Now we are unraveling the consequences of the alcoholism that began with the reign of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Stop drinking!
Prohibition was introduced a hundred years ago. In our time, proposals are also increasingly heard to sharply limit the sale of alcoholic beverages and to introduce a set of measures comparable to those that were taken at the beginning of the 20th century. However, there are also many people who believe that the "dry law" has brought harm to our country and it is absolutely impossible to repeat the past experience.
Vladimir Zhdanov, chairman of the Union for the Struggle for Popular Sobriety, responded to criticism from skeptics in an exclusive interview with KM. RU.
The king banned the alcohol trade during the period of mobilization
- The introduction of "dry law" in 1914 did not happen out of nowhere. The public and the Russian Orthodox Church fought very actively for the sobering of the country. By the way, the peasant community hardly drank alcohol, and the per capita consumption of alcohol was less than 5 liters per year. Sociological studies of that time showed that on the eve of the introduction of "Prohibition" in Russia, 47 percent of men and more than 90 percent of women did not drink alcohol. Among young people under the age of 18, 95 percent were teetotalers. In such a country, it was easy to introduce "dry law".
The tsar banned the alcohol trade during the period of mobilization, and when it ended, thousands of people asked to extend the dry law. In 1916, the State Duma considered the bill of peasant deputies "On the approval of sobriety in the Russian state for eternity." That was the wording! Prohibition made it possible during the war to restore order in the country, the village retained economic stability, the crime rate decreased and, in general, social indicators turned out to be much better than before the introduction of the “prohibition law”.
By the way, when the Bolsheviks came to power, one of their first orders extended the "dry law". Only a year and a half after Lenin's death, the "dry law" was canceled. However, alcohol consumption has been low for a very long time. Only in 1964 did the Soviet Union return to the level it had before the introduction of "Prohibition": 4.7 liters of alcohol per capita per year. However, there are still myths about "dry law".
After Stalin's death, the drunkard Khrushchev came to power, then the alcoholic Brezhnev
For example, the first myth claims that after the introduction of "Prohibition" mortality will increase sharply due to the consumption of surrogates. In the 1930s, two researchers of the "dry law" Gurevich and Zalevsky wrote a whole book in which they said that in 1914 the death rate from surrogates in Petrograd increased eightfold. Like, after that, only an idiot can propose the introduction of "dry law".
They gave links to relevant research, and now we have found this job. It turned out that Gurevich and Zalessky were writing the truth. Yes, in 1913 in Petrograd 392 people died from vodka, and one died from surrogates. There was no sense in drinking substitutes, because vodka was sold at every step. But when the "dry law" was introduced, 0 people died from vodka, and 8 from surrogates. Indeed, mortality from surrogates increased eightfold, but 8 must be compared with 392.
Their second myth is that under the “dry law” the country was flooded with moonshine. They refer to the materials of the internal affairs bodies, which say that in 1923 244 thousand moonshine stills were confiscated. We raised these materials and found out that this is also true. In the Volga region in 1923, there was another crop failure, and so that not a single gram of food went into moonshine, the government decided to send a fine for the seized moonshine still to the pocket of the police officer who would make the seizure.
The fine was large: 500 rubles, that is, the price of a cow. All 244 thousand devices were confiscated in a week. And then there were no seizures, that is, they confiscated everything that was. Let's now estimate - is it a lot or a little - 244 thousand moonshine stills. The population of the country in those years was 150 million people, that is, not even every village had its own moonshiner. This is only a seemingly large figure (244 thousand), but in reality it is nothing.
The sober country won the Great Patriotic War, the sober country restored the national economy, the sober country launched Gagarin into space. After Stalin's death, the drunkard Khrushchev came to power, then the alcoholic Brezhnev, and then three more times the alcoholic Yeltsin, so the country flew into an alcoholic abyss.
As they say, the fish rots from the head. And now we are unraveling the consequences of the alcoholism that began with the reign of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev.
Author Vladimir Zhdanov
