MOSCOW (UPI) When a man in a crowd complained recently aboutthree-hour-long lines to buy vodka, Soviet leader Mikhail S.Gorbachev shrugged it off by asking if liquor was a necessity.
For the Communist Party chief, the answer is clearly, "No."
He drove that point home less than a week after his televisedconfrontation with the man by again increasing vodka's price. A pintof Stolichnaya vodka now costs slightly more than 5 percent of anaverage monthly salary.
More than a year after he started his anti-alcohol campaign,Gorbachev shows no sign of easing his drive to reverse centuries ofhard-drinking tradition.
"This process must not be stopped," Gorbachev told residents inthe distant far east of the country. "Maybe someone is displeased.They write letters even to me saying, `You forced us to stand inlines for vodka.' "
But, he continued, "even those who criticize the leadership andgovernment because we have cut back on vodka and are leaningresolutely on drunkards, I think they, too, will understand that itis for their good as well."
According to Gorbachev, the campaign has cut fatal industrialaccidents by 20 percent. Police report crime from drunkenness hasdropped 21 percent, traffic accidents by 27 percent.
The better economic performance so far this year also is seen asa response to tighter discipline at work. There are no liquor storesoperating on the east side of Moscow, where much of the capital'sheavy industry is situated.
"Hard drinking struck a great blow against the entire society,"Gorbachev said. "On the family first of all. And if there was anormal situation in the family, it struck then at production."
The campaign must have been prompted by some alarmingstatistics, although most probably are known only inside the Kremlin.
The Soviet Union is believed to be unique in the industrializedworld in that its citizens have decreasing average life expectancies.
Gorbachev's reference to industrial accidents indicates anothershocking figure. Construction sites showed a steady decline in thenumber of functioning workers as the day progressed.
But in taking on vodka, Gorbachev is attempting to change a wayof life much older than the Soviet Union. Vodka arrived in medievalMoscow about the year 1400, and ever since visitors have commented onthe national predilection for heavy drinking.
Gorbachev has attacked alcohol sales with two weapons.
Supply has been tightened sharply, with sales down an additional35 percent this year from the already slashed production in the lasthalf of 1985.
At the same time, prices have jumped - up 76 percent in one yearfor the lowest-quality vodka, rivalling the new price of 10.20 rubles($14.80) a pint for brands such as Stolichnaya.
As some wine and liquor stores converted to juice andmineral-water outlets, lines grew longer outside the remainingalcohol shops.
Liquor that is available tends to be expensive Soviet champagneand cognac instead of vodka and fortified wines, simultaneouslycutting into consumption and keeping the state income from erodingtoo drastically.
Despite those prices and long lines, people do get liquor. Itis far from clear how much the problem is just hiding rather thandisappearing.
"Today, drinking has changed from public places to apartmentsand hostels and is becoming domestic," G. Negoda, an official withthe Soviet public prosecutor's office, said in a newspaper interview.
His evidence was a "noticeable increase" in the number ofdrunken crimes committed at home, a rise that has paralleled the dropin public offenses.
As with so much of the Soviet economy, constraints on supplyhave produced larger payoffs for sellers in the black market.Penalties are harsher than ever - a man selling watered-down vodkawas sentenced to eight years - but so are the profits.
A young man said a birthday party where everyone arrived withouta bottle turned out to be a great success. "We went out later andbought vodka from taxi drivers," he said.
More ominously, the government newspaper Izvestia complainedthat factory foremen are routinely serving up industrial alcohol toworkers they want to encourage. Not surprisingly, there are manypublished reports of poisoning.
Production of moonshine is unlikely to have declined either,despite official reports of thousands of people surrendering theirequipment for making samogon.
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