Foreword: The professed affection of President Trump for the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, brought to mind the attraction of American prohibitionists to the autocratic Czar of Russia. Despite being more than a century old, the story deserves to be told.
In 1914 members of the American Prohibition Movement fell in love with the Russian Czar, He was Nicholas II, shown here in his prime. With the outbreak of World War One, Nicholas was convinced by his ministers to prohibit all forms of alcohol because of their assumed detrimental impact on the readiness of Russia’s military forces. Drinking vodka and other spirits was a daily habit with many Russians, including members of the armed forces. A considerable number regularly imbibed to excess.
The ease with which the Czar could cut off the alcohol spigot was made possible by the fact that since 1894 the Russian government had controlled all production of vodka and other spirits, reaping huge revenues in the process. American Prohibitionists took admiring notice of the Czar’s action and cheered as liquor was spilled on Moscow streets.
Under a 1914 headline entitled, “A Despot Needed,” one American commentator rhapsodized that: “Enlightened Russia knows the way, great Russia, with her tyrant czar; he twists his wrists and in a day the lid is placed on every bar....I wish we had a despot here, just to end ‘Old Booze.” The Washington DC Evening Star editorialized that a “miracle” had occurred in Russia, noting cheerfully that the miracle had been made possible by Russia’s autocratic form of government.
As two cartoons published by the U.S. Dry lobby suggested, the Czar had become someone to be looked up to and emulated. In the first a Cossack has arrested a vodka bottle and is marching it off to detention. In the second “King Alcohol,” personified as a wicker covered bottle, salutes a Russian official while four apparently Americans look on approvingly.
Seen in the light of history, however, the Czar’s decision was a disaster. Fully one-third of Russia’s revenues came from the sale of vodka, even then an annual billion dollar business. Without the funds from alcohol sales, the government entered World War One with substantially less money than it needed.
Moreover, prohibition made large segments of the Russian population angry. The rich still were able to buy vodka and other drinks at their clubs and in fancy restaurants. Only the lower classes were forced to give up drinking.
The country’s poor showing in the war and the growing unpopularity of Czar Nicholas gave rise to the Russian Revolution of 1918 in which the Communists came to power. The Czar and his family were executed. The new rulers led by Lenin, shown here, initially were opposed to drinking but Russians gradually had ceased to worry about the ban on vodka. Just as Prohibition in the U.S. (1920-1934) gave rise to bootleggers, in Russia, potatoes were everywhere and so were illegal stills. By Soviet official count they tripled in numbers in the period from 1922 to 1924.
Gradually the Communist government ban on alcohol eased. Wine was legalized in 1921, beer in 1922, other alcohol in 1923, and, finally, in 1924 vodka sales again were permitted. Russians, as shown below, now could drink freely once again. And do it legally.
By that time the United States, yielding to the “dry” fervor sweeping the country in 1920 had enacted its own National Prohibition. America’s outlawing of spirits would be imposed until 1934, a span of some fourteen years. The Russian ban on alcoholic drink lasted only about ten.
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