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Temperance, or Not
During WWI, Tsarist Russia imposed a "dry law," which sought to keep army recruits sober enough to fight. And when the Bolsheviks stole power in 1917, they extended prohibition on ideological grounds, arguing that the tsarist state sought to keep its subjects docile through liberal distribution of vodka, which may not have been that far from the truth. Catherine II, Stephen White notes in his book, Russia Goes Dry, once supposedly commented that a drunken people is easier to rule. Vladimir Lenin, a teetotaler, saw alcoholism as a disease that would keep Russia from moving forward to communism. As White writes, Lenin said the proletariat, "had no need of intoxication, it derived its  strongest stimulant to struggle from its class position and from the communist ideal; and what was needed was clarity, clarity and once again clarity..." In 1922, at the 11th Communist Party Congress, Lenin would declare that there would be "no trade in rotgut."

By December 1919, new laws were enacted to severely punish private production of strong spirits. Not that this was highly significant: according to White, at least a third of rural households were likely engaged in illicit distilling of alcohol in the 1920s. The government stepped up its anti-alcohol campaign for a time but eventually admitted defeat. In 1925, private homebrewing (the making of samogon) was allowed, as long as it was not intended for sale, while the state monopoly over production and sales continued. Henceforth, the battle against increasing alcohol consumption (by the late 1920s, White reports, the average urban family spent 14% of its income on alcohol) was mainly fought through education and propaganda.

Forced industrialization would put an end to this battle. Once again, a Russian leader chose to use revenues from vodka to finance growth and national defense. By the end of 1930, Stalin, now firmly in control, ordered expansion of vodka production. By the late 1930s, the strength of vodka (which had previously been kept at 20%) was allowed to rise to its "natural" level of 40%. As White writes, by 1940, "there were more shops selling drink than meat, fruit and vegetables put together." During the war, vodka was issued to troops as part of their rations.

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