Another refutation of the myth of Russian drunkenness is the most powerful anti-alcohol riots, which no country in the world has known. So, in 1858-1859. the anti-alcohol revolt engulfed 32 provinces (which included Saratov), more than 2,000 villages and villages rose up against the forced soldering of the nation.
People destroyed drinking establishments, breweries and wineries, refused free vodka. People demanded "Close the taverns and not seduce them." The tsarist government dealt with the insurgents in the most severe way. 111 thousand peasants were sent to prisons for "drinking business", about 800 were brutally beaten with gauntlets and exiled to Siberia …
The material will be useful to monarchists and other people who nod at the good pre-revolutionary "tsars-priests".
For sobriety - to … hard labor
“The textbooks are silent about this war, although it was a real war, with volleys of guns, perished and prisoners, with the victors and the vanquished, with the trial of the defeated and the celebration of the victorious and receiving indemnity (compensation for losses associated with the war). The battles of that war unknown to schoolchildren unfolded on the territory of 12 provinces of the Russian Empire (from Kovno in the west to Saratov in the east) in 1858-1860.
Historians often call this war "teetotal riots", because the peasants refused to buy wine and vodka, vowed not to drink the whole village. Why did they do it? Because they did not want tax farmers to profit from their health - those 146 people into whose pockets money flowed from the sale of alcohol from all over Russia. The farmers literally imposed vodka, if someone did not want to drink, he still had to pay for it: such were then established rules … In those years in our country there was a practice: every man was assigned to a certain tavern, and if he did not drink his "norm" and the amount from the sale of alcohol turned out to be insufficient, then the innkeepers collected the uncollected money from the courtyards of the area subject to the tavern. Those who did not want or could not pay were flogged with a whip for the edification of others.
Wine merchants, getting a taste, inflated prices: by 1858, instead of three rubles, a bucket of sivukh began to sell for ten. In the end, the peasants got tired of feeding the parasites, and they, without saying a word, began to boycott the wine merchants.
Promotional video:
Pre-revolutionary teetotal poster.
The peasants turned away from the tavern not so much because of greed, but because of the principle: hardworking, hardworking owners saw how their fellow villagers, one after another, join the ranks of bitter drunks, who no longer love anything but drink. Wives and children suffered, and in order to stop the spread of drunkenness among the villagers, at community meetings the whole world decided: in our village no one drinks.
What was left for the wine merchants to do? They cut the price. The working people did not respond to "kindness." The shinkari announced a free distribution of vodka in order to bring down the temperance mood. And people did not fall for this, answering firmly: "We do not drink!" For example, in the Balashov district of the Saratov province in December 1858, 4,752 people refused to drink alcohol. All the taverns in Baoashov were guarded by the people to ensure that no one bought wine, those who broke the vow were fined or subjected to corporal punishment by the verdict of the people's court. The townspeople also joined the grain growers: workers, officials, nobles. The priests also supported the sobriety, blessing the parishioners to refuse drunkenness. The winemakers and potions merchants were already intimidated by this, and they complained to the government.
In March 1858, the ministers of finance, internal affairs and state property issued orders for their departments. The essence of those decrees boiled down to a ban … sobriety !!! The local authorities were instructed not to allow the organization of sobriety societies, and to destroy the existing sentences on refraining from wine and not allow in the future.
It was then, in response to the ban on sobriety, that a wave of pogroms swept across Russia. Beginning in May 1859 in the west of the country, in June the riot reached the banks of the Volga. The peasants smashed drinking establishments in Balashovsky, Atkarsky, Khvalynsky, Saratovsky and in many other districts. The pogroms became especially widespread in Volsk. On July 24, 1859, a crowd of three thousand people smashed wine exhibitions there at the fair. Quarter warders, police officers, mobilizing wheelchair teams and soldiers of the 17th artillery brigade, tried in vain to calm the rioters. The rebels disarmed the police and soldiers, and released prisoners from the prison. Only a few days later, the troops that arrived from Saratov put things in order, arresting 27 people (and a total of 132 people were thrown into prison in Volsky and Khvalynsky districts). All of them were convicted by the commission of inquiry based on the testimony of the tavern inmates, who slandered the defendants in stealing wine (while smashing taverns, the rioters did not drink wine, but poured it on the ground), without supporting their accusations with evidence. Historians note that not a single case of theft was recorded, the money was plundered by the employees of the drinking establishments, writing off the loss to the rebels.
Pre-revolutionary teetotal poster.
From 24 to 26 July, 37 drinking houses were destroyed in the Volsky district, and for each of them large fines were taken from the peasants for the restoration of taverns. The documents of the commission of inquiry preserved the names of the convicted fighters for sobriety: L. Maslov and S. Khlamov (peasants of the village of Sosnovka), M. Kostyunin (village of Tersa), P. Vertegov, A. Volodin, M. Volodin, V. Sukhov (with Donguz). The soldiers who took part in the temperance movement were ordered by the court to “deprive all the rights of the state, and the lower ranks - medals and stripes for blameless service, whoever has such, punish with gauntlets every 100 people, 5 times, and send them to hard labor in factories for 4 years.
All in all, 11 thousand people were sent to prison and hard labor in Russia. Many died from bullets: the riot was pacified by the troops, who were ordered to shoot at the rebels. All over the country there was a reprisal against those who dared to protest against the soldering of the people. The judges raged: they were ordered not only to punish the rioters, but to punish them approximately, so that others would not disdain to strive "for sobriety without official permission." Those in power understood that one could pacify by force, but sitting on bayonets for a long time was uncomfortable.
It was necessary to consolidate the success. How? The government, like the heroes of the popular comedy movie, decided: "Whoever hinders us will help us." The ransom system for selling wine was abolished, and an excise tax was introduced instead. Now anyone who wanted to produce and sell wine could pay a tax to the treasury and profit from the drinking of his fellow citizens. In many villages there were traitors who, feeling the support of the bayonets behind their backs, continued the war against sobriety by other "peaceful" methods.
Big bastards rely in their abominations on the bastard, although small, but numerous. Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, declaring a "cold war" against the USSR in 1945 and saying that we (ie the United States) would conquer the Russians without firing a single shot, finding traitors among them and spreading them from within, did not invent anything: the tactics of recruiting traitors has been known since ancient times, and it is very difficult to find protection against waging war in this way. But it was necessary to find at all costs, otherwise the loss would have become final. The teetotalers had to solve an almost insoluble problem: how to overcome the resistance of the authorities, which supported not sobriety, this basis of state power, but innkeepers, although filling the state treasury with money, but leading the country to ruin.
Chapter from the book "Do you respect me?" Saratov ethnographer, member of the Union of Writers of Russia Vladimir Ilyich Vardugin