ABSTRACT
Social philosopher Jürgen Habermas has described "the public sphere" as the domain in which public opinion can be formed, and the political public sphere as that area where public discussion concerns objects connected with state practice. He further contends that it is a "claim to power" where this discussion is ideally directed at the principle of established usage with the aim of transforming that usage. This chapter discusses military temperance in the commission for combatting alcoholism. The war with Japan revealed that Russian society was more concerned with alcoholism in the military than the War Ministry. The issue of alcoholism in the military receded into the background until the outbreak of the Great War. The Alcoholism Commission, the temperance press, nor the All-Russian Anti-Alcohol Congress held in December-January of 1909–1910 addressed the subject during this period – although Chelyshev used the Duma rostrum to excoriate Naval Ministry estimates for 1908 because they provided increased revenues for the fleet's vodka ration.
