Drunkenness in the Context of Political Culture: The Case of Russian Revolutions

摘要

This paper proposes a different approach to the populace and to revolutionarydictatorships in Russia. The point is that the Russian populace lacked a tradition of self-restraint, an essential element of the political culture in the majority of Western nations. Collateral to this idea is the notion that drunkenness was an essential element of those representatives of the populace who took the liberty of committing certain antisocial acts. The collapse of the Russian monarchy unleashed these antisocial proclivities of the populace. In this situation the Bolsheviks had no other choice but terror to stop this widespread anarchy. Drunken anarchy, then, was an important contributor in shaping up the machinery of terror.