early successes, explosive contradictions were rapidly accumulating; the problems that the campaign had partially suppressed through bureaucratic and administrative methods were soon to resurface in different forms and with far more severe consequences.

To be continued