Alcohol and Homicide in Early 20th-century Russia

Abstract

This article extends the existing research on the relationship between alcohol and homicide in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods by examining this relationship in the latter years of the tsarist regime. A cross-sectional study of the 50 provinces of “European” Russia in the years 1909–1911 was undertaken using regional data on homicide, alcohol consumption, population, and structural factors gathered from official state statistical publications. There was a positive and significant association between alcohol consumption and homicide, indicating higher homicide rates in regions with higher alcohol consumption. When this association was examined while controlling for other structural variables, it was still positive and significant. The findings from this study, when taken together with evidence from other studies, suggest that alcohol consumption was an important factor in regional variation in homicide rates in Russia across the course of the 20th century. This was despite the huge social, political and economic changes the country underwent, as well as the changing trends and regional variations in alcohol consumption that were observed at the aggregate level across the period. When trying to explain this association, it is necessary to focus on what did not change across the course of the 20th century and may therefore have been important in this context: the Russian drinking “culture.”