Book Review: Demystifying Russian drinking

Demystifying Russian drinking Jussi Simpura & Boris M. Levin (eds.): Demystifying Russian Drinking. Comparative Studies from the I 990s. Research report 85. Stakes (National research and development centre for welfare and health). Helsinki 1997, 226 pp. This book is acontribution to the discussion on Russian drinking culture. The core of the book is an examination of qualitative data from surveys on drinking habits. It is also a very timely book, as it engages in a debate on cultural features of Russia that frame the country's ongoing transformation process. To write a review on this book was a real challenge for me, for different reasons. Firstly, it explores an intriguing issue, both imporcant and underinvestigated in Russian sociology. Secondly, I am myself carrying out research on drinking patterns in Russia using biographical interviews - so the top ic is very much in line with my own research interests. Thirdly, I felt "politically" embarrassed, as I knew that my PUSiLiuIl cuukl never be objective, lacking the distance and dispassion needed to be a noninterested observer. I also expected to read another horror-story, reinforcing the mythology of "drunken Russia" . Forcunately most of the book did not meet my expectation. 126 1 With all these considerations in mind I approached the book and was pleased to find it extremely interesting and innovative. Simpura and Levin have produced rich empirical data and some illuminating analysis. It undoubtedly makes a significant contribution to the study of this exciting and problematic field. The collection is the result of one of the several joint Russian-Finnish projeccs of the last decade. A research situation where both foreign and native researchers study the same issue seems to be the most efficient for the study of the cultural patterns of everyday life. On the one hand, the view of a foreign observer is not jaded, and he can focus on practices and habits that stay unquestioned by those who look at it from inside. an the other, the relevance of ascribed meanings can be deciphered only with proper knowledge of the insider's codes. The methodology of such a research team is therefore inevitably of an ethnological character. Behind the inter- NORDISK ALKOHOL· & NARKOTIKATIDSKRIFT VOL . 16. 1999 ( I ) pretations, techniques, and data of the study we can always sense the unspelled work of negotiation and companson. In this case the research team is not only international but interdisciplinary as well, as both the medical and sociological discourse on drinking is presented. In the former, drinking and alcoholism is usually considered a disease and a health problem. Sociologists basically look for the structural conditioning of drinking and drinking practices. These two approaches, when COffibined, give a more holistic picture of the social behavior under study. The research project follows the articulated approach of comparing Russian and other cultural drinking habits. Statistics on drinking from European and particularly Finnish surveys provide the background. The book is grounded in several empirical survey studies on drinking habits: a Moscow survey carried out in 1994, which was a duplicate of the Finnish survey on drinking habits of 1991 with the necessary changes made in adaptation and translation; a postal survey in Moscow and Helsinki carried out in 1991, aimed at a comparison between health-related habits and subjective health; and finally the Karelian-Finnish survey. Statistical data as well as discursive analysis of the debate on drinking and alcoholism in Russia give the evidence and the arguments for the conclusions presented in the texts. Methodological issues Discussing the reliability of the data and the limits of generalization, the authors question the use of standard questionnaires insensitive to the cultural context. Methodological problems of this kind are often on the surface of comparative research. Certain questions do not work in societies for which they were not designed, and the adaptation of a research technique is not always possible. The authors themselves give examples of this in terms of contradictory data. Thus, for example, Finnish men reported having been drunk much more often than Russian men in all age gro ups. However, this contradicts statistics that confirm Russia to be the most hard-drinking country. The reason might be, as the authors claim, that "the method is rude for the Russian sample or their attitude for the study, or that consumption doesn't say much about being drunken, or the criteria for being drunk should be multiple, not only self-estimation". Discussing the problems in studying Russian drinking today, Simpura distinguishes three major obstacles: 1) the generalizability of regional results over all of Russia; 2) the problem of reliability; 3) the problem of analyzing change. The researchers are conscious of the regional variations in cultural and the drinking patterns (Shamota argues, for instance, that North-Western Russia is the terri tory with the highest alcohol consumption). Ethnic composition and relevant cultural traditions differentiate drinking cultures. In the book, data on four categories of urban composition are presented. Metropolitan Moscow, major industri al cities, smaller one-factory industrial towns, agricultural and forestry COmmUlllt1eS (Ch.lO and Ch.9). The authors realize that respondents' honesty and accuracy are the main things in questionnaires. The object of the research - alcohol consumption - makes the methodological problems more difficult. Alcohol related problems, being intimate information, are prone to be underreported by respondents, to avoid producing an undesirable or 'bad' self-presentation. Cultural attitudes towards answering certain questions may vary considerably from one country to another. This is especially relevant for the is sue of women's drinking, which may be underreported because of traditional patterns in Russian gender culture. In discussing the methodological problems of comparative studies it is important to take into account one issue which is probably specific only to Russia. In the Soviet period sociological instruments were perceived by respondents-citizens as official (state) circulars and instruments for state control. It was presumed that people should answer them "correctly", that is, in an ideologically relevant way. As people didn't trust in anonymity they became very cautious about filling in questionnaires, which explains the general unreliability of data gathered by survey. The book is structured in three parts with an extensive introduction and an epilogue, and is presented as an attempt to demonstrate the difference between cultural stereotypes and reality, with the purpose of checking the myths against the evidence of the data. However, I cannot help mentioning that tab les and figures from research are thems elves perfect instruments for myth production. The introduction, written by Simpura and Levin, deals with the demystification concept, and sets the frame for the articles, which other- NORDISK ALKOHOL- & NARKOTIKATIDSKRIFT VOL . 16. 1999 ( I) 1 127 wise probably would be difficult to put together. Myths are seen as beIiefs which the believers take for true and relevant, although often inconsistendy. It is argued that major contradictions ean exist between different coexisting beliefs. An oudine of the political context of Russian drinking is also drafted in the introduetion. The authors note that drinking (vodka) is still a sensitive political issue that is covered in the electoral self-presentations and programs of some candidates. The politically grounded epidemiological debate is reviewed, with its emphasis on the decreasing life expectancy of men in particular focus. The authors argue that social transformation influences drinking "both broadly and deeply". They daim that radical changes have taken place in the provision of treatment and services for problem drinkers, both in a positive and a negative way. Positive is abandoning the former punitive treatment system, negative the dosure of several institutions. Unfortunately, the empirical data, except for one minor study, do not cover the period of social transformation. The discourse of Russian drinking The researchers also present a review of the discourse on 128 [ Russian drinking. The favorite topic in the literature on drinking since the mid1990s has been alcohol-related harm and mortality. After Gorbachev's reform, the nationalist discourse raised the public issue of the decline in the life-expectancy of Russian males. Thus the crisis in masculinity became the favorite frame for the analysis of alcoholism. On the one hand, Russian hegemonic masculinity pres urnes drinking to be an important part of masculine identity. On the other, excessive drinking is seen as one of the reasons for premature deaths among Russian males. One of the authors, Boris M. Levin, sees three emerging issues as relevant for the discussion: work, gender, and age. He expresses his traditional (patriarchal) view on women, being disturbed by the faet that women are beginning to share men's drinking habits in spite of the "built in feminine prudence, reticence, that urge them to conceal their vice". He distinguishes three indicators of alcohol consumption: volume per capita, the dynamics of consumption growth, and the structure of consumption. Though in other parts of the book the authors are very cautious about the representativeness of their Moscow data, Prof. Levin claims that 15 % of the NORDISK AlKOHOl- & NARKOTIKATIDSKRIFT VOL 16 . 1999 ( I ) population are alcohol abusers or alcoholics. Looking at the reasons for the rise in alcohol consumption, which peaked in 1984, Levin sees the roots of social calamity in state alcohol policy, which consciously accustomed peopIe to hard drinking because of the immense revenue generated by the alcohol trade, and which at the same time kept a considerable part of the population from political dissent. Both of these statements, however plausible they sound, are only hypothetical and should be tested by research. Levin also sees workers in nonqualified hard manualiabor - 50 million in the country - as a reserve pool of alcoholics. This conclusion, of course, fits the assumptions of stratification theories. The shortages in consumer goods, co up led with the availability and cheapness of alcohol, is another stimulus for heavy drinking. The horror story is ended by the saying that traditions and customs became more and more alcohol oriented, and that there were no available leisure-time facilities. To promote understanding of the current debate on drinking and alcoholism, as well as the empirical data gotten in surveys, the authors provide a historical picture of Russian discourse on drinking since the beginning of the century. They describe how on the eve of WWI the life style of most strata of Russian society was questioned. In the breakthrough of political reaction that followed the revolution of 1905-1907, when the debates on sexuality, marriage, family, gender were flourishing, the private sphere and lifestyle became the arena of contemplation and experiments. It was accompanied by the debate on drinking as part of the debate on poverty - heavy drinking was seen as an inevitable part of the lifestyle of the lower classes and a universal technique of stress or deprivation management. Thus it was argued that social prosperity could cancel or normalize drinkmg. At the tum of the century heavy drinking was discussed as a social problem - the opium of those who were deprived. This was also the time of temperance movements all over the world. This movement occurred at the same time that the state vodka monopoly was imposed in Russia in 18901991 as an instrument for more tax revenue. Temperance movement proponents were the govemment, the church, and feminists who organized temperance societies. At the antialcohol Congress of 1909-1910 a work- ers' delegation endorsed the propaganda of sobriety and not that of moderation. Ory law was accepted in Russia briefly in 1914, 1919, and 1922. In the Soviet times, hard drinking and alcoholism were for long considered to be avestige of capitalism. Levin periodizes the Russian-Soviet public discourse on alcoholism which could be a good guideline for other researchers on the subject. The obvious criterion for this periodization is the change in general CPSU politics, that is, the change in politicai leadership. The state vodka trade monopoly was reestablished in Soviet Russia in 1925. At the 14th CPSU Congress Stalin declared: "We have to make a choice between debt slavery and vodka". The argument of the Communist govemment was that it's better to sell vodka to people than to borrow gold from the West. Since then vodka has been the symbol of national autonomy. It is sold not only domestically but has been one of the few exported national products. Still today, on the level of everyday life, what do people expect to bring from Russia as a present? A botde of vodka. The state vodka monopoly paid the costs of industrialization. As a consequence, one can imagine the whole bunch of popular coping strategies for res is ting the state monopoly - moonshine production was especially common in spite of the law prohibiting it (1925). The antialcohol campaign was one of the signs of in dustrialization. This was a facet of the state policies for pressing the Soviet-type urban life-style on recent migrants from impoverished villages. However, in the 1930s the Russian Temperance Society ceased to exist. As well as other voluntary associations it followed the logic of the transmission helts of the CPSU policy. Levin emphasizes that in the 1980s the protagonists of sobriety were two Russian right-wing nationalists, Uglov and N. Zhdanov. Two main positions can be identined m the discussion: forced-sobriety adherents, and moderates. Ouring the antialcohol campaign launched by Gorbachev (1985), only prosobriety publications on alcohol consumption appeared in the mass media. Open criticism of ehe reform was allowed only afrer 5 years of rigid censorship. In 1993, a presidential decree restored the state alcohol monopoly, but it remained a dead letter. In 1994, reform of the fairly punitive treatment system for problem drinkers was declared, but the practical consequences of this are still unseen. NORDISK ALKOHOL· & NARKOTIKATIDSKRIFT VOL 16, 1999 ( I) 1 129 The empirical data The analysis of the discourse on Russian drinking is only an introduction to the most interesting part of the book; the representation of the empirical data and the interpretation of the drinking patterns and trends of the 1990s. It is important to emphasize that this research is among the first that provides sociologicaIly relevant empirical data on Russian drinking. The sample consisted of 993 persons. For research purposes a quantity-frequency-type consumption measure was constructed on the basis of the data on beverage-specific drinking frequency and beverage-specific intake per occasion. The researchers used indicators of the following type: beverage preferences, level and frequency of intoxication, numbers and motivation of abstainers, drinking occasions, etc. Another body of empirical data comes from the 1994 Moscow drinking habits survey and from the 1991 Finnish survey, used for the comparison of negative and positive drinking (Ch.6, H. Mustonen). Mustonen emphasizes that differences in the estimation of the positive and negative consequences of alcohol consumption are indicative of cultural differences between Finnish and Russian drinkers. The posi130 I tive consequence of Russian drinking is that it makes peopIe more optimistic about their lives. Finnish men report that drinking helps them to be more social. Muscovites seem to worry comparatively little about their personal drinking, although health problems related to drinking are very common. Russian men more frequently experience work-related social reactions to drinking than Finnish men, which is connected with the Russian habit of drinking at work. One explanation for the fact that the "heavy drinking - less worries" pattern is more popular among Russian people can be that they do not consider their drinking a problem until it is a really serious one. The myth on heavy drinking in Russia also helps to underproblematize drinking habits. The effect of age is stronger for positive than for negative drinking experiences. Certain drinking experiences are more characteristic for one phase of life than for another. For example, young people in Moscow more often reported that drinking facilitates their private life outside home. For older peopIe, the positive effects of drinking are connected with their work and family life. One cannot estimate whether these differences are caused by a generational shil-t NORDISK ALKOHOL, & NARKOTIKATIDSKRIFT VOL 16,1999 ( I ) or by differences in the lifecyde period. This question calls for other research focused on the generational shift. Anyway, these findings bring into question the condusion drawn from other survey results, according to which there are no evident age differences in Russian drinking habits. It can be argued that differences in the meanings of positive and negative consequences of drinking bring about differences in drinking habits. On the basis of the discourse analysis and the survey data the researchers condude with two major demystifications: 1) standard procedures of describing drinking patterns in other industrialized societies work also in the analysis of drinking in Russia; 2) Russian variations in sociodemographic categories and drinking occasions are similar to those found for other industrialized countries. The major facts of the mythology of Russian drinking are confirmed by the research. Russia is among the top countries in the world in alcohol consumption, with 13-15 litres of absolute alcohol per capita consumed per year. Men drink, on the average, very high quantities per occasion, and mostly vodka. The condusion drawn by the authors is as follows: "Russia is still a spirits-dominated country and the position of vodka is not seriously challenged, neither by beer nor by wine". Heavy drinking per one sitting is believed to be an essential part of the stereotyped national identity in both Finland and Russia. However, average alcohol intake in Russia is ewo-fold compared to that in Finland. On the other hand, the prevalence of daily drinking in Russia is very low compared with that in most other industrialized countries. Russia thus belongs to the category of those mostly northern countries where infrequent drinking goes hand in hand with a high frequency of occasions of high intake. Russia is the country of "zapoi" , and we should pay special attention to that. Russians drink mainly at the workplace or at home (with their own or with guests). The work place is an imporcant setting for drinking habits. They seldom go to cafes or parties. Russian drinking lacks differentiation beeween weekends and other days of the week. The drinking patterns are similar for all age groups but the meanings given to drinking differ. Women drink less than men, or say that they drink less, and they are reported to be much more moderate than Western (Finnish) women in their drinking. Russians do not consider their drinking to be pro blematic. They feel it is the specialists and foreign observers who problematize it. Russians realize that health problems are connected with heavy drinking, but worry about neither their health nor excessive drinking. The main worry is drinking at work, though they do not give it up. Probably drinking at the work place is an escapist reaction against the controlover drinking as a private behavior. A drinking person is subject to state control: he can be taken to the sobriety station, will pay fines, and the information will be sent to his employer. As areaction his status could change, etc. All these condusions are well grounded and fit with common knowledge about Russian drinking. However, I would again like to pay attention to the methodological difficulties of the research. There are differences in the results from the different data sets. The difficulties in comparing results are well recognized by the researchers, but they do not offer a remedy for them. Further research The study formulates questions for the research agenda. One of the topics in need of furcher research is women's drinking, i.e., the low level of alcohol consumption of women. It could be an indicator of the gender cultute in Russia, which still emphasizes aspects of traditional femininity, like chastity, modes ty, and similar features. The social differences in drinking also demand specific attention. I believe that major changes in drinking habits are connected with stratification processes, presuming a diversification of life styles. Anything that is published is soon obsolete because of the exhaustive tempo of socioeconomic stratification. The question is how changes that have occurred since 1994 have reshaped drinking patterns. The data from the biographical research on heavy drinking conducted by Elena Chikadze and the author of this piece reveals new patterns and habits of drinking in the new milieu; we see how former hopeless drunkards sometimes turn into adherents of the temperance movement and former moderate drinkers turn into drug addicts. We can observe how changes in the political economy - the private sector - establish working schedules that destroy the well-known pattern of Russian drinking at the work place. Expensive spirits, beer culture, fine wines, and cheap and poorquality drinks are differentiated along social deavages. These qualirarive change~ in NORDISK ALKOHOL- & NARKOTIKATIDSKRIFT VOL . 16 , 1999 ( I) [ 131 drinking patterns and in the meanings of drinking are difficult to catch with survey methods. This demands approaches that use the finer methods of qualitative research. One major remaining question is: what are the consequences of the transformation and of the liberal political and market reforms for the Russian drinking culture? Is it enduring or does it undergo crucial changes? The authors argue that present-day living conditions have weakened the opportunities for traditional ritual drinking, but at the same time motivation for escapist and rebellious outburstdrinking has become stronger. Drinking cultures are believed to be very persistenr. However, I would say that it is imporrant also to see the changes in drinking and to focus attention on the differences in drinking in different 132 / social strata. Another issue which I believe needs further clarification, and which is important in the framing of drinking repertoire practices and meanings, is the influence of politi cal opportunities. These can be reconstructed through the analysis of ordinary alcohol control practices. Sobriety stations, sanctions at work places, fines, CPSU meetings, clinics for alcoholics all these institutions are now undergoing changes and thus drinking patterns are also changing. How much do es social controlof drinking change, and how do these changes influence drinking habits? What are the new oppoftunities for and the new barriers to drinking? While alcoholism as a biomedical/social phenomenon is a serious and tragic problem in Russian polity, drinking as a performative/narrative phenome- NORDISK AlKOHOl- & NARKOTIKATIDSKRIFT VOl 16,1999 ( I ) non offers, according to N. Ries, endless possibilities for the elaboration of ironic resistance to the mundane, practical disciplines of family, community, and state. Overall, this book is interes ting, informative, and inspiring. Still, the reader is lett wanting more answers. The demystification project should be continued with the help of qualitative research, as mass survey methods are difficult to use for a demystification research design. The myth-producing capacity of any text, especially a sociological one, that claims to be scientific is beyond consideration here. Demystification can always be utilized as a dratt for another myth or reinforcement of the same myth. But, as noted earlier, also figures and tab les are extremely powerful instruments for such myth production. Elena ldravomyslova