The Anti-Alcohol Campaign in the USSR in the Perestroika Years: The Historiography of the Problem

The problem of alcohol consumption has been relevant for a large part of the population of Russia for many centuries. In the history of the Russian state, one can find some examples when the government policy was aimed at combating alcoholism. This article discusses research in which the authors analyse the anti-alcohol campaign of 1985 as a complex phenomenon that to varying degrees had an impact on all spheres of life of the Soviet society. The author of the article analyses articles and monographs that consider the anti-alcohol campaign of 1985 both on the materials of individual regions and the country as a whole. In the course of the study, the works of Soviet authors were studied, which proved that there were no social roots for drunkenness and alcoholism in the USSR, debunked myths about the historical "Russian drunkenness", and propagated a sober way of life. The research focuses on both scientific and popular scientific works published in recent decades on the history of the "drinking business" in Russia, which discuss the history of alcoholic drinks, the culture of wine drinking, the state policy in the wine industry and many other aspects of this problem. The 1985 anti-alcohol campaign in these studies is analysed in the mainstream of Soviet anti-alcohol public policy as the nation's most determined attack against this social ailment. The authors list the measures taken, analyse mainly the economic and social consequences of the campaign. Particular attention is paid to A.V. Nemtsov's monograph The Alcohol History of Russia: The Newest Period, which is one of the first attempts in the domestic historiography of systematization and comprehension of the history of anti-alcohol campaigns in Russia from the second half of the twentieth century to the early 2000s. The study stages the events and phenomena associated with the consumption of alcohol in Russia against the background of political and social processes in the country. Nemtsov pays special attention to the prehistory, history and consequences of the 1985 anti-alcohol campaign as the most significant attempt on the part of the state to resolve this painful issue. In this study, the author analyses several dozens of articles on the problems of anti-alcohol legislation, alcohol policy of the state, on the positive and negative consequences of the campaign of the mid-1980s both in the centre and in the regions. The author uses system-structural and historical-comparative methods along with general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, etc. in the study. As a result, the author came to the following conclusions. Firstly, a comprehensive analysis of scientific literature indicates that, in general, the 1985 anti-alcohol campaign remains poorly understood. Secondly, in the author's opinion, the integral concept of the influence of alcohol policy on all spheres of people's life in the period under review has not yet been developed.

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