Aleksandr V. Vlasov

One of the thorniest societal problems faced by Soviet communism was drunkenness. The effort to build socialism required that people work longer and harder for less compensation, and one of the results was an appalling rise in the consumption of alcohol. State efforts to solve the problem by reducing the production of vodka and other intoxicants were more than offset by the rise of bootlegging and moonshining.

Aleksandr V. Vlasov was the Soviet minister of internal affairs from 1986 to 1988; his closest U.S. counterpart would be the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This selection is taken from a 1987 interview between Vlasov and an unidentified reporter with Izvestia, the official newspaper of the Soviet government. Vlasov acknowledges that alcohol abuse is worst in those communities that are undergoing the rapid transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy...