The King of Vodka (25 page)

Russia, too, was slipping further and further into disarray. Strikes were more prevalent, due to political unrest and the growing influence of Vladimir Lenin. While in exile, he wrote his seminal piece titled
What is to be Done
, a pamphlet that out
lined the framework for a revolutionary organization. At about the same time that Vladimir was dueling with his wife, Lenin founded the Bolshevik Party. From afar, he helped organize one of the largest industrial strikes of the time. It began in Baku, Azerbaijan, and spread to Ukraine and other southern regions, ultimately encompassing more than 200,000 workers. They issued leaflets, demanding not only salary increases and shorter workdays but also an end to the autocracy.

Of course, the Romanovs still occupied the Imperial Palace and the tsar was going nowhere. He did, however, conclude that it was time to end the tenure of Russia's minister of finance, Sergey Witte. Witte had been increasingly under attack within the tsar's inner circle and among the conservative nobles for causing the country's economic woes. They believed the nation's industrial growth was too tied to Witte's aggressive notions of state-sponsored capitalism, which among other things depended too much on foreign investment and not enough on reforms within the enormous agrarian economy. He also championed a series of unpopular, seemingly liberal policies that few if any members of the Imperial Court backed, such as support for the Jews and the granting of more civil and economic rights to the peasantry. Witte simply had made too many enemies during his time, and with the economy sagging, his critics went on the attack.

On August 3, 1903, the tsar called Witte to his office. After some customary discussions, he removed him from his ministry post and installed him as the largely powerless head of the Committee of Ministers, which functioned as an advisory group to the tsar. The departure of Witte, known to some as the “father of Russian capitalism,” left a void within the tsar's cabinet. The Western influence he brought to business policies, along with the conviction he poured into industrialization, were waning, leaving a lasting impact on his motherland. “Not all elements of the Witte system came to an end with their author's
fall…. But gone was the industrial tycoon's zeal and experience, gone the passionate plea to make rapid industrialization the order of the day. Witte's successors were again products of the bureaucracy.”
³

It is difficult to know how focused the Smirnovs and others within their sphere were on Witte's fall or on the other troubling developments of the day. A wide swath of the aristocrats, statesmen, and prominent merchants had no clear grasp of what these happenings signaled about their own futures. But they would soon pay for that naïveté.

W
ar can be like a mirror. Within its triumphs and failings, leaders see a truthful reflection, an unadulterated and penetrating view of what got them there in the first place—and a sense of what must be done to move beyond the stark realities. In the aftermath of the Crimean War (1854–56), Tsar Aleksander II saw an image he did not like. He could no longer deny his nation's economic, technological, and societal shortcomings, which were exposed by a spectacular loss of human life and the embarrassing snafus of the conflict. The emancipation of serfs followed, along with numerous other reforms, all aimed at reinvigorating and modernizing Russia.

In the early twentieth century, Tsar Nikolay II would face a similar predicament. He did not want to see or acknowledge the depth of discontent surging through his countrymen, but as the country edged closer to war with Japan over Korean and Chinese territories, he would be left with no choice. Combat began in earnest on
February 8, 1904, when Japan launched a surprise attack on Russia's Far Eastern fleet harbored in the Port Arthur naval base. Despite the initial drubbing, the monarchy was confident about its position, certain it would handily defeat Japan and hopeful that it could then use the victory to subdue the burgeoning anti-autocracy movement. As the conflict wore on over the next eighteen months, it became increasingly clear this would not be the hoped-for outcome. Russia was routed on land and at sea, with enormous casualties for both sides. The now-legendary mutiny aboard the battleship
Potemkin,
which began as a protest over the quality of food in the mess hall, became a prophetic symbol of the resentment raging throughout the military ranks and among civilians—before, during, and after the war.

Russia's loss was devastating. The economy stalled as resources were diverted in order to fund the fighting. People suffered, too, with many losing their jobs, unable to scrape together enough money to cover basic needs. Even the tsar himself was a victim of the war. Public opinion about his government soured further, feeding into the heated rhetoric of revolutionaries. “That war, and especially its glaringly unsuccessful conduct and the resulting national humiliation, served to raise the level of political unrest in almost every layer of society and within every political grouping, pushing Russian political dialogue several degrees to the left,” wrote one historian.
¹

The war underscored all that ailed Russia, from poverty to unemployment to a lack of workers' rights to estrangement of the classes. It also highlighted the nation's dependence on vodka sales to fill its coffers. Former Finance Minister Witte, who had somewhat resuscitated his career by negotiating an end to the conflict with Japan, spoke out on behalf of many who agitated that increased liquor consumption—and the rising cost of vodka—had helped bankroll the failed war and other unpopular government initiatives. The comments may have been self-serving since Witte had actively advocated for the monopoly as
a way to curtail excessive drinking, but they were backed up by striking evidence. During Witte's tenure, per capita consumption between 1893 and 1903 remained relatively static. But in 1904, after the start of the war, it began a steady climb, a progression that critics claimed proved that the state wanted its subjects to drink more. Witte did not temper his views, arguing that the new finance minister, Vladimir Kokovtsov, “directed his attention to the monopoly chiefly from the point of view of profits, to extract maximum returns from the reform…. The decrease in drinking was not and will not be a task of the officials, but an increase in the profits from the sale of alcoholic beverages will remain their goal.”
²
Cartoons later appeared in publications featuring the tsar getting rich off his drunken subjects.
³

The hypocrisy was not lost on sympathizers of the revolutionary movement or other disgruntled citizens, some of whom decided to make a political statement out of the monopoly's two-sided agenda. In tandem with other antigovernment strikes and protests, small groups of peasants and laborers organized liquor boycotts in urban neighborhoods and villages. They abstained from drinking vodka or patronizing state liquor shops to cut into the government's revenue stream. The boycotts sometimes turned ugly as riots broke out, destroying state liquor outlets.
⁴
Other protests were more contained yet also effective. In one St. Petersburg district, for instance, women who were the wives or relatives of disaffected men banded together and forced the closure of all state-run liquor shops and inns.
⁵

The tsar may not have wanted to hear the cries of his people or the calls for reform, but they would not be muffled. They reached a crescendo on January 9, 1905, a date that coincidentally would have been Smirnov's seventy-fourth birthday. It was a frigid day; the Neva River was frozen solid and snow blanketed the streets. A metal workers strike in St. Petersburg had occurred some days earlier. The walkout was typical, with demands for higher wages and a reasonable work schedule. But the
charismatic leader of the large Russian Factory and Plant Workers Union, Father Georgiy Gapon, wanted to make more of it. He sensed an opportunity to galvanize thousands of his followers and publicly present the tsar with a petition of grievances and demands. They would ask for civil liberties, democratic freedoms, and improved working conditions. They would also call for an end to the autocracy. “Russia is too great and its needs too varied and profuse to be governed by bureaucrats alone,” the five-page petition stated. “Popular representation is essential. The people must help themselves and govern themselves.”
⁶

In the morning, at least an estimated 140,000 working class men, women, and children gathered in locales throughout the city with the intention of uniting at the Winter Palace, Nikolay II's primary residence. They carried religious icons and portraits of the tsar and his wife to demonstrate their devotion and peaceful intentions. The people sang hymns and patriotic songs. As the demonstrators approached the palace gates, armed guards ordered them to halt. Without weapons of their own, they continued on. Maxim Gorkiy, the great socialist and political activist and author, described the crowds he observed in an essay as a “dark, liquid mass.”
⁷

The leaders of the procession, including Gapon, were only twenty yards from the gates when it is believed that one of the tsar's uncles, Grand Duke Vladimir, panicked and gave the order to fire into the throngs. Pandemonium gripped the terror-stricken crowds. In just a few short minutes, bodies littered the square. Some lay lifeless atop the snow, now stained crimson. Hundreds of others groaned in agony. Elsewhere, near the Neva River, other protesters were shot down in a flurry of gunfire. Few, if any, of the protesters had known that the tsar was away, having left the city a few days earlier.

It would forever be known as Bloody Sunday, an uprising so potent and heart-wrenching that the future of the Ro
manov dynasty, which had ruled Russia since 1613, was left in serious doubt.

 

N
O CORNER OF
the empire could escape the chaos and violence that unraveled faster than a tightly bound ball of string. In 1905 alone, an estimated 14,000 strikes hit the motherland, many massive in scope. In Moscow, a walkout of some 60,000 laborers, or 40 percent of the entire workforce, swept in, pounding local commerce. A railroad strike spread throughout the country, eventually encompassing more than 40,000 miles of tracks. Protests at universities throughout Russia were commonplace, with some students forming voluntary armed brigades. Peasants in rural areas revolted, too, seizing estates, crops, and livestock from landowners. Terrorism raged. Grand Duke Sergey Aleksandrovich, the general-governor of Moscow and another uncle to the tsar, was assassinated by a homemade bomb a little more than one month after Bloody Sunday. He was a staunch conservative and a known supporter of the Imperial Court's most repressive edicts. By the end of 1905, some 1,500 government officials had been slain.
⁸

The Smirnovs had been one of the grand duke's vodka purveyors as well as the tsar's. The family had been linked to the monarchy for decades, loyal subjects and ardent followers. This association, along with their extraordinary wealth and aristocratic lifestyle, made them prime targets for insurgents who increasingly unleashed their fury on those they considered surrogates for the tsar or enemies of the people. In memoirs recorded by his wife, Vladimir explained the unsettling development. “Under the influence of demoralizing, revolutionary propaganda, the people began to despise the ruling classes, capitalists, landowners, and government officials. Having been thoroughly exposed to this propaganda, the people began to
speak out against the ‘exploiters,' attack landowners, and burn their estates. Some of the far-left intelligentsia were involved in terrorist activities, robbed banks, made assassination attempts against individuals who occupied administrative positions. The majority of victims were ministers and governors.”
⁹

Plenty of the victims, though, were like Vladimir himself. His own terrifying accounts of harassment in the wake of the 1905 revolt were indicative of the often spontaneous brutality that infiltrated Russia's cities and towns. One incident occurred at the beginning of what Vladimir thought would be an uneventful trip from Moscow to one of his provincial estates. He had traveled it countless times before, riding in his car, a rare luxury at the time, with his French chauffeur at the wheel.

The event was frightening, but the second attack was far more pointed as it demonstrated the particular threat faced by the Smirnovs because of their family's liquor heritage. It also illustrated the moblike, random nature of much of the rebellious outbursts. A woman had been hit by a tram in Moscow and killed. She was found clutching a bottle of Smirnov liquor. Bystanders assumed her tragic fate transpired because she was
drunk. Whether this was true did not matter, as Vladimir, who had been riding in his carriage near the site of the accident, soon learned:

No reliable tally exists about the frequency of such attacks at the time. Most were probably minor scuffles, noted by few, but these tense encounters were symbolic of an undercurrent, a swelling of resentment among the population and echoed in the media that the wealthiest members of society had somehow acquired their fortunes through the exploitation of workers and consumers. A study of the business elite from 1840 to 1905 found that “it was extremely unusual to find any suggestion in the leading organs of the Russian press that the fortunes of Russia's successful businessmen might have been attributable to business abilities, entrepreneurial initiative, hard work, intelligence, or other such characteristics. In fact, the very idea that Russian merchants and industrialists might be considered good businessmen, capable of showing initiative and working hard, met with frequent and emphatic denials in the press.”
¹²

In this electric climate, the Smirnovs, along with much of the establishment, were like salmon swimming upstream. Despite
their stature, or because of it, they were lumped together with the emperor as perpetrators of the people's woes. Lenin's pronouncements against capitalism and capitalists, as well as those by a number of other revolutionaries, did not help their cause. Nor did the support many merchants openly demonstrated for the principles being promoted by liberals and revolutionaries. For these elite Russians, the situation in their homeland was turning ominous and they wanted out. In 1905 the government reported a surge in the number of applications for foreign passports and a tenfold increase in the passports being issued daily.
¹³
The majority of the requests came from Russia's most prosperous citizens, a telling trend but not a full-blown exodus. Most people, like the Smirnovs, insisted that the tumult would ease and resolve itself.

In the two years that featured war with Japan, Bloody Sunday, and countless other episodes of instability, the Smirnovs did nothing visible to rein in their ostentatious propensities or to minimize their public profiles. If anything, they drew more attention to their largesse. It was as if they wanted to prove to all the naysayers that little fundamental had shifted inside Russia. They still topped the nation's pecking order, the rulers of civil society. Vladimir's flamboyant infatuation with horse breeding and racing was one of the most vivid examples of this sentiment. He owned and operated estates that featured high-profile stud farms, a hobby associated with Russia's nobility and most eminent merchants in the early twentieth century. In addition to breeding, Vladimir raced his own horses. One of his trotters, named
Pylyuga
, a derivative of the Russian word for dust, was among the country's most renowned thoroughbreds. This horse won the prestigious Emperor's Prize in 1909.
¹⁴
The subject of numerous articles in the media as well as a march composed in his honor, the horse won multiple races, netting more than 138,000 rubles ($1.7 million in today's dollars).
¹⁵
Another one of his well-known horses was
Gulyaka Molodoi.
The name, mean
ing “young playboy,” was a testament to his owner's lifestyle. Vladimir basked in the glory of his animals, never shying from the attention it brought to him. It was hardly the kind of undertaking pursued by a doomsayer or someone worried about the future.