WI: Straight Edge Stalin and Soviet Prohibition

[Ryker of Terra]

The topic of alcoholism in general and in the post-Soviet states in particular has always been interesting to me. Russia has a massive problem with alcohol - not only do people drink a LOT over there, which affects health and life expectancy, crime, etc., but drinking is socially acceptable and even expected. This is a topic personally close to me, because this drinking culture was later exported to other states that were part of the Russian sphere - including my own. Alcoholism has affected my family in the past, which made me swing hard the other way and swear off any drinking.

Alcoholism in Russia (and adjacent states) goes back several centuries, because the Tsars saw that it results in a more compliant population - this video explains all the history far better than I could. The Bolsheviks instated prohibition in the Soviet Union (or continued the one started by Nicholas during WWI, if you wanna be technical), but this was later undone by Stalin, who saw the same benefits that the Tsars did in nationalizing vodka production. One of the most fucked up Soviet policies mentioned in the video is that vodka bottles were made in such a way that you couldn't close them once they were opened, with the expectation that you would finish it all in one go. This certainly didn't help the matter.

But what if Stalin had been as staunch a prohibitionist as Lenin was? I've read some threads about it on this site, and they mostly seemed to agree that total prohibition, i.e. no alcohol produced or consumed whatsoever, is not possible. That regardless of what repression you dole out, there will still be bootleggers, moonshiners and people producing privately, even if just for personal use. I agree that total suppression is unlikely, however, I think it's obvious that prohibition in the USSR would play out much differently that the one in the US. Stalin is infamously ruthless, and if that kind of ruthlessness was directed at combating alcoholism and substance abuse in general, it could yield results in the long run.

Here's how I imagine our straight edge Stalin could go about doing this (this is a mix of several ideas I've seen in the other threads and a bit of my own):

1. Massive anti-alcohol (-smoking, -drugs) propaganda campaign - way more extensive than OTL's half-assed attempts, people just getting bombarded with information about the harm and dangers of alcohol and so on - both to themselves and their families, and society as a whole. Particular attention should be given to exposing the younger and more impressionable generations to this propaganda - young enough that they wouldn't have started drinking yet.

2. Make it clear in the propaganda that drinking especially, but use of other substances as well, will be career ending - you can't rise up the Communist Party ladder or you'll get expelled. For pragmatic purposes, Stalin might tolerate some deviation among his inner circle, but they are to keep it private and under control on pain of expulsion (and the implicit threat of repression).

3. Bonuses (financial or otherwise, like better farming equipment and such) should be awarded to farmers for giving surplus grain to bakeries, to incentivize holding on to as little of the excess as possible, meaning there's less for alcohol production.

4. Incrementally severe punishment for people caught consuming, producing or selling alcohol or other substances. The first offense for being drunk (this can range from stumbling about to even just noticeably smelling of alcohol) or high, whether in public or at work, or not showing up to work at all because you were hungover, earns you a trip to the local detox center. Once you're sober, they give you the propaganda spiel and tell you that next time won't be a detox center, but imprisonment in the Gulag. Let's say you get something like 1 year for the second offense, 10 for the third, and life imprisonment or even outright execution for the fourth (that ought to be Stalinist enough, right?). Producing or selling alcohol gets you 25 for the first offense and life/death for the second.

5. The enforcers of these policies should be, as much as reasonably possible, people with their own predisposition against and/or hostility towards alcohol. Maybe recruit enforcers for these campaigns mostly from the Muslim regions?

What are your thoughts on how these policies will play out? Some of you will probably say that this can't be done, that the Soviet Union will collapse if they try, etc., but come on. It's Stalin. He's done far worse than that. Any dissent about this issue will be crushed as brutally as any dissent about anything else. If people are given a 'choice' between keeping their head down and maybe enjoying a drink in secret here and there, and going to a back-breakingly hard labor camp or getting shot, I think all but the most addicted/severely alcoholic will prefer the former.

Discuss!

 

[marktaha]

Didn't theCzar try to ban vodka in WW1?

 

[Twin City Lines]

1. No one knew how harmful tobacco was in the 1920s, so there would be no basis for an anti-smoking campaign. As to drugs, I don't know how much of a problem Russia had with them at the time. I would guess not much. This means any campaign would be mostly against alcohol. Perhaps it would later expand to drugs as people discovered the principle of substitution....

2. Making CPSU membership dependent on sobriety would definitely work.

3. Yes! This would kill two birds with one stone! More bread for the people as well as less surplus grain in the hands of farmers to make illicit hooch. In addition, would collective farming work better if State prices paid for grain were higher?

4. Some people would take the hint and go sober, but others would just drink anyway and end up in the Gulag. Maybe after the third offense (10 years) would be scared straight.

5. This might be one way to gain favor from the Muslim regions.

 

[Insane Ranter]

Didn't theCzar try to ban vodka in WW1?

Yes! Some think it was the major cause of the revolution. Not sure if that was totally the cause though.

 

[Ryker of Terra]

Didn't theCzar try to ban vodka in WW1?

Yes. I mentioned that the Bolsheviks were kind of continuing the Tsarist prohibition.

1. No one knew how harmful tobacco was in the 1920s, so there would be no basis for an anti-smoking campaign. As to drugs, I don't know how much of a problem Russia had with them at the time. I would guess not much. This means any campaign would be mostly against alcohol. Perhaps it would later expand to drugs as people discovered the principle of substitution....

Right, I forgot about that. When did the negative effects of smoking become known though? Hitler was anti-smoking only a decade later, so Stalin might come to have the same personal opposition (which could translate into a state ban, given that he knows what's good for the people better than the people do, you see).

3. Yes! This would kill two birds with one stone! More bread for the people as well as less surplus grain in the hands of farmers to make illicit hooch. In addition, would collective farming work better if State prices paid for grain were higher?

I'm no expert on collectivization and Soviet agriculture, but maaaaybe? From what I know, the problem is that consumer goods were lacking, so even if you have more money, there's not much for you as a farmer to buy, though it is better than nothing, I suppose. Now that I think about it, this could be the problem with that particular incentive method. You would need to have something the farmers want to buy with that extra money more than they want to produce and drink vodka. Could someone better-versed on the intricacies of the Soviet economy chip in?

I agree with the rest of what you said, though.

 

[Seandineen]

If the Vozahd, is openly an anti alcohol it might provide a survival path for Zionoev, Kamerev, or even Leon Trotsky.

 

[Sicarius]

When did the negative effects of smoking become known though?

“Nay let a man euery houre of the day, or as oft as many in this countrey vse to take Tobacco, let a man I say, but take as oft the best sorts of nourishments in meate and drinke that can bee deuised, hee shall with the continuall vse thereof weaken both his head and his stomacke: all his members shall become feeble, his spirits dull, and in the end, as a drowsie lazie belly-god, he shall euanish in a Lethargie.

And from this weaknesse it proceeds, that many in this kingdome haue had such a continuall vse of taking this vnsauerie smoke, as now they are not able to forbeare the same, no more than an olde drunkard can abide to be long sober, without falling into an vncurable weaknesse and euill constitution: for their continuall custome hath made to them, habitum, alteram naturam: so to those that from their birth haue bene continually nourished vpon poison and things venemous, wholesome meates are onely poisonable.”

- A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco, King James I (1604)

 

[Drizzt]

Even something as unlikely as getting Russians not to drink is possible I think.
However I also think the OP has it backwards. Even the USSR didn't have an unlimited capacity to surpress dissent. Trying to ban alcohol would be - to mix metaphors - like putting a 600 pound gorilla on the camels back. Instead slow-boil the frog. Starting with:
- Banning discrimination against abstainers. Make some examples of those who do it anyway, then promote those who were discriminated for abstaining to incentivise telling on those who do.
- Hold shooting exercises the day after soldiers return from leave and give bonuses, perks, etc to winners so that those who don't drink at least on their last day off will almost always win.
- Teach the dangers of heavy alcohol use in school as part of biology classes.

Now there are other things they could do where people get rewarded for abstaining indirectly, which brings us to our biggest impediment to using more carrot in general:
Their industry sucked at making halfway decent consumer goods. If there were cars, TVs, VCRs, early videogame systems, nice clothes, etc etc available to buy then even without subtle nudging, simply there being an alternative to alcohol to spend your disposable income on would reduce drinking. More so if those who abstain make more money.

Assuming that can be done, then a decade or so later you can start introducing limited bans. Like no drinking the day before you work for any job requiring a university degree. Starting by also banning drinking during teaching days at universities. Enforced by random tests and loosing your spot after the 2nd strike or so. Then nudge parents into leading by example. And so on. Don't actually ban drinking until alcohol is viewed as negatively as tobacoo is nowadays in the west.

 

[marktaha]

Yes. I mentioned that the Bolsheviks were kind of continuing the Tsarist prohibition.


Right, I forgot about that. When did the negative effects of smoking become known though? Hitler was anti-smoking only a decade later, so Stalin might come to have the same personal opposition (which could translate into a state ban, given that he knows what's good for the people better than the people do, you see).


I'm no expert on collectivization and Soviet agriculture, but maaaaybe? From what I know, the problem is that consumer goods were lacking, so even if you have more money, there's not much for you as a farmer to buy, though it is better than nothing, I suppose. Now that I think about it, this could be the problem with that particular incentive method. You would need to have something the farmers want to buy with that extra money more than they want to produce and drink vodka. Could someone better-versed on the intricacies of the Soviet economy chip in?

I agree with the rest of what you said, though.

If the Tsar hadn't tried to ban vodka, might he have stayed Tsar?

 

[Ryker of Terra]

If the Tsar hadn't tried to ban vodka, might he have stayed Tsar?

I can't imagine he would. People were too fed up.

 

[Malaparte]

On some occasion I read that the Bolsheviks saw alcoholism as a lesser evil in the face of the plague of morphine and opium addiction that was created during the Great War.

 

[marathag]

1. No one knew how harmful tobacco was in the 1920s, so there would be no basis for an anti-smoking campaign. As

Cigarettes were called 'Coffin Nails' before the Spanish American War

 

[Clandango]

I saw a lot of Soviet anti-alcohol propaganda, some of it religious based. It was interesting to read on how Jews would drink four cups of wine for Seder/Passover. There was suggestions outside the propaganda that it was meant to get people drunk. I do wish I could find something that told the history of when it and the other stuff was introduced, instead of an overview of their symbolism. I sometimes wonder if it is like Hanukkah, where certain customs or dates were made more important due to the importance to neighbors or how appealing they were. Anyways, if their is prohibition we need to find other beverages. Coffee and tea would need to be imported and juice isn’t suitable for the amount of people versus their fruit production. They could try to copy whatever Muslims would drink, but it wouldn’t fit the population. When did the Soviets export Vodka? If they kept doing that like how they sold the highest quality vodka and caviar to foreigners and a few tens of thousands of Soviets who brought in foreign exchange, it might be taken poorly. Maybe we have it that the propaganda has pictures of multiple people smiling while eating breed, potato’s, and raisins, while on the side picture there is some drunken slob draining bottles.

 

[Seandineen]

Beria belives anti Alcohol campagins will solidify loyality to the Soviet Union, in Muslim dominated areas. Maybe a number of carrots, for those who don;t drink.
Cider, an earlier promotion of the soft drink industry, an alliance with Pepsi under Goft, instead of Steele.

 

[Ryker of Terra]

On some occasion I read that the Bolsheviks saw alcoholism as a lesser evil in the face of the plague of morphine and opium addiction that was created during the Great War.

I didn't know that, but that's precisely why I played it safe and mentioned prohibition of drugs in addition to alcohol.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

If the Tsar hadn't tried to ban vodka, might he have stayed Tsar?

If Stalin tries to ban vodka, does he stay General Secretary? or is he replaced by Molotov (from whom comes the term "Molotov Cocktail" for drinking an entire bottle of vodka)

 

[marathag]

If Stalin tries to ban vodka, does he stay General Secretary? or is he replaced by Molotov (from whom comes the term "Molotov Cocktail" for drinking an entire bottle of vodka)

Or from the wiki for the term
--
The name "Molotov cocktail" was coined by the Finns during the Winter War (Finnish: Molotovin cocktail) in 1939.[10][11][12] The name was a pejorative reference to Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, who was one of the architects of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on the eve of World War II.

The name's origin came from the propaganda Molotov produced during the Winter War, mainly his declaration on Soviet state radio that incendiary bombing missions over Finland were actually airborne humanitarian food deliveries for their starving neighbours.[13][10] As a result, the Finns sarcastically dubbed the Soviet incendiary cluster bombs "Molotov bread baskets" (Finnish: Molotovin leipäkoreiksi) in reference to Molotov's propaganda broadcasts.[14][10] When the hand-held bottle firebomb was developed to attack and destroy Soviet tanks, the Finns called it the "Molotov cocktail", as "a drink to go with his food parcels".[15][better source needed]

Despite the now infamous name, the formal Finnish military term for the weapon type was (and still is) actually "burn bottle" (Finnish: polttopullo,[10][3] Fenno-Swedish: brännflaska).[2]

 

[West]

The only way people could tolerate the downsides of communism was with alcohol. Without vodka the regime collapses Sooner

 

[McAuslan_in_the_Rough]

I suppose if Stalin went full straight-edge, he would have had to quit smoking as well. And no coffee. Somehow a teetotaling Stalin seems even more terrifying than the real article. I don't think it's very plausible. Gorbachev tried an anti-alcohol campaign and I believe he made something of a mess of it, as he was wont to do. And have we ever seen an example of a successful prohibition campaign?

There is an amusing Soviet folk poem that conveys the views of the population regarding rising alcohol prices:

Было три, а стало пять — всё равно берём опять!
Даже если будет восемь — всё равно мы пить не бросим!
Передайте Ильичу — нам и десять по плечу,
Ну, а если будет больше — то получится как в Польше!
Ну, а если — двадцать пять — Зимний снова будем брать!

My translation:

Used to be three and now it's five - that won't stop us!
Even if it's eight, we won't quit drinking!
Tell Brezhnev that we can even do ten!
But if it goes higher, it might turn out the way in did in Poland.
And if it gets to twenty-five, we will storm the Winter Palace again.

 

[Seandineen]

What if there is large scale promotion of a "People's drink" alternative? The Nazi's tried that with cider, as opposed to Coke Cola,. The iranians created their own Mecca Cola.