U.S.-Soviet quality of life: a comparison - transcript

US Department of State Bulletin, Sept, 1985 by Richard Schifter

The Soviet figure for infant mortality is necessarily an estimate since Soviet authorities stopped publishing infant mortality statistics after 1974 when the rate had risen to 31.9 per 1,000. This rate was already much higher than in any developed Western country. The Soviet Union also has stopped publishing life expectancy figures. The reason why this has been done is obvious enough. The decrease in male life expectancy and the increase in infant mortality in the Soviet Union are historic events. Never before has a developed, industrialized nation suffered a decline in these demographic indicators in time of peace.

The reasons for this decline are even more disturbing for anyone tempted to look to the Soviet Union as a model for social and economic development. Factors such as poor health care, increased smoking, and frequently unregulated industrial pollution are important, but perhaps the most important contributor is alcohol. This would appear to be the view of Soviet authorities themselves.

The Soviet Union leads the world in the per capita consumption of hard liquor. Much of it is consumed in the form of home-brewed moonshine known as samogon. Alcohol consumption in the Soviet Union has more than doubled over the past 25 years. The death rate from alcohol poisoning in the Soviet Union is 88 times the U.S. rate, and alcohol and its effects may be the leading cause of death among Soviet males.

Alcohol abuse in the Soviet Union is not simply a male problem. Alcohol abuse is the third leading cause of illness among Soviet women and is a key factor in both the alarming rise in birth defects and the increased infant mortality rate. By 1980 the net social cost of alcohol abuse in decreased labor productivity in the Soviet Union amounted to a staggering 87%-9% of the total national income.

Much of the heavy drinking in the Soviet Union occurs in the work place. Professor R. Lirmyan of the Soviet Academy of the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Internal Affairs, writing in a 1982 issue of Molodoy Kommunist, reported that 37% of the male work force is chronically drunk. Not surprisingly, drunkenness is the leading cause of industrial accidents.

A poll cited in a March 1984 edition of a Soviet journal, Sovetskaya Rossiya, revealed that half the Soviet population regards drunkenness as the number one social problem in the Soviet Union. Seventy-four percent said they were alarmed over the extent of public drunkenness. These statistics make clear that the Soviet Union now suffers from an alcohol abuse problem of epidemic proportions, serious enough to cause a significant rise in the national death rate.

As I remarked earlier, even the Soviet leadership concurs with this assessment. Vitaliy Fedorchuk, the Soviet Minister for Internal Affairs, interviewed in the August 29, 1984, issue of Literaturnaya Gazeta, candidly acknowledged that Soviet mortality and sickness rates have been on the increase, and he specifically cited alcohol abuse as the cause.

We note with interest that the Soviet authorities only last week announced yet another campaign against the abuse of alcohol. Production is to be cut back, the drinking age raised, and penalties against the manufacture of home brew increased. While it is possible that these measures may meet with some limited success, we note that similar campaigns have always failed in the past. Our suspicion is that alcohol abuse in the Soviet Union will remain an alarmingly serious problem until the Soviet leadership begins to come to grips with the profound social malaise that gave rise to the problem in the first place. In saying this, I do not mean to deny that there are drug and alcohol abuse problems in the United States and in other countries which deserve our serious attention. But I am suggesting that in the Soviet Union we are dealing with a problem of an entirely different order of magnitude.