Collapse of the Soviet Union - History Forum ~ All Empires

I agree with what is said about economic meltdown, and to some extent caused by economic warfare. However, from what I have been told by former residents in the USSR, some of the meltdown was caused internally... and not simply by way of a communist command-and-control economy being the less efficient or productive, although that point could also be argued.

For example, Gorbachev implemented a partial prohibition of alcohol in the 1980's, which most of us here in the USA never heard of. This had some unintended consequences as described in the article below, as well as some which aren't mentioned, such as the destruction of vineyards which produced wine and brandy primarily for export.

http://shanmugamlakshmanan.blogspot.com/2011/01/prohibition-of-alcohol-by-law.html

The Soviet policy of prohibition carried on until 1925 when it was abolished after the end of the Russian Civil War because a large army of disciplined soldiers was no longer needed and it also helped jumpstart the economy. It is interesting to note that in 1925, Josef Stalin was General Secretary of the Communist Party and the de facto leader of the Soviet Union.

Fast forward to 1985 and the Soviet Union is entangled in a disastrous invasion of Afghanistan, a new General Secretary of the Communist Party has been elected and his name is Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev wanted to open up, reorganize and accelerate the Soviet economy which had been stalled for many years due in no small part to his predecessor’s invasion of Afghanistan. The obvious step was of course to bring the soldiers home, but apart from that productivity in Soviet factories and offices had to be increased because in the 1980s alcoholism was already deeply rooted in Soviet working culture.

Among the steps taken by the Gorbachev administration was to introduce a partial prohibition which saw the price of vodka, wine and beer being raised. To add insult to injury, the sale of the now expensive alcohol was restricted to certain times of the day. Scenes of alcohol consumption were censored in films, and people caught drinking alcohol in public were arrested.

Despite Gorbachev’s best intentions, the partial prohibition proved to be a failure because while it was intended to increase productivity and improve the economy, the country had also lost about a hundred billion rubles worth of duties. This was a serious blow to the economy which was already strained by a huge military budget. Another unexpected problem that arose was the emergence of a parallel economy where the currency was not rubles or dollars but bottles of vodka!