Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader...
writer Alexander Griboyedov (1795-1829).While Gorbachev"s half-baked prohibition campaign increased life expectancy and birth rates and brought down mortality rates, his reputation was tarnished by the increased price of vodka and mobbed liquor stores. People started calling Gorbachev "Mineral Water Secretary" instead of General Secretary.
Oddly enough, both the 1917 and 1991 Russian revolutions came on the heels of an official crackdown on drunkenness and alcoholism. A prohibition law was introduced in the Russian Empire in 1913, but it was not strictly enforced either. The Soviet Union collapsed several years after the start of Gorbachev"s anti-alcohol campaign.
Is there a connection? As the old Latin saying goes, "Correlation does not imply causation."
Regardless, this funny coincidence was reinforced in the popular imagination by a joke that caught on soon after 1985: "An urgent telegram is sent to the Kremlin from a district center in Siberia:
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