The Russian Imperial Government's Addiction to Vodka

I turn again to stamps and paper money and ephemera to look at history. All the images here are in my collection. This time it's about vodka. Russia’s relationship with vodka is, like everything else in Russian history, a complicated one. Vodka was developed probably in the mid-15th century when Russians were first exposed to the idea of distilling. By 1472 it had become so popular that Czar Ivan III imposed a state monopoly on the production and distribution. Homemade vodka became all the rage, and the resulting rotgut caused many deaths, especially among men.

 By the mid 18th century Czarina Catherine the Great allowed landowners to make their own vodka for their serfs, a privilege they enjoyed for a century until 1861 when the serfs were freed and the loose restrictions on vodka production allowed for some enterprising makers to enter the market. The brewing of vodka took a large amount of grain and periodic grain shortages and low scale famines resulted. 

Alexander III (r. 1881-1894) from a 1909 25 ruble note

 

 As the 19th century progressed and disruptions in Russian society became more frequent the effects of vodka were clear, but nothing was done about it. Not only were Russians addicted to vodka, the state was too. Under Czar Nicholas II taxes on vodka contributed one third of all government revenue. That is a staggering amount of money and an even more staggering amount of vodka. Alcoholism was universal among men, especially in the lower classes, and life expectancy was short. Addiction provided short term relief from grinding poverty but in the end it created more problems than it solved. In retrospect it is not surprising that the state didn’t take the bull by the horns and eliminate the problem. The state itself was addicted to the suffering imposed on their own people. This clearly reflects the attitude of the nobility about the lower classes, who were still seen as serfs even though serfdom had been ended. 

A revenue stamp for the vodka tax, 1902

Then came Nicholas II. As a younger man Nicholas was a hard drinker. It was a family habit. His father, Czar Alexander III also drank and smoked heavily and this undoubtedly caused his early death at 49, making Nicholas Czar. Eventually Nicholas got religion and quit drinking, and gave thought to how he might get his people off vodka too. He knew that the abuse of vodka permeated every level of Russian society including the military, and would have been aware of the effect it had on Russia’s recent disastrous war with Japan. In 1914 he decided to ban the sale of vodka. This didn’t eliminate it from Russian society, though. People had always made their own to circumvent the high tax on vodka bought legally. Unfortunately for the Russians who made their own vodka, it was often of inferior quality and even more dangerous to drink than the legal stuff. But they made it any way. No doubt the making of vodka permeated the military as well, dampening Nicholas’ effort to keep the army dry. 

A bond for 1 million rubles from 1915.

Nicholas made a big financial gamble in banning the sale of vodka. One third of the state’s revenue came from the vodka tax, and the government was without that revenue at a time when an expensive war (World War I) made revenue even more vital. The government’s only recourse was to borrow. And borrow. And borrow. 

Occasionally articles will appear online suggesting that the ban on vodka sales doomed the Romanov dynasty. That’s not quite accurate. The Romanovs were doomed long before the war. The decision to ban vodka sales and eliminate that source of revenue hastened the end but it didn’t cause it.