May 7 — the USSR Council of Ministers adopted the resolution “On Measures to Overcome Drunkenness and Alcoholism and to Eradicate Moonshining.” The slogan “Sobriety is the norm of life” became the motto of the anti-alcohol campaign. At the same time, alcohol prices were raised and sales were sharply restricted. Vodka began to be sold using ration coupons. Administrative measures led to kilometer-long lines and, most frighteningly, to an increase in the illegal production of alcoholic beverages.
The decision to “sober up” the country, made without proper historical and economic groundwork and without taking consumer psychology into account, put the domestic wine and spirits industry in a difficult position, dealt it a moral blow, and provoked widespread public discontent. Absurd orders were issued to uproot vineyards, leading to tragedies: people who had devoted their lives to winemaking died of heart attacks or took their own lives. Distilleries and liqueur-vodka plants across the country were refitted into facilities producing non-alcoholic beverages. All of this also had financial consequences—serious ones: speculation and theft rose sharply. In 1986, Soviet retail trade failed to deliver 12 billion rubles to the Soviet state; in 1987, 7 billion. Losses in wine production and grape cultivation accounted for another 6.8 billion in shortfalls. Then new times arrived—the state monopoly on the alcohol trade was abolished. The anti-alcohol campaign gradually petered out.