Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State

In this extensive but accessible account, political scientist Schrad (The Political Power of Bad Ideas) argues that throughout history the Russian (and Soviet) autocracy has been intrinsically—and often tragically—linked to vodka. Since the 16th century, when Russia’s grand princes and tsars monopolized this highly profitable trade, vodka became “the keystone of Russian state finance,” as well as a powerful tool for controlling not only the country’s peasants and workers, but members of political inner circles. Both Ivan the Terrible and Josef Stalin forced underlings to constant drunkenness to keep them off balance and ferret out potential plots or dissent. The Russian autocracy’s reliance on vodka was so ingrained that attempts at prohibition and increased regulation generally backfired: the last imperial tsar, Nicholas II, lost popularity and bankrupted his country when he attempted to ban the sale of alcohol during WWI, which eventually helped catalyze the Russian Revolution. In the post-Soviet era, the Russian Federation’s own reliance on vodka has overseen a demographic disaster, in which rampant alcoholism has sunk Russian life expectancy to the lowest in Europe. As Schrad puts it, “the single greatest obstacle to a normal, healthy, and wealthy Russia” is the predominance of “the state’s own vodka politics.” B&w illus. (Feb.)