Modernization Potential Capacity of Great Reforms of Alexander Ii: Alcohol Reform of 1863

Abstract

Serfdom and alcohol tax farming emerged in Russia almost simultaneously – at the end of the XVI century. 250 years later again at the same time serfdom and tax farming were abolished. The alcohol reform of 1863 is one of the greatest events of the day. Despite the limitations of the proclaimed goals, this transformation had a significant modernization potential capacity and was systemic. In the course of its implementation not only did change the way of collecting alcohol charges. The entire related reality was radically altered: industrial production, agriculture, trading, system of public administration, social relations. The replacement of tax farming with the excise system, as well as the elimination of serfdom, was the basis and condition for future transformations of 1860s-1870s, which otherwise, like seeds thrown into the unprepared field, would be doomed to miserable stagnation or even death. Evaluation of the transformation effectiveness concerning the alcohol issue was made on the basis of a set of indicators related to modernization. In the economic sphere, the alcohol reform resulted in the development of new technologies based on the use of scientific (rational) knowledge, the enhanced division of labor, the complication of alcohol production organization, increasing incentives for the creation and implementation of technological and organizational innovations, the growth of production indicators; the social sphere witnessed a replacement of direct and direct control by universal regulators of activity, minimizing the dependence of professional growth on personal ties; in the political sphere there was the creation of effective management bodies, the growing number of channels of participation of public institutions in alcohol policy. But in the country itself there remained the traditional form of strong drinks consumption. Moreover, the process of modernization gave rise to a compensatory effect, which was expressed in the increase of people's drunkenness.