How completely teetotal Russia became we read long ago in the _Daily Mail_, to which Mr. Hamilton Fyfe sent this message from Petrograd: Try to imagine all the publichouses in the British Isles closed; all the restaurants putting away their wine cards and offering nothing stronger than cider or ginger ale. That is the state of things in Russia. Strange it seems indeed, yet there is one thing stranger. Nobody makes any audible complaint. Everywhere in Russia it was the same: a nation was made sober by Act of Parliament. “Without a murmur of protest,” said the Moscow correspondent of the _Times_, “the most drunken city in Europe was transformed into a temple of sobriety, and we felt that if Russia could thus conquer herself in a night, there was indeed nothing that might not be accomplished.” And two years later, when the revolution came, we read in the _Times_ this note from Odessa: “Perfect tranquillity continues to prevail here, although for the moment Odessa is practically without police. The satisfactory absence of crime may largely be attributed to the sealing up of spirituous liquors.” We need not be afraid of Drinkless Revolutions. But the truth about Russia is almost too incredible to believe, for it is Prohibition that made the revolution possible; it was stopping drink that set 170,000,000 people free. We will let a business correspondent of the _Times_ give evidence; here is what he said on April 21, 1917: In one respect it must be said that the Reactionaries saw clearly. They always claimed that the Tsar had ruined himself by decreeing the abolition of vodka. None but a sober people could have carried out the Russian Revolution. The police were, on the other hand, the victims of drink. They had seized the vodka at the order of the Government, and had kept plentiful supplies for themselves. Thus the Revolution was in part a struggle between drunken reaction and sober citizens. Sobriety triumphed. The Russian people will not bow down and tie their hands to the thrones of Europe: do we wonder if they scorn our quailing before this trade? Free Russia flings off the dynastic yoke: do we wonder Prohibition Russia is not much impressed by a nation with a Drink Trade round its neck? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Soldier’s Home The things that will be told against this trade when all the truth is known will break the heart of those who read. It is well for us that we cannot know the full truth now; the burden would be too grievous to be borne in days like these. But if you will go into your street, or will talk of these things with the next man you meet from one of our pitiful slums, or will pick up one of those local papers that still have space to print the truth, you will find the evidence close about you.