Vodka Politics (6 page)

Returning to his
Seeing Like a State
, Scott tries to understand why well-intended schemes to improve the human condition tend to go horribly awry. While he points the blame at statecraft and high-modernist ideology, that is only half of the equation: such human tragedies also require a determined authoritarian state and an incapacitated civil society, both of which are consistent hallmarks of Russia’s storied history.
¹⁹
From Niccolò Machiavelli to Michel
Foucault, political philosophers have enumerated the instruments states have at their disposal to influence society.
²⁰
And while democratic systems are considered more legitimate and hence less reliant on coercion to prevent rebellion, autocrats must utilize other mechanisms to keep society prostrate, off-balance, and unable to mount a challenge to power. I suggest that, in Russia, the process of autocratic state building atop a traditional spirit-drinking culture (as opposed to such lighter drinks as wine or beer) has created the particular dynamics—and tragedies—associated with vodka politics.

Although constantly overlooked or dismissed by scholars, vodka is undoubtedly key to understanding the political history of Russia from its origins in early Muscovy right through the present day. Accordingly, this book chronicles the long and often contentious relationship between the Russian people and their government over the bottle and the common good. Virtually every Russian leader has confronted the opportunities and challenges of vodka, and virtually ever major event of historical importance has been tinged with alcohol in some way. Having already peered into Stalin’s inner circle, we’ll continue to look at liquor’s position in high politics, from the tsarist courts of Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Nicholas II straight through to Boris Yeltsin in the post-Soviet period (
chapters 3
,
4
,
12
,
17
, and
19
). But this book is more than just a political biography of the bottle—we’ll explore the highly charged mystery of vodka’s origins, why it came to occupy such a central place in Russian politics and society, and how vodka is inexorably tied to that other ubiquitous Russian malady, corruption (
chapters 6
,
8
, and
15
). To the degree that vodka became an instrument of state domination, I’ll suggest how the liquor issue became a rallying point of organized resistance: from temperate peasants, revolutionaries, and Russia’s celebrated writers of the nineteenth century through the Soviet dissident movement a century later (
chapters 9
,
10
,
14
,
16
, and
17
). I’ll show how alcohol contributed to defeat in Russia’s most infamous wars and may well have even started one (
chapter 11
). I’ll examine vodka’s catalyzing role in Russia’s long history of coups d’état, from Catherine II’s overthrow of her husband Peter III in 1762 through the failed hardline putsch that sought to ouster Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 (
chapters 5
and
19
). I’ll argue that vodka politics—namely, the misguided attempt to institute drastic “dry laws”—hastened the demise of both the mighty Russian empire and its Soviet successor (
chapters 13
,
17
, and
18
). Bringing the book into the present day, I’ll untangle the legacy of Russia’s autocratic vodka politics, which, when combined with the economic crisis of the post-communist transition of the 1990s, produced a wholesale demodernization of Russia and demographic catastrophe categorically unlike anything seen before in world history. After considering the enormous challenges that depopulation and alcoholization present for the Kremlin, I will consider how presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have tried to confront the “liquor
question,” and what—if anything—can and should be done, both now and in the future (
chapters 20
–
24
). It is my hope that this investigation will convince readers of the importance of vodka to understanding not only Russian culture but its history and politics as well.

Both in Russia and abroad, the heroic/tragic weakness for vodka is widely thought to be the defining cultural characteristic of Russians—a natural ethnic trait going down almost to a genetic level. But quaffing potent vodka is just about as natural as downing its distilled cousins kerosene or rubbing alcohol. Since ancient times, the Slavs of the forest, taiga, and steppe drank fermented ales, meads, and
kvas
. The far more potent distilled vodka arrived much later, as the yoke of the modern autocratic state. The one consistency that has united Russia’s autocrats of the past five centuries—be they political reactionaries, radicals, or anything in-between—has been vodka politics. Vodka provided the financial foundation for the glorious expansion of the Russian empire and the might of its Soviet successor while also keeping political opponents and the Russian masses befuddled, divided, and docile. And when these political systems collapsed, vodka was there to make things worse—unimaginably worse.

Understanding the enduring link between autocracy and alcohol is crucial to confronting the legacies of both. Russia’s storied addiction to vodka is not simply a social or cultural disorder; it is also a symptom of a deeper sickness—autocracy. It follows, then, that even in the post-Soviet period the repeated and unquestionably well-intentioned government efforts to wean Russians from the bottle will never fully succeed until the underlying illness—the autocratic system itself—is cured.

Vodka Domination, Vodka Resistance

Vodka politics is a pervasive feature of Russian autocracy—one that firmly embeds the state into culture, society, and private life. In normal settings alcohol is a respite: a temporary escape from the harshness of reality. Yet as a central pillar in Russian statecraft, apathy and disengagement further consolidate the power of autocracy. But if one cannot hide from state domination even in the bottle, what can can one do? One path would be to follow Lenin and the early Bolsheviks, who understood vodka as the means of domination of the capitalist class and abstained from all alcohol consumption in order to maintain their clarity of vision and purpose. The more brazen option is to speak truth to power by directly unmasking the dynamics of vodka politics for all to see.

Here again, the most telling examples come from the Stalinist era of totalitarian domination. While the cold wind howled beyond the Kremlin walls during Russia’s long winter months, the Politburo’s drunken party often retreated to the
film room to screen the latest movies in Stalin’s ever-growing personal collection of Russian and foreign movies—either imported for gold or captured as the spoils of war—usually until the dawn of the next day.
²¹
Boasting such cinematographic pioneers as Vsevolod Pudovkin, Grigory Aleksandrov, and Sergei Eisenstein, early Soviet films rivaled their Hollywood counterparts, and Stalin eagerly watched them all.
²²
Stalin was the Soviet Union’s top film critic and (with his inebriated entourage) the official censor for the entire domestic film industry. In Russia, acting and directing careers—and lives—were made or broken during Stalin’s late-night screening room.

Unquestionably, Russia’s greatest contribution to cinema was the master director Sergei Eisenstein. Even in today’s Hollywood his litany of classic films, including
The Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky
, and
October
has solidified Eisenstein’s place as one of the most influential directors in cinematic history.
²³
His pioneering work with camera angles, montage, and film editing have inspired generations of filmmakers worldwide; while even Eisenstein’s eccentric hairdo was emulated by David Lynch for the lead character in
Eraserhead
.
²⁴

In the darkest days of Russia’s mortal struggle with Hitler, the world-renowned filmmaker unveiled his masterpiece
Ivan the Terrible
, which was commissioned by Stalin himself.
²⁵
The historical epic chronicled the rise of the sixteenth-century tsar Ivan IV, who vowed to unite, strengthen, and defend Russia against its enemies, both from without and within. On screen, Ivan Grozny (“the Terrible”) is a ruthless leader who wins the support of his Russian subjects by felling the khanate of Kazan and subduing the Polish and Livonian invaders from the west, in an obvious parallel to the Nazis. The movie was jingoistic propaganda: calling for a strong leader, national sacrifice, and defense of the motherland amid the horrors of World War II. Since the safest form of political discourse in any autocracy is to flatter the rulers,
²⁶
Eisenstein did just that, allowing his commentary on the tragedy of autocracy to become perverted into an apology for it. Stalin loved the film, admitting that he saw much of himself in Ivan. Bold and decisive, a “great and wise ruler” with “strong will and character,” Ivan the Terrible was presented as Stalin’s quintessential Russian leader. It ate Eisenstein up inside that his artistic vision had been hijacked to serve the interests of the state. Essentially appointed Stalin’s cinematic interpreter, the recalcitrant Eisenstein even won the Stalin Prize, first class, the country’s highest award for cultural achievement—the Soviet version of the Oscar. At the awards ceremony, Eisenstein collapsed from a mild heart attack, which only strengthened his premonitions that he would die an early death at the age of fifty.
²⁷

Even before confronting his own mortality, the headstrong Eisenstein had long grappled with resisting the state’s all-encompassing domination. At the height of Stalin’s totalitarian terror, outright criticism would be professional suicide, yet he could not betray his principles. In 1943 Eisenstein decided to
work himself to death, thereby choosing the only form of suicide that would preserve his creative vision.
²⁸
While
Ivan the Terrible
portrayed the triumph of tyranny, the already planned sequel would embody its tragedy. Eisenstein was fearless and passionate in using his cinematic vision to speak truth to power, and he would do so by unmasking Stalin’s brand of vodka politics.

By the end of World War II Eisenstein had completed his sequel,
Ivan the Terrible Part II: The Boyars’ Plot
, in which a group of gentry boyars—the tsar’s high-ranking inner circle of
oprichniki
—scheme to dethrone the tsar. The paranoid Ivan Grozny uncovers this plot by holding a drunken banquet where the intoxicated Vladimir Staritsky—Ivan’s cousin and primary contender to the throne—informs the ruthless tsar of the boyars’ plot to kill him, in the process sealing his own fate as well as that of the conspirators.

Serving as artistic leader of the most acclaimed Russian film studio, Mosfilm, fellow director Mikhail Romm was honored to be part of the group who viewed a sneak preview of the film as it neared completion. And it was Romm who was charged with breaking the Politburo’s devastating reviews to Eisenstein:

He asked us, “What’s the matter? What’s the problem? What do you mean? Tell me straight.” But no-one dared to say directly that in Ivan Grozny could be felt a sharp reference to Stalin, in Malyuta Skuratov [the lickspittle head of Ivan’s secret police] a reference to Beria, in the
oprichniki
a reference to his henchmen. And there was much more that we felt but couldn’t say.

But in Eisenstein’s boldness, in the gleam in his eyes, in his defiant sceptical [
sic
] smile, we felt that he was acting consciously, that he had decided to go for broke.

This was awful.
²⁹

Russia’s most famous director had indeed gone for broke by using his cinematographic skills to highlight the tragedy of Russian tyranny, both past and present. Among themselves, other Soviet directors were understandably uneasy. In response to suggestions that
The Boyar’s Plot
was a masterpiece and would have been a hit in the West, dramatist Vsevolod Vishnevsky sniped: “It would be ‘Secrets of the Kremlin’” on show for the world to see.

“Either Eisenstein is naive, or—I don’t know,” added Ukrainian screenwriter and director Aleksandr Dovzhenko, “But such a film about such a Russia, the Kremlin—could serve as fantastic agitation against us.”
³⁰
To depict the tragedy of Russia’s autocratic vodka politics was strictly taboo.

But Eisenstein did not back down. “‘Taboo’ is falsehood,” he declared, “if you do something
with your heart’s blood
you can say
everything
.” Eisenstein even planned to disseminate his artistic condemnation of autocracy on the widest
scale possible. “We shall have to have a lot of screenings—historians, writers, artists—and mass screenings, with thousands of people watching the film simultaneously, so that they will understand it better.”
³¹
But before that could happen, it would have to first pass muster with Joseph Stalin himself.

Late on the night of March 2, 1946, Eisenstein’s movie was shown to the Politburo—in their usual condition. At the end of the viewing, Stalin flew into a mad rage. “This is not a film, but some kind of nightmare!” His hangman Lavrenty Beria despised Eisenstein’s masterpiece as “a bad detective story.”
³²
Stalin even berated the projectionist Ivan Bolshakov—who also happened to be chairman of the Committee for Cinematographic Affairs—using the
Boyars’ Plot
to lash out at the entire Soviet film industry: “During the War we didn’t have the time, but now we’ll lick you into shape!”
³³