The War of 1858-1860, about which textbooks are silent

Another refutation of the myth of Russian drunkenness is the most powerful anti-alcohol riots that no country in the world has known. So, in 1858-1859. the anti-alcohol riot swept 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 do not tempt them." The tsarist government brutally dealt with the rebels. 111 thousand peasants ended up in prisons on "drinking matters", 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 "father-kings".

"For sobriety - to ... hard labor"

“Textbooks are silent about this war, although it was a real war, with gun salvos, dead and prisoners, with winners and vanquished, with a trial of the defeated and celebrating those who won and received 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, they vowed not to drink the whole village. Why did they do it? Because they didn’t want tax-farmers to profit at the expense of their health - those 146 people into whose pockets money from the sale of alcohol from all over Russia flowed. The tax-farmers literally imposed vodka, if someone did not want to drink, he still had to pay for it: these were the rules then ... In those years, there was a practice in our country: 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 money that was not collected from the yards of the area subject to the tavern. Those who did not want or could not pay were whipped as a warning to others.

Wine merchants, having got a taste, inflated prices: by 1858, instead of three rubles, a bucket of sivukha began to be sold for ten. In the end, the peasants got tired of feeding the parasites, and without saying a word, they began to boycott the wine merchants.

The peasants turned away from the tavern not so much because of greed, but because of the principle: hardworking, hard-working owners saw how their fellow villagers, one after another, joined the ranks of bitter drunkards, who were not pleased with anything but drinking. Wives and children suffered, and in order to stop the spread of drunkenness among the villagers, at community meetings the whole world decided: no one drinks in our village.

What was left for wine merchants to do? They dropped the price. The working people did not respond to "kindness". Shinkari, in order to bring down the sober mood, announced the free distribution of vodka. And people didn’t fall for this, answering firmly: “We don’t drink!” For example, in the Balashovsky district of the Saratov province in December 1858, 4752 people refused to drink alcohol. All the taverns in Balashov were guarded by the people for observation so that no one would buy wine, those who violated 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. Sobriety was also supported by the priests, who blessed the parishioners to refuse drunkenness. This scared the vintners and potions dealers in earnest, 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 was to ban ... sobriety !!! Local authorities were instructed to prevent the organization of sobriety societies, and to destroy already existing sentences on abstinence from wine and continue not to allow them.

It was then, in response to the ban on sobriety, that a wave of pogroms swept across Russia. Starting in May 1859 in the west of the country, in June the rebellion reached the banks of the Volga. Peasants smashed drinking establishments in Balashovsky, Atkarsky, Khvalynsky, Saratov and in many other counties. The pogroms acquired a special scope in Volsk. On July 24, 1859, a crowd of three thousand smashed the wine exhibitions at the fair there. Quarter guards, police officers, having mobilized disabled teams and soldiers of the 17th artillery brigade, tried in vain to calm the rioters. The rebels disarmed the police and soldiers, released prisoners from 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 condemned by the commission of inquiry on the basis of the testimony of the tavern inmates, who slandered the defendants for stealing wine (by destroying taverns, the rioters did not drink wine, but poured it on the ground), without substantiating their accusations with evidence. Historians note that not a single case of theft was recorded, the money was stolen by the employees of drinking establishments themselves, writing off the loss to the rebels.

From July 24 to July 26, 37 drinking houses were broken up in the Volsky district, and for each of them large fines were taken from the peasants to restore the 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 (from .Donguz). The soldiers who took part in the sober movement were ordered by the court to “deprive all the rights of the state, and the lower ranks - medals and stripes for impeccable service, whoever has them, to punish with gauntlets every 100 people, 5 times each, and exiled to hard labor in factories at 4 years".

In total, 11 thousand people were sent to prison and hard labor in Russia. Many died from bullets: the riot was pacified by troops who received orders to shoot at the rebels. Across the country, there was a massacre of those who dared to protest against the drinking of the people. The judges were raging: they were ordered not only to punish the rebels, but to punish them approximately, so that others would be discouraged from striving "for sobriety without official permission." Those in power understood that they could be pacified 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 a popular comedy film, decided: "Whoever hinders us will help us." The farming system for the sale of wine was abolished, and an excise tax was introduced instead. Now, anyone who wanted to produce and sell wine could, by paying a tax to the treasury, cash in on the soldering of their fellow citizens. Traitors were found in many villages, 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 bastards, although small, but numerous. Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, when declaring a "cold war" against the USSR in 1945 and saying that we (i.e., the United States) would conquer the Russians without firing a shot, finding traitors among them and corrupting them from the inside, did not invent anything: the tactics of recruiting traitors has been known since ancient times, and it is very difficult to find a defense against waging war in this way. But it was necessary to find it at all costs, otherwise the loss would be final. The teetotalers had to solve an almost insoluble problem: how to overcome the resistance of the authorities, who support not sobriety, this basis of state power, but the tavern keeper, although filling the state treasury with money, but leading the country to death

Chapter from the book "Do You Respect Me?" Saratov local historian, member of the Writers' Union of Russia Vladimir Ilyich Vardugin.

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