REGULATION OF TRADE OF ALCOHOLIC DRINKS IN THE TAVERNS AT THE TIME OF THE "COUNTER-REFORMS" OF TSAR ALEXANDER THE III
In the latest decade there activated a discussion of state policy in the sphere of turnover of alcoholic drinks, and there is an active ongoing process of legislative optimization in this sphere. Understanding the historical nature of the Russian mechanism for the legal regulation of trade in the sphere of sales of alcoholic drinks and the general experience of the policy on alcohol in the conditions of freedom of entrepreneurship are important for the formation of the modern concept for the state regulation of alcohol turnover in Russia. In this article based upon the analysis of the legislation of 1881-1894 and the studies of the archive documents, the author presents a Russian legal retrospective regarding the regime for the alcohol trade in the taverns. The policy of Tsar Alexander the III to a great extent continued the great bourgeois reforms of 1860 and 1870, while many scholars tend to evaluate is at being counter-reforms. There was an optimization of legislation in the sphere of alcohol trade and preservation of the excise system for their taxation. These measures were meant to increase the income of the state from alcohol trade to guarantee development of the Russian alcohol industry and rural wine-making on one hand, and fighting the growing alcohol addiction among the population in order to «preserve national sobriety and morals» on the other hand. The author has shown that the search for the new legal solutions in order to achieve the goals of legal regulation of alcohol trade lead the Government of Tsar Alexander the III step by step towards greater and greater limitations in the alcohol trade.