Vodka Politics (101 page)

7
. Aleksandr Nemtsov, “Mnogo pit’, vse-taki vredno,”
EKO
, no. 281 (1997): 179–81. I conducted a similar analysis in “A Lesson in Drinking,”
Moscow Times
, March 5, 2011.

8
. Igor’ Lanovenko, Aleksandr Svetlov, and Vasilii Skibitskii,
P’yanstvo i prestupnost’: Istoriya, problemy
(Kiev: Naukova dumka, 1989), 6–7; White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 44.

9
. “80 millionov alkogolikov k 2000 godu?”
Russkaya mysl
’, Dec. 27, 1984. See also
chapter 16
; Vladimir V. Dunaevskii and Vladimir D. Styazhkin,
Narkomanii i toksikomanii
(Leningrad: Meditsina, 1988), 24; White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 40–45.

10
. Barimbek S. Beisenov,
Alkogolizm: Ugolovno-pravovye i kriminologicheskie problemy
(Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 1981), 36; quoted, along with statistics, in White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 45–48.

11
. White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 50–52; Boris Segal,
The Drunken Society: Alcohol Use and Abuse in the Soviet Union
(New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990), 368–69.

12
. This is broadly resonant with Leon Aron’s argument about the collapse of the Soviet Union as resulting from attempts to reform its “moral decay.” Leon Aron, “Everything You Think You Know about the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong,”
Foreign Policy
, July/August 2011, 66.

13
. Aleksandr Nemtsov,
Alkogol’naya istoriya Rossii: Noveishii period
(Moscow: URSS, 2009), 80–81; White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 102.

14
. Nemtsov, “Mnogo pit’, vse-taki vredno,” 179; Thomas H. Naylor,
The Gorbachev Strategy
(Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1988), 194.

15
. Alain Blum, “Mortality Patterns in the USSR and Causes of Death: Political Unity and Regional Differentials,” in
Social Change and Social Issues in the Former USSR
, ed. Walter Joyce (New York: St. Martin’s, 1992), 92; Vladimir Treml, “Drinking and Alcohol Abuse in the U.S.S.R. in the 1980s,” in
Soviet Social Problems
, ed. Anthony Jones (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), 124; White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 103–4.

16
. Aleksandr Nemtsov, “Tendentsii potrebleniya alkogolya i obuslovlennye alkogolem poteri zdorov’ya i zhizni v Rossii v 1946–1996 gg.,” in
Alkogol‘ i zdorov’e naseleniya Rossii: 1900–2000
, ed. Andrei K. Demin (Moscow: Rossiiskaya assotsiatsiya obshchestvennogo zdorov’ya, 1998), 102, and “Smertnost’ naseleniya i potreblemiye alkogolya v Rossii,”
Zdravookhranenie Rossiiskoi Federatsii
(1997): 33. Others estimate a 24 percent decline in the crude death rate or about 1.61 million fewer deaths in the late 1980s. Jay Bhattacharya, Christina Gathmann, and Grant Miller,
The Gorbachev Anti-Alcohol Campaign and Russia’s Mortality Crisis
, NBER Working Paper No. 18589 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012), 23.

17
. Mikhail Gorbachev,
Memoirs
(New York: Doubleday, 1995), 222.

18
. Viktor Erofeev,
Russkii apokalipsis: Opyt khudozhestvennoi eskhatologii
(Moscow: Zebra E, 2008), 14. See also “Hammer and Tickle” (video); Joy Neumeyer, “Exhibits Grapple with Gorbachev, Yeltsin’s Legacies,”
Moscow Times
, Jan. 28, 2011.

19
. Leonid Ionin, “Chetyre bedy Rossii,”
Novoe vremya
No. 23 (1995): 16–17; translated in Leon Aron,
Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life
(New York: St. Martin’s, 2000), 180–81.

20
. Angus Roxburgh,
The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin
(New York: Pharos Books, 1992), 28; “Veni, Vidi, Vodka,”
Economist
, Dec. 23, 1989, 52; Fred Coleman,
The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1996), 234.

21
. Many articles to this effect followed major holidays. See E. Sorokin, “8 marta bez shampanskogo?”
Pravda
, March 5, 1990, 2; Yu. Petrov, “Bezalkogolnyi pososhok,”
Trud
, Nov. 8, 1990, 2. On queues see White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 140.

22
. Celestine Bohlen, “Drunkenness Crackdown Gets Off to Early Start,”
Washington Post
, June 1, 1985, A17.

23
. Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 221–22; Aron,
Yeltsin
, 180.

24
. Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 221. I explore this more fully in
The Political Power of Bad Ideas: Networks, Institutions, and the Global Prohibition Wave
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 135–43. See also White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 100–104, and more generally Karl W. Ryavec,
Russian Bureaucracy: Power and Pathology
(New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).

25
. White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 107.

26
. Vitalii Vorotnikov interview transcript, May 26, 1990; in ibid. See also Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 221.

27
. Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 221–22.

28
. Yegor Ligachev,
Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin
(New York: Pantheon, 1993), 337.

29
. Dale Pesmen,
Russia and Soul: An Exploration
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 182.

30
. See Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 221; Ligachev,
Inside Gorbachev’s Kremlin
, 336–38.

31
. Vladislav M.
Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 268.

32
. Mikhail Korchemkin, “Russia’s Oil and Gas Exports to the Former Soviet Union,” in
Economic Transition in Russia and the New States of Eurasia
, ed. Bartłomiej Kamiński (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 123; Anders Åslund,
How Capitalism Was Built: The Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 20; Paul Klebnikov,
Godfather of the Kremlin
(New York: Harcourt, 2000), 48–50.

33
. Treml, “Drinking and Alcohol Abuse in the U.S.S.R. in the 1980s,” 131; Gus Ofer, “Budget Deficit and Market Disequilibrium,” in
Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka
, vol. 1:
The Economy
, ed. Ed A. Hewett and Victor H. Winston (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), 292; Stephen White,
Gorbachev and After
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 132.

34
. Ed A. Hewett, “Perestroyka and the Congress of People’s Deputies,” in
Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka
, vol. 1:
The Economy
, ed. Ed A. Hewett and Victor H. Winston (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), 318.

35
. Daniel Tarschys, “The Success of a Failure: Gorbachev’s Alcohol Policy, 1985–88,”
Europe-Asia Studies
45, no. 1 (1993): 10. On budget estimates see Treml, “Drinking and Alcohol Abuse in the U.S.S.R. in the 1980s,” 131; Ofer, “Budget Deficit and Market Disequilibrium,” 280, 86, 306; Basile Kerblay,
Gorbachev’s Russia
(New York: Pantheon, 1989), 107.

36
. Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 221.

37
.
Krokodil
No. 15 (1988); reproduced in White,
Russia Goes Dry
, 123; Nikolai Ryzhkov,
Perestroika: Istoriya predatel’stv
(Moscow: Novosti, 1992), 95. On the upsurge in homebrew see Marshall I. Goldman,
What Went Wrong with Perestroika?
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 138; James H. Noren, “The Economic Crisis: Another Perspective,” in
Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka, vol. 1: The Economy
, ed. Ed A. Hewett and Victor H. Winston (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), 379; Gertrude E. Schroeder, “‘Crisis’ in the Consumer Sector: A Comment,” in
Milestones in Glasnost and Perestroyka
, vol. 1:
The Economy
, ed. Ed A. Hewett and Victor H. Winston (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1991), 410.

38
. Cited in Vladimir Treml, “Alcohol in the Soviet Underground Economy,”
Berkeley–Duke Occasional Papers on the Second Economy in the USSR
No. 5 (1985): 12.

39
. Abel Aganbegyan, “Economic Reforms,” in
Perestroika 1989
, ed. Abel Aganbegyan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), 102. Similarly see Lev Ovrutsky, “Impasses of Sobering Up,” in
Gorbachev & Glasnost’: Viewpoints from the Soviet Press
, ed. Isaac J. Tarasulo (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1989), 201.

40
. Quoted in Arnold Beichman and Mikhail S. Bernstam,
Andropov: New Challenge to the West
(New York: Stein & Day, 1983), 3.

41
. Igor’ Urakov,
Alkogol’: Lichnost‘ i zdorov’e
(Moscow: Medistina, 1986), 7; Igor’ Bestuzhev-Lada, “Piteinye traditsii i ‘alkgol’nye tsivilizatsii’,” in
Bezdna: P’yanstvo, narkomaniya, SPID
, ed. Sergei Artyukhov (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1988), 25; “Veni, Vidi, Vodka,” 52; Dunaevskii and Styazhkin,
Narkomanii i toksikomanii
, 99–103.

42
. John Barron,
Mig Pilot
(New York: McGraw Hill, 1980), 97; Nomi Morris, “War on Soviet Alcoholism,”
MacLean’s
, Jan. 19, 1987, 48; Erofeev,
Russkii apokalipsis
, 13–14. On drug use see A. Mostovoi, “Kogda zatsvetaet mak…”
Komsomol’skaya pravda
, June 8, 1986, 2; E. Borodina, “Vovremya ostanovit’sya,”
Moskovskaya pravda
, June 12, 1986. See also John M. Kramer, “Drug Abuse in the USSR,” in
Social Change and Social Issues in the Former USSR
, ed. Walter Joyce (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 61.

43
. Erofeev,
Russkii apokalipsis
, 14. See also Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 222.

44
. Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del SSSR,
Prestupnost’ i pravonarusheniya 1990: Statisticheskii sbornik
(Moscow: Finansy i statistika, 1991), 15. See also Vladimir Volkov, “Mnogolikoe chudovishche,” in
Bezdna: P’yanstvo, narkomaniya, SPID
, ed. Sergei Artyukhov (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1988), 62.

45
. Nikolai Shmelev, “Novye trevogi,”
Novyi mir
4 (1988), 162–163; translated in Tarschys, “Success of a Failure,” 21; On Aganbegyan’s estimate see Aganbegyan, “Economic Reforms,” 102. See also György Dalos,
Lebt wohl, Genossen! Der Untergang des sowjetischen Imperiums
(Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2011), 58–59.

46
. Ruslan Khasbulatov,
The Struggle for Russia: Power and Change in the Democratic Revolution
(London: Routledge, 1993), 116.

47
. Segal,
Drunken Society
, xxi.

48
. Erofeev,
Russkii apokalipsis
, 15; Jane I. Dawson,
Eco-Nationalism: Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996), 3–8; Zaslavsky, “Soviet Union,” 84–91; Aleksandr Nikishin,
Vodka i Gorbachev
(Moscow Vsya Rossiya, 2007), 213–14.

49
. Cited in Thomas de Waal,
Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War
(New York: NYU Press, 2004), 17.

50
. Erofeev,
Russkii Apokalipsis
, 13; Aleksandr Konobov, “Vnosyatsya korrektivy,”
Trud
, Oct. 6, 1988, 2. Jeffrey Lamont, “Perestroika, Monopoly, Monoposony, and the Marketing of Moldovan Wine,”
International Journal of Wine Making
5, nos. 2–3 (1993): 49. See also V. Vasilets, “Tsekh menyaet profil’,”
Pravda
, Aug. 1, 1985, 3; Aron,
Yeltsin
, 179; Pavel Palazchenko,
My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 29.

51
. Richard E. Ericson, “Soviet Economic Structure and the National Question,” in
The Post-Soviet Nations: Perspectives on the Demise of the USSR
, ed. Alexander J. Motyl (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 260.

52
. Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, 221–22. Likewise see Yevgeny Yevtushenko,
Fatal Half-Measures: The Culture of Democracy in the Soviet Union
, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Little, Brown, 1991), 131–34.

53
. Paul Kengor, “Predicting the Soviet Collapse,”
National Review Online
, July 14, 2011,
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/271828
(accessed Aug. 17, 2011).

54
. The original memo, “Why Is the World So Dangerous?,” from Herbert E. Meyer to the director of central intelligence, Nov. 30, 1983, can be found at
http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000028820/DOC_0000028820.pdf
(accessed Aug. 30, 2011).