ALCOHOLIC POLICY OF THE SOVIET STATE IN THE 1920S IN THE PEASANTS' ASSESSMENTS

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the complex dynamics of alcohol consumption in Russia in recent decades, the traditionally high attention of society and the authorities to the issues of sobriety and drunkenness of the population of the country. The article is devoted to the analysis of how the policy of the Soviet government in the sphere of production and distribution of alcoholic beverages was refracted in the consciousness of the largest social group of the 1920s - the peasantry. The study provides assessments by the villagers of the peculiarities of state policy in this direction – the fight against moonshine, the establishment of a state monopoly on the sale of alcohol. Methodologically, the study is based on comparative historical and hermeneutic approaches. Among the sources involved are letters from peasants to authorities at various levels and the editorial offices of periodicals ("Peasant Newspaper"), as well as characteristics of the situation in the village from the Soviet state security agencies. The materials are quite subjective. Taken together, the documents make it possible to identify some general trends in the moods of rural inhabitants. For the most part, the peasants were skeptical of both the efforts of the authorities to combat domestic distilling and the establishment of a state wine monopoly. So, the authors of the reviews saw in the new course of drinking policy only the pursuit of fiscal interests by the administration. The article also concludes that there is no direct influence of public opinion on the vector of state alcohol policy, the specific features of which were determined by representatives of the Soviet government in accordance with plans for the implementation of the "Big Leap" in the 1930s, which required stable replenishment of the country's budget with monetary funds, including through the sale of state-owned alcoholic beverages to the population.