Get in the mood for a "dry January" with this selection of Soviet posters. From the 1920s to the 1980s, successive campaigns were launched to reduce alcohol consumption. They were not successful.
'Not A Drop!' Seven Decades Of Soviet Anti-Alcohol Posters
- By RFE/RL
1
A Soviet anti-alcohol poster from 1930. The text exhorts people to "smash" alcohol, describing it as "the enemy of the cultural revolution."
2
A poster from 1929. A child changes the word "Spirit" into "Sport." In 1929, the Soviet government ordered a massive closure of beer stalls and other places selling alcohol.
3
The text on this 1929 poster reads: "Shame on those getting paid at the black cash desk!" This desk was where people seen as having violated work discipline were paid. The poster links alcohol abuse with low productivity, a big concern during the first Five-Year Plan.
4
"Got drunk, cursed, broke a tree -- it is shameful now to look people in the face." During another anti-alcohol drive in 1958, sales of vodka were forbidden in many places.
5
"And they say that we are pigs..." Another poster from 1958.
6
"No entry for alcohol on the path to a healthy life." Some 30,000 copies were made of this 1959 poster, published by the Institute of Health Education.
7
A poster from 1959 warns that foreign spies are hunting for hard drinkers.
8
"Not a single drop!" The label on the bottle reads "Port wine." The poster is from 1961.
9
"We will expel the drinkers from the workplace!" A poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky is referenced in this 1966 poster. The pipe is labeled "Defect," the bottle "Vodka."
10
In 1972, the message was simple: "Stop -- before it's too late."
11
"It is time to stop collective partying!" The anti-alcohol campaign of 1972 coincided with plans to reduce the production of strong alcoholic drinks, while increasing output of nonalcoholic drinks, wine, and beer. By the end of the 1970s, alcohol consumption reached the highest level in the country's history.
12
"A shameful union -- a slacker and vodka!" This poster was issued in Ukraine in 1981.
13
"And I'm not the one mother loves." The label on the bottle says "Wine." Another poster from 1982.
14
"Either, Or". The label on the bottle reads: "Vodka". This poster is from 1983.
15
This 1985 poster has tomato juice delivering a knockout blow to a bottle of vodka. In 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced a large-scale anti-alcohol campaign with partial alcohol prohibition, also known as the "dry law." Prices of alcohol went up and sales were severely restricted.
16
The 1985 shows one small drink leading to a series of increasingly bigger ones, turning the drinker into a "hooligan." The moral of the story: "Tolerance of drinking is dangerous, there is one step from drunkenness to crime."
17
The poster shows a bottle tearing off a label for fortified white wine, replacing it with one for "natural juice." The text says: "This new look suits me."
18
"Socially dangerous" -- a Soviet anti-alcohol poster in 1985.
19
"On sick leave," also created for the 1985 anti-alcohol campaign. The text reads "You hardly need a sick note for ingesting Stolichnaya.''
20
"His inner world," a 1987 poster produced in Ukraine.
21
"Passage to the next world," a poster from 1988.
