FREE ESSAY ON MIKHAIL GORBACHEV'S

MIKHAIL GORBACHEV'S

One of the most dramatic and revolutionary changes in Russian history is the restriction
of the consumption of alcohol. Mikhail Gorbachev instituted his anti-alcohol campaign on
May 16, 1985 in order to decrease alcohol consumption by Soviet citizens and instead
teach them the rewards of moderation. Some such rewards were a better life at home with
their families, more advancement in their jobs, and better overall health. Although
Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign was effective in generating some positive changes, it
eventually failed, causing resentment toward the leadership, worsening health issues,
creating illegal alcohol production markets, and increasing the budget deficit. 
When Gorbachev was fifteen, he went out one day with his father and his harvesting team.
The mechanics decided that it would be funny to play a joke on the young boy. They gave
him a drink of pure alcohol, and told him that it was vodka. He drank it, and it utterly
disgusted him. This was an important lesson to him. It made him not like alcohol,
therefore making him want others to stay away from it. This could have saved his nation.
Gorbachev noted, After that experience I have never felt any pleasure in drinking vodka
or spirits (Gorbachev 37). That is important because if he had liked alcohol, there most
likely never would have been any anti-alcohol campaign. Temperance was the rule in the
Gorbachev household on holidays, the men might take one shot glass of vodka or cognac in
celebration, no more (Smith 38). The Gorbachev family is an example of how alcohol should
have been used in Russia. They drank in moderation, as opposed to others who drank simply
to get drunk and were unable to control themselves while drinking. Gorbachev wanted
others to be able to drink as they did, and he tried to set a good example in order to
get his point across. However, his plans didn't work out as he had suspected. Gorbachev
saw alcoholism as an offense to the Soviet ideal and a symptom of weak personal morals
rather than a failing of the Soviet order (Galeotti 58). He thought that people should be
able to control themselves while drinking, and if they didn't it was their own fault. It
is not unusual that he would initiate, as one of his first priorities after taking power
in March 1985, an anti-alcohol campaign.
Alcohol had always been a large part in a Russian's life. The Russians have always drunk
vodka, former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev once said. They can't get by without it (Sudo
14). Drunkenness had been a plague in Russia since the Middle Ages; that is no secret.
However, for years the communist leadership refused to acknowledge the fact that alcohol
abuse posed any problems. Periodically, in pre-revolutionary times and even during the
first years of Soviet power, the authorities initiated missions against alcoholism, none
of which resulted in success.
By the time Gorbachev got to power, the drinking problem was very much out of hand in
Russia. Until Gorbachev clamped down on the consumption of alcohol in June 1985, the
Soviets were literally drinking themselves to death (Naylor 194). Alcohol was putting a
profound strain on society. Consumption had skyrocketed during the Brezhnev era. This is
especially significant considering it was already considerably high at the beginning of
his era. In 1984, state revenues from the sale of alcoholic beverages reached fifty-three
billion rubles, four times what it had been twenty years before. The alcohol issue became
disastrous. Nearly one hundred and sixty-three million out of a population of two hundred
and eighty million drink regularly; as many as twenty million are alcoholics (Sudo 14).
With that many people in a society having problems with alcohol, obviously something had
to be done. The annual loss to the economy from drunkenness was an estimated eighty to
one hundred billion rubles. Alcoholism was the third most common ailment, after heart
disease and cancer. The life expectancy of men was declining. Infant mortality rates were
rising. Health of present and future generations was being corrupted. It was also
responsible for most marriage breakups (Morris 48). Wives had become desperate trying to
save their marriages, with their husbands practically drinking themselves to death.
Crime, corruption, and cynicism were all increasing. Drunk drivers were responsible for
fourteen thousand traffic deaths per year. Alcoholism was probably the largest single
cause of a stunning increase in the Soviet Union's crude death rate (Kaiser 101). In
1964, there were about seven deaths per one thousand citizens. This statistic grew to
almost eleven deaths per one thousand citizens in 1985. 
There are many causes for this widespread drunkenness. One reason is the poor living
conditions. Another is the hardship of every day Russian life. Economic conditions were
very difficult. A third reason is the cultural backwardness. A fourth cause is the
oppressive social atmosphere which pushed weak natures to use alcohol to drown their
feelings of inferiority and their fear of harsh reality (Gorbachev 220). The people were
so vulnerable to alcohol; they needed it to feel superior and to step away from the
truths of life. They looked for another outlet, alcohol. A last reason is the leaders'
example. It is very common to find alcohol at their banquets and receptions.
In the early 1980s, there was a strong public pressure on Party and governmental
agencies. They were receiving a flood of letters, mainly from wives and mothers. In these
letters, there were frightening examples of family tragedies, industrial accidents, and
crime due to drunkenness. 
It was impossible to read these women's bitter outpourings without shuddering. The saying
that the wives and children have shed as many tears as men have drunk vodka is apt indeed
(Ligachev 336). The women were begging for something to be done about this horrific
alcohol problem. They were becoming desperate to save the lives of those whom they loved.
They now left the problem in the government's hands. 
A decision was made to begin a campaign against the evil alcohol problem. A list of
decrees was written and brought to the Politburo: 
However, when the draft of the decrees was submitted to the Politburo for discussion, its
members, driven by a noble desire to wipe out evil without further delay and rendered
even more zealous by their own fiery oratory, decided that the proposed measures were
inadequate and that more needed to be done (Boldin 101).
It is a possibility that if the Politburo hadn't been so enthusiastic and passionate,
they wouldn't have failed. I think that they should have started off with small changes.
So many drastic reforms in such a short amount of time frightened the people, and they
had nothing other to do than to turn to the bottle. They needed time to get used to the
idea of living without alcohol, and the government didn't take this into account. I think
that they were being impractical in these reforms, and they should have taken smaller
steps in order to accomplish their task at hand. 
Officials of Gosplan, the Ministry of Trade, the processing industry, and farmers
defended the cause of alcohol as best they could, arguing that the proposed measures
would cost the state budget billions of rubles, ruin the grape growers, and close down
much of the capacity of the wine-making i