Tsar-soberer: how the war of the Russian Empire against widespread alcoholism began and ended

The beginning, however, did not look radical at all. The document cited above – an imperial rescript addressed to the new head of the Ministry of Finance (at first in the rank of manager of the Ministry of Finance) Peter Bark dated January 30 (February 12), 1914 – did not contain any “dry” measures. And indeed any measures at all.

A rescript is generally similar to a normative legal act. His first lines make me remember the beginning of Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”: “I looked around me – my soul became wounded by the suffering of mankind.” Nicholas II also began with a story about the journey he took last year, that is, 1913, “through several Great Russian provinces.” This, obviously, was about the trips of the royal family as part of the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.

And the sovereign, too, did not like everything that he observed “around”: “With joy in my soul I saw the bright manifestations of the gifted creativity and labor power of my people, but next to this, with deep sorrow, I had to see sad pictures of the people’s weakness , family poverty and abandoned farms, the inevitable consequences of a drunken life…”

Unpleasant travel impressions led the emperor to the firm conviction that he “had a duty before God and Russia to immediately introduce fundamental changes in the management of public finances and economic tasks of the country, for the benefit of my beloved people.”

However, no details about the planned transformations were reported in the royal rescript. There were only hints. However, they are quite transparent. The call to “direct financial policy towards the search for state revenues obtained from inexhaustible sources of state wealth and from people’s productive labor” made it clear that with the cash flow that the state wine monopoly provided the treasury, the empire was no longer on its way.

For reference: trade and most of the production of strong alcoholic beverages were then in the hands of the state. Their retail sale – with a few exceptions – could only be carried out by state-owned wine shops, popularly nicknamed “monopoly shops”. The state trade in alcohol was the main source of filling the treasury. Let’s say, in the state budget for 1914, income from it accounted for – or rather, should have accounted for – more than a quarter, 26.2 percent, of all planned revenues.

However, for the first six months after the publication of the rescript and Peter Bark taking up his post (in May 1914, he became the “full-fledged” minister of finance of the empire), no radical steps were taken. There was not even any talk about any “prohibition”.

“When I presented the budget I had compiled to the State Duma in April 1914,” Bark wrote in his memoirs, “I said that two categories of measures were necessary to combat the evil of drunkenness. The first should be aimed at reducing points selling alcoholic beverages, and the second “must pursue the goal of raising the moral and intellectual level of the people. But I added that this is a very difficult task and will take many years to achieve.”

Bark said in his speech that the Ministry of Finance currently controls 8,500 savings banks and 25,000 liquor stores, ending with: “The Ministry will try to close drinking establishments and open savings banks instead. When these numbers are turned upside down, Russia will “will have 8,500 wine shops – and 25,000 savings banks, which would show the same brisk turnover as in state-owned establishments selling drinks, then our goal will be achieved.”

The wine shops actually began to close. But exclusively at the request of workers. Moreover, in this case, this formula, which became widespread in the later Soviet era, should be understood without any sarcasm, literally. Actually, this process began even before the tsar’s anti-alcohol rescript: rural societies passed “verdicts” at their gatherings to close places selling alcoholic beverages and addressed the corresponding petitions to the authorities.

But not all of them were satisfied before. Now things got more contentious. Bark informed the excise managers that “all legally valid verdicts of rural societies are subject to satisfaction.” From February to July 1914, the government approved 800 such requests.

Other measures taken during these six months: reducing the trading hours for alcohol (selling was allowed until 6 pm), a ban on trading in rural areas on holidays and at any time near places of permanent or temporary location of military units.

As we see, despite the enormous number of plans to sober up the people, during this period the state authorities acted quite carefully and prudently. And if it had continued to act in the same spirit, then, quite possibly, the state would have existed much longer.

The World War changed everything, which at the same time became the reason for declaring an uncompromising war on drunkenness. The Russian Empire did not undertake a campaign on both of these fronts. However, at first, as they say, nothing was foreshadowed here either.

The decision to close wine shops and drinking establishments, which accompanied the announcement of mobilization (July 17 (30), 1914), was initially understood as temporary. Formally, by the way, a centralized ban was not introduced at all: the powers to close the alcohol trade were granted to local authorities – such decisions were to be made at their discretion and under their responsibility. However, within three days the trade in alcohol in Russia was almost completely stopped.

The government intended to resume it after the completion of mobilization measures. But the king had a different idea. “The sovereign looked at the matter from a different point of view and did not agree with this decision,” Bark recalled. “He told me that the petitions of the peasants to ban the sale of vodka forever made such a deep impression on him and the beneficial consequences of the closure of drinking shops affected so clearly in a short time.” the period of time that he firmly decided not to resume the official sale of drinks…

Thus, the highest order followed to extend the closure of state-owned wine shops and drinking establishments until the end of hostilities, which, in essence, resolved the issue of radically changing our budget with the elimination of drinking income from it.”

Of course, to claim that Prohibition led to the revolution would be, figuratively speaking, putting an owl on the globe. But the fact that he greatly contributed to the creation of a revolutionary situation, something that the lower classes did not want and the upper classes could not, seems pointless to deny.

Its contribution lies, firstly, in the disorganization of the country’s financial system, and secondly, in modern terms, in the fall in the government’s ratings. No, there were, of course, advantages: crime decreased, the number of suicides decreased, labor productivity increased… But this can be called the initial effect: the further, the more it was leveled out by the rapid growth of moonshine, a sharp increase in the use of various surrogates, and the spread of drugs.

Taking these factors into account, the impact of Prohibition on people’s health can hardly be called positive. Well, the following lines from “Untimely Thoughts” by Maxim Gorky, dedicated to the description of the capital of the former empire in the first days after the Bolshevik coup, speak better than dry reports about what the results of the experiment were in relation to popular morality: “It’s already almost for two weeks, every night crowds of people rob wine cellars, get drunk, hit each other on the head with bottles, cut their hands with broken glass and roll around like pigs in the mud and blood.”

Huge reserves of collection wine were stored in the cellars of the Winter Palace. When citizens who missed alcohol found out about this, a new assault on the Winter Palace took place. And not even alone.

“People poured into the palace,” recalled the then commandant of Smolny, Pavel Malkov. “The guard was unable to stop the numerous drinkers, not to mention the fact that a significant part of the guard could barely stand on its own.”

In the end, it was decided to destroy the contents of the wine cellars. Reliable revolutionary Baltic sailors, specially called for such responsible work, broke bottles and removed the bottoms of barrels. “The wine spilled across the floor like a river,” Malkov writes in his memoirs. “It rose up to the ankles, to the knees.”

But, according to Malkov, this not only did not stop, but even more provoked the “amateurs”: “All sorts of people are already running from almost all over St. Petersburg… They heard that the wine warehouses were being destroyed, and they ran: why, they say, should the good disappear? Just look, they’ll break into the basements again.”

In the end, it was decided to call the firefighters and pump water into the basements – and then pump out the resulting slurry. And so they did. “Muddy streams flowed from Zimny: there was wine, water, and dirt – everything was mixed,” continues the commandant of Smolny.

The final scenes of the “assault of Winter 2.0” in Malkov’s description looked like this: “Meanwhile, the crowd is getting thicker… Some, the most desperate, get down on all fours and drink this dirty trick. Others carry buckets and bottles. This story dragged on for a day or two, until There are no wine cellars left in Zimny.”

This disgusting picture can also be considered the finale of the anti-alcohol campaign launched by the former owner of the Winter Palace less than four years before the liquidation of the palace wine collections. The road, paved with the good intentions of the “owner of the Russian land,” did not lead to where he dreamed.

Here, perhaps, one could say that such an outcome should serve as a good lesson for the present and future rulers of Russia. But is it worth it? As the wise Vasily Klyuchevsky said, “history is not a teacher, but an overseer: it teaches nothing, but only punishes for ignorance of the lessons.”

History has taught nothing to the next “masters of the Russian land” – and punishment was not long in coming (see the history of perestroika). And something suggests that this was not the last execution of this kind.