... immediately when Gorbachev took office. Between 1985 and 1986, Gorbachev introduced legislation aimed at cutting alcoholism and corruption. These campaigns began on the 5th of April, 1985.2 In May of the same year, this drive to cut alcoholism closed off licenses, reduced hours of sale and raised prices. Production was cut by 50% in the state run factories.3 By 1987 sales of alcoholic spirits were down to 35.7 billion rubles from 51 billion rubles (about 16% of total retail sales) in 1984.4 Whilst it may seem the policy was successful, it deprived retail outlets of billions of rubles and was not a popular policy with the people. The system was destined to fail, and the campaign was abandoned in 1988, prompting alcohol sales to increase by 39% the following year. The second stage of the reforms took place between 1987 and 1989. These were not economic reforms, instead they were more ...

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