DRUNKENNESS IN RUSSIA

Hokitika Guardian, 8 April 1929, Page 5

DRUNKENNESS IN RUSSIA

STRANGE SOVIET SOCIETY

MOSCOW, March 20.

The Moscow Provincial Court has , been unravelling the curious case of a secret society called “ Kabuki,” widen g grew up among the officials and employees of the Building Workers’ U, Union for the sole purpose of promoting drunkenness and other forms of j debauchery. A Japanese theatre of - this name gave some performances in jMoscow last summer, but the society, jj it seems derived its appellation from*-, the first letters of the names of its ringleaders: Karmanov, Budrin, Kasperovitch and Ivanov. J Cases of drunkenness and its fref...« quent accompaniment, embezzlement, •. are not unusual in the lower ranks of the Soviet and trade union officialdom;. . but the 11 accused members seem to ; U have been endowed with a perverted sense of ‘-humour. They-drew ,-up a formal “ iistav ” or oonstitutimv,- ap- - • parent!v as a parody on the rules which govern such organisations as the Com*' munist Party and tire' trade unions. It . included such points as the follow - ing:—

The society is created on a platform of drunkenness.

As members must he registered, only persons who have a good militant record in the cause oif drunkenness and dissipation will he admitted.

The strictest discipline and rules of conspiracy must be observed. •

The regular practice of the members was to go to a restaurant, drink heavily till 2 in the morning, and then adjourn to the headquarters of tho Building Workers’ Union, where further debaucheries would he arranged. Drinking does not go very well with conspiracy, and the facts about the society soon leaked out. The ill-starred wit which made the organisers of the group draw up a set jotf rules will probably. operate -to their disadvantage when the court gives-' its verdict, because Soviet;. judicial authorities have no sense of humour where '(secret socitiees are concerned. >.