So united was the nation around Nikolay II that he threw out his methodical plan for sobriety and replaced it with an all-out prohibition. In tandem with ordering the mobilization of troops, the tsar essentially banned the sale of vodka, wine, and beer. Other nations grappled with alcoholism to varying degrees, but Russia went the farthest. Temperance was to be a pivotal ingredient to Russia’s war strategy. Memories from the conflict with Japan nearly a decade earlier were still hauntingly fresh as Japanese generals credited drunken Russian soldiers with handing them at least one of their major victories. Other wartime failures were also blamed on the bottle. It was openly quipped that Germany was counting on meeting inebriated Russian troops. For example, a satirical cartoon featured a German soldier, armed with sobriety, as he faced his Russian enemy.2
Neither the tsar nor his people could withstand a repeat defeat, so Russians enthusiastically cheered the edict of prohibition. The ban was to remain in place only until the mobilization was complete, but it turned out to be so effective, as soldiers readied for battle in half the time expected, that the tsar extended his order to cover the war’s duration. The results were immediate—and stunning. At home, public drunkenness and overall consumption plummeted. Money that had been spent on vodka was now deposited in the bank, resulting in a sixfold increase in individual savings.3 Crime eased, too. Reports from various regions heralded the newfound sober serenity. “Hooliganism has almost disappeared, and the police lockups, always filled on bazaar days with drunken men, are now empty,” read one. Another stated that “the suspension of the vodka traffic has diminished crime in this city by 50 percent.”4 In Petrograd, cases going before the Justice of the Peace dropped by 80 percent while the number of male beggars plunged by 75 percent.5 Part of the newfound civility could have been attributable to the deployment of so many men to the war front, but nonetheless, the results of the prohibition were tangible.
The military, too, had undergone a magnificent transformation. A war correspondent for the London Times remarked in a column in March 1915: “One cannot write of the Russian mobilization or of the rejuvenation of the Russian Empire without touching on the prohibition of vodka; the first manifest evidence of the increased efficiency was, of course, in the manner and promptness with which the army assembled; but, from that day, the benefits have been increasingly visible, not only in the army but in every phase of Russian life…. In nearly six months association with the armies in many different theaters of operations I have not seen a single drunken or tipsy officer or soldier. This, then, was the first of what New Russia intended to do in this war. At one stroke she freed herself of the curse that has paralyzed her peasant life for generations. This in itself is nothing short of a revolution.”6
The Smirnovs, despite being further hobbled by this prohibition, did what everyone else did and joined the war effort. Russia endured overwhelming casualties throughout the four-year conflict, significantly more than could be handled by the existing medical infrastructure. The Smirnovs, like others in their class, opened their spacious private homes to care for wounded soldiers drifting back from the front. The family’s elegant dacha in Sokolniki outside Moscow, the scene of Aleksandra’s earlier forbidden trysts, was used to treat dozens of soldiers. Sergey’s sons opened their residence with twenty beds less than two weeks after combat broke out. Smirnov’s youngest son, Aleksey, accommodated sixty wounded veterans at a time in his house. Two hospitals named after Pyotr Petrovich, Smirnov’s oldest son, opened up in the mansion on Pyatnitskaya Street and in another family-owned property.[39]
These were immensely charitable gestures, particularly given the family’s increasingly precarious financial status. The combination of war and the new dry laws had dealt the business a devastating blow. Factory production dwindled to a trickle, and the rank-and-file dropped by more than two hundred men. According to an official report, which did not include revenue figures, no longer did the Smirnovs produce much in the way of grape wines, cognacs, or other liqueurs, nor did they manufacture vodka for export.7 Business was off so much that Eugeniya began leasing some of the inactive properties. Two buildings, including a stone, two-story warehouse, became movie theaters. The state also used some of Smirnov’s real estate to store military supplies.8
There was one bright spot to the liquor ban. It had come with a slew of odd exceptions that were amended and altered throughout the war. Flavored vodkas, for instance, continued to be produced by manufacturers like Smirnov because they were less potent than other drinks and because forbidding them completely would have devastated the Russian fruit industry. These spirits also represented something uniquely Russian, a traditional symbol the state determined was worth preserving. The same exception was made for beer and grape wines—and for first-class eating establishments. Restaurants and clubs that catered to the wealthy were allowed to sell any kind of liquor its customers wanted.
These loopholes, though polarizing, kept the Smirnov business afloat, if only barely. Eugeniya, who spent most of her time traveling with her Italian diplomat, signed over the day-to-day responsibilities to the company’s remaining senior management. No members of Smirnov’s immediate family seem to have been involved with the business. Vladimir and Valentina were mounting a new production in Warsaw at the outbreak of the war, followed by some work in the Ukraine region. Pyotr Petrovich’s son, Arseniy, was still under guardianship, as was Pyotr’s brother, Nikolay. Without the personal Smirnov touch, it looked as though the once-mighty vodka empire might be on a path to oblivion, right alongside the imperial traditions of the Russian Empire.
THE WAR REPRESENTED the tsar’s last chance to reassert himself as the indisputable ruler of a powerful, fearless nation. His test began with genuine promise. In 1914 Russia’s military was awesome, totaling 1.4 million and eventually enlisting almost 15 million men. It was taken for granted that this immense army would crush its enemies, but the reality soon became clear. The masses of men heralded largely from the lower classes. Though exceedingly brave, they were raw recruits from rural villages, men drafted for a job they had no training to do. In addition, a lack of professional, seasoned leadership, and a dearth of vital supplies greatly undermined the war strategy. “It is hard to imagine how ill-equipped for modern warfare the tsar’s huge army was. Thousands had no shoes, one man in three had no rifle, artillery was in pitifully short supply, munitions even shorter. In such matters as wireless, airplanes, transportation, the Russian Army proved helpless.”9 There were some successes, of course, but the overall losses were nothing short of horrific. Hundreds of thousands of men perished, and vast areas of the motherland fell under German control. Troops were demoralized, hungry, and exhausted. The liquor ban took a toll, too, as the war wore on, with soldiers substituting their cravings with colognes, furniture polishes, and alcohol-based varnishes.10 Increasingly, the tsar and his bureaucratic machine took the blame for this misery. The love fest that had been sparked by the war was vanishing.
Against the urgings of his most senior advisors, Nikolay II decided to follow in the noble footsteps of his ancestor, Peter the Great. He, personally, would assume control of his army, intent on bringing dignity back to his soldiers, respect to the monarchy, and an end to the constant suffering. It was a controversial move supported wholeheartedly by the tsarina and her most trusted adviser, Rasputin. With Nikolay II at the front, the duo assumed a greater hand in the daily affairs of the state, causing widespread mistrust and angst: Empress Aleksandra was German-born, a child of the enemy, while Rasputin’s increasingly powerful influence was deemed by some as an unpredictable and frightening threat to the future of the empire.
The aristocracy was especially unnerved by Rasputin, fearing his presence could spark a mass overthrow of Romanov rule. Soon, a small cadre of nobles came together to plan the murder of Rasputin in December 1916 by luring him to the palace of Prince Felix Yusupov. First, as the legend goes, Rasputin gulped wine laced with enough poison to kill as many as ten men. Unaffected, his stunned murde
rers then shot him multiple times, causing him to fall but not die. They then wrapped Rasputin’s body in a cloth and dumped it into the icy Neva River. When his body was retrieved on New Year’s Day, the empress was hysterical with grief. Much of the rest of Russia, however, was relieved. The murderers were banished to their country estates but not charged with the killing. The tsar returned from the war to console his wife and assess the grave circumstances in the capital. A Swedish diplomat dispatched to Petrograd commented that the mood in Russia’s capital city was “snappish and fretful…. One hears the thunder and sees the lightning…but the storm has not yet broken.”11
Nikolay II returned to a Russia he did not comprehend. The war had corroded the Russian psyche, and Petrograd stank of despair. Few had been untouched by the disastrous battles, losing sons, husbands, or fathers. The wounded languished in hospital beds, forever crippled by the bloodbath they had witnessed. For the population at large, debilitating hunger had crept into their daily lives as food and fuel grew scarcer and costlier, doubling and sometimes tripling week by week. Long lines snaked outside food shops as women and young children waited for their meager rations, constant reminders of the hardships the war had brought.
Winter temperatures plunged to forty degrees below zero. Food trains, hampered by a lack of fuel and frozen tracks, could not access Petrograd, choking off the city from essential supplies. Families tugged apart wooden fences and pilfered whatever they could to keep their stoves warm. Schools closed, newspapers stopped printing, trams stalled. Liquor, again, found its way into the hands of many in spite of the official prohibition. Illegal production of samogon, or homemade vodka, multiplied in both urban and rural locales. Established makers of alcohol, including the Smirnovs, skirted laws by selling spirits out of their factories directly to customers. These transgressions were most often condoned, though the Smirnovs were fined 3,000 rubles at least once for engaging in this practice.12
The tsar’s advisors warned that he would face dark consequences if he did not do something drastic. The Okhrana, the secret police force of the Russian Empire, predicted the “possibility in the near future of riots by the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence.” The leader of the Duma sent a telegraph to the tsar: “The situation is serious. There is anarchy in the capital.” Nikolay II remained unconvinced and worse, paralyzed.
Perhaps it was that so few in his circles were affected by the country’s many calamities. Russia’s rich still led glittering lives throughout the war. They packed into expensive restaurants and patronized the theater and ballet, insulating themselves from the suffering of others. Horse-racing went on without disruption, as did the seasonal parties and celebrations. Vladimir and Valentina, part of this bejeweled set, returned to Petrograd; once home Valentina continued to act as if she were the living embodiment of her role in Offenbach’s Beautiful Helen. “The war had not changed the life of Russia’s nobility and aristocracy, although many socialites wore mourning armbands for their fallen.”13 This ostentatious show became just another contribution to the population’s discontent, an example of the imbalance ingrained within Russian society.
It was not until February 23, 1917, International Woman’s Day, that the tsar began to grasp the depth of the fury raging through his people. In spite of calls for no strikes, women from some textile factories in Petrograd staged a walkout and asked for support from the metalworkers at the huge Putilov factory. An estimated 128,000 malcontents joined forces, parading down snowy streets with signs that read, DOWN WITH THE AUTOCRACY. They shouted “Give us bread,” as they made their way through the heart of the city. The following day, the number of protesters swelled to more than 200,000, and a day later, the walkout exploded into a general strike, with participants filling the streets and chanting slogans opposing the tsar and the war. Crowds of supporters from all walks of life cheered on the mushrooming processionals.
The police erected barricades to contain the masses; guards nervously staked out positions while leaders from the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and Social Revolutionary Party sought to unify what they now understood to be the stirrings of a full-scale insurrection. With every passing day, the tension in Petrograd intensified. Clashes between workers and the tsar’s still-loyal officers erupted sporadically. Now, gunfire pelted the crowds, clubs crashed down, delivering heavy blows to people’s bodies and heads, looters ransacked food shops. The violence did not last long, though. The tsar’s defenders, many sympathetic to the people’s cause, abandoned their posts and threw down their weapons. The remaining troops were then simply overwhelmed, as armored cars bearing red revolutionary banners rolled into the streets. They stormed the police stations, providing arms to the masses. The Okhrana’s headquarters was looted and then burned. Defenders of the great Fortress of Peter and Paul surrendered. Finally, the Imperial Guard at the Romanov’s summer residence mutinied, and with this, Russia’s last tsar had no choice. Nikolay II abdicated.
A Russian newspaper reported that people bid their emperor farewell “like they were blowing fuzz from a sleeve.”14 Most had no remorse, no regret. They were just glad to be done with him.
A HUGE RED banner floated over the Winter Palace, the residence of tsars since Peter the Great. Revolutionary fever spread to every corner of the country. For a time, a provisional government advocated freedom of speech and religion, equal rights, and a free press. It sought to revitalize the military, which was still in the throes of battle. Factories buzzed again with activity as a brief period of relief took hold. Officially, prohibition became a permanent fixture of the new Russia. Political exiles, including Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, and Leon Trotskiy, returned to their homeland. Previously these men had had little power and meager support. But in the wake of the uprising, they had opportunity. Explained one Siberian peasant: “We feel that we have escaped from a dark cave into the bright daylight. And here we stand not knowing where to go or what to do.”15
Lenin arrived by train from Zurich at Finland Station in Petrograd in April 1917. There, a crowd of thousands welcomed him with effusive cheers, waving flags branded with the Bolsheviks slogan: PEACE, BREAD, AND LAND! It was as if a parched nation had finally discovered the source of pure water. From atop an armored car, Lenin addressed his followers. He denounced the war, then embraced a revolution that had “opened a new epoch.” Afterward, at a meeting of leading activists, he outlined his plans for the future. It involved dismantling the provisional government, ridding the country of capitalists, and rallying workers, peasants, and soldiers. They were to take control of the revolution and begin the new order in Russia.
The message reverberated throughout society. The Bolsheviks soon emerged as a leading voice among the opposition parties, wooing a sea of malcontents. They feuded openly with the fledgling leadership, which still faced sporadic disturbances and constant problems fulfilling people’s daily needs. Food costs were outrageous, rations too skimpy to satisfy. Shortages of raw materials and transportation snafus snarled industry, and unemployment soared. The war worsened, too, with mounting casualties. The Germans were closing in on Russia, en route to Petrograd. The post-Romanov honeymoon was over.
To revolutionaries, it was time to finish the job begun in February. The summer of 1917 brought spontaneous, violent rioting in the streets of Petrograd. Soldiers joined by 30,000 metalworkers and other troops sympathetic to the Bolsheviks launched a demonstration against the government. In all, some 500,000 participated in the movement. Soon, as shops and factories closed, employees spilled into the streets to join the march. Angry mobs unleashed their fury, looting stores, smashing windows, charging liquor reserves. They swallowed what they could, thumbing their noses at the dry laws, and then headed for Tauride Palace, home of the provisional government. There, they met resistance from pro-government forces, who fired on the masses. The revolutionaries returned an avalanche of fire, and blood from both sides of the fray filled the cracks of the city’s center. For forty-eight hours, everything in Petro
grad seemed to turn a shade of red—from the bloodied ground to the signs and flags. The upper hand seesawed between the rebellious mobs and regiments called in by the state.
Finally, the edge shifted in favor of the government after it charged Lenin, Trotskiy, and other Bolshevik leaders with spying on behalf of the Germans. Officials released a document that, they said, proved that Lenin had organized the demonstrations to distract the state while its enemy mounted an offensive at the front. Despite emphatic denials from the accused, Bolshevik enthusiasts were horrified, turning their rage on the traitorous Bolshevik leaders. The offices and printing plant for Pravda, the Bolshevik’s newspaper, were destroyed and the revolutionaries’ headquarters stormed. Trotskiy and other top party members were arrested and thrown into prison while Lenin, with the aid of Stalin, slipped into Finland. The rebels’ movement had not only failed, it had been disgraced.
It was a serious setback for Lenin but not a fatal one. The government still had no idea how to solve Russia’s mountain of woes, and now Petrograd felt the threat of advancing German soldiers. As fall neared, people forgot the treasonous charges hurled at Lenin and other top Bolsheviks. They concluded that the state’s leadership was too weak, too unstable, to hang on. No one was offering the answers they sought except the Bolsheviks. Lenin steadfastly preached for an end to the war and for sweeping social reforms, and increasingly, people turned en masse to these passionate, energized men. Lenin returned in disguise to Petrograd and settled into a Bolshevik hideout. On October 24, 1917, Trotskiy assumed the role of conductor, orchestrating a comprehensive strike. The Bolsheviks systematically seized control of Petrograd’s infrastructure—from the post office to the train stations to telephone and telegraph offices. Red Guards infiltrated the Winter Palace, home of the provisional government where its anxious ministers were holed up. Late into the night, the government surrendered, with little bloodshed as the state’s guards offered almost no resistance.
The King of Vodka Page 28