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Government and Industry During the Ministry of Count Kankrin, 1823-1844

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Walter M. Pintner
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Extract

From even before the time of Peter the Great, and down to the present day, Russia has had a tradition of active state participation in manufacturing and extractive industry. However, both the nature and extent of governmental activity has varied greatly in different periods. The purpose of this essay is to determine what place government policy during the twenty-one-year term of Count Egor Kankrin as minister of finance (1823-44) has in this long-standing “mercantilist” tradition. Both Kankrin and Nicholas I, who usually followed Kankrin's advice on economic policy, were unquestionably conservative in matters of political and social policy, but there is no necessary connection between the political views of Russian rulers and their attitude toward industrial development. Men as different in political outlook as Peter the Great, Witte, and Stalin all favored vigorous state action of one sort or another to promote industrial development, but none of them were political liberals.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1964 , pp. 45 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1963

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References

1 There was, of course, some legislation dealing with the labor force. In 1835 the first Russian law on labor relations was enacted, and in 1840, after long discussion, a statute was issued to permit the dissolution of the obsolete “possessional” factories. The labor relations law was generally ignored and soon completely forgotten. The “possessional“ factories had long ceased to be of major economic significance. On the labor law see, pp. 123-40

2 Born and educated in Germany, Kankrin (in German, Georg Cancrin) came to Russia as a young man in 1797, rose to the rank of general in the quartermaster corps during the Napoleonic wars, and was appointed minister of finance in 1823 through the influence of Arakcheev. There is no satisfactory biography, the most extensive being

3 The administration of state lands was removed from the Ministry of Finance in 1836 and turned over to a new ministry headed by Count Kiselev, who carried out a significant program of reforms. Nicholas I had repeatedly but unsuccessfully urged Kankrin to act in this matter. It is noteworthy that in all of the three major instances in which Nicholas overruled Kankrin: on the reform program for state lands (1836), on railroad construction (1835), and on the monetary reform (1839-43), it was always Nicholas who wanted action and Kankrin who favored the status quo.

4 Kankrin studied at Giessen and possibly at Marburg between 1790 and 1797. On economics at these institutions see Stieda, Wilhelm, Die Nationalökonomie als Universitätswisssenschaft (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 222–23 Google Scholar. On Kankrin as an economist see Wilhelm Roscher, “Uber die deutsch-russische Schule der Nationalökonomik,” Berichte über die Verhandlungen der königlichen sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaft zu Leipzig, XXII (1870); and Hans-Jürgen Serafim, “Die deutsch-russische Schule, eine kritische Studie,” Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomik und Statistik, Vol. CXXII, Ser. 3, Vol. LXVII (1924).

5 fond 560, optis' 38, delo 213 list 82. Archival material hereafter cited as The titles given are descriptive and not part of the formal citation.

6 pp. 87-88 Aus den Reisetagebüchern des Grafen Georg Kankrin…, ed. Graf Alexander Keyserling (Braunschweig, 1865), I, Supplement II, pp. 92-93, hereafter cited as Rtb. The was prepared in 1840 for the use of Kankrin's aide and eventual successor, Vronchenko, while Kankrin was on an extended leave in Western Europe. A photocopy of this unpublished manuscript is available in the Harvard College Library. The second document is Kankrin's final report submitted to the tsar at the end of 1843, very shortly before his resignation.

7 The largest of these exceptions was a loan of 80, 000 silver rubles made in 1827 to a French entrepreneur to establish a silk spinning mill in Georgia. The project was shortlived and a total failure and can hardly have encouraged Kankrin to modify his attitude toward industrial loans. The Demidov mining interests received 1, 750, 000 rubles in 1832, even though 5, 884 of the 7, 005 serfs offered in security were on state land. Kankrin justified this on the grounds that it was necessary to save the plant from abandonment. There were less than half a dozen other substantial industrial loans made during Kankrin's administration. In addition, a dozen or so small loans were made each year, largely to victims of natural disasters. The total amount varied sharply, but from 1826 through 1838 it only once exceeded 25, 000 rubles (assignats). From 1839 through 1843 the total was close to 60, 000. On the silk fiasco see M. K. f. 560, op. 38, , d. 226 III, No.9 (1866), pp. 12-13 On the Demidov Loan in ll. 194-95. The other information on loans is from the annual , f. 560, op. 38 each year's volume has a different delo number.

8 The Sokhrannye kazni were credit offices attached to orphanages in St. Petersburg and Moscow. On their history see , (Moscow, 1958), pp. 119-21.

9 (St. Petersburg, 1881), Part I, pp. 319-29, hereafter cited as ATC.

10 Ibid., pp. 343, 352-53.

11 Ibid., pp. 353-54.

12 Ibid., pp. 365-66.

13 ibid., pp. 367-70;. pp. 185-90.

14 No. 1, 1825, pp. i-ii; f. 560, op. 38, d. 213, ll. 81-82.

15 p. 191.

16 f.560, op. 22, d. 49, 1828 Unfortunately, there is no indication of the critic's identity in the documents preserved. He must have been a high government official because he felt free to criticize Kankrin harshly and had access to confidential documents. This transaction, like all other financial matters, was secret and not a matter of public record.

17 560, op. 38, d. 117, 1830, l.35. Kankrin's views are expressed in his comments on this anonymous project, submitted to the tsar and referred to the minister of finance.

18 583, d. 232, l. 420.

19 In 1823 the Loan Bank provided 12, 550, 000 silver rubles of credit to the gentry, or about 14 per cent of the estimated total; in 1833, 35, 940, 000, or about 18 per cent, and in 1843, 52, 710, 000, or 16 per cent. The remainder came from the Sokhrannye kazni in Moscow and St. Petersburg and to a limited extent from the provincial Prikazy obshchestvennogo prizreniia, pp. 2-3.

20 In 1823, 10 per cent of the total state debt was owed to the Loan Bank, by 1844, 31 per cent of the much larger total debt. (St.Petersburg, 1884), Table 17, p. 25 of the appendix; pp. 2-3.

21 The economic effect can be compared to the sale of U.S. Government Savings Bonds to the public, because the predominant source of bank deposits was private savings.

22 Vol. II, d. 85, 1842-43, « ll 8-9, 15-16; Rtb., Suppl. II, p. 63; , f 560, op. 38, d. 213, 11. 91-92.

23 No. 7, 1827, p. 158.

24 Ibid., No. 1, 1825, pp. i-ii.

25 pp. 4-5.

26 pp. 232-33, 241-44.

27 (St. Petersburg, 1902), I, 216.

28 See item already quoted from ATC, pp. 365-66; No. 1, 1825, pp. i-ii; also f 560, op. 38, d. 213, ll81-82.

29 Rtb. I, Suppl. II, pp. 92-97.

30 Im Ural und Altai: Briefwechsel zwischen Alexander von Humboldt und Graf Georg von Kankrin aus den Jahren 1827-1832 (Leipzig, 1869), p. 39

31 3, 7-8, 27-30.

32 No. 4, 1840, pp. 15-16.

33 (1828-1928) (Leningrad, 1928).

34 No. 5, 1837, Sec. I, pp. 411-17, and No. 4, 1840, pp. 40-42; , 560, f. op. 42, d. 3, 1828, » l. 4; l. 560, op. 38, d. 297, No. 6, 1836, Sec. I, pp. 126-27; Im Ural und Altai, pp. 19-32.

35 , No. 10, 1828.

36 ibid., No. 5, 1829, pp. 20-23.

37 (St. Petersburg, 1833).

38 I. 16

39 Quoted by pp. 231- 32.

40 [Kankrin, ], Die Oekonomie der menschlichen Gesellschaft und das Finanzwesen (Stuttgart, 1845), p. 243 Google Scholar; , f. 560, op. 38, d. 354, ll. 30-31; Rtb., I, Suppl. II, pp. 66-67.

41 (St. Petersburg, 1886), pp. 209-15; Nolcken, Michael Herman von, Der russische Finanzminisler Graf Georg Kankrin und seine Handelspolitik (Riga, 1909), pp. 39–43 Google Scholar.

42 , f560, op. 38, d. 449, I. 43; B. H. II, No. 1 (Moscow, 1916), p. 481.

43 p. 75.

44 , f. 560, op. 22, d. 58, I 13.

45 (St. Petersburg, 1901-3), IV, 173, 187; VI, 56, 61, 230, 237.

46 f.560, op. 22, d. 58, 1830, l. 16.

47 pp. 95-96; for Kankrin's general views on the subject see [Kankrin, ], Weltreichthum, Nationalreichthum, und Staatswirtschaft oder Versuch neurer Ansichten der politischen Oekonomie (Munich, 1821), p. 103 Google Scholar; and Die Oekonornie …, pp. 60-61, 166-69, 212, 218.

48 (St. Petersburg, 1902), II, pp. 204-5; ATG, pp. 645-48.

49 The literature on the spirits revenues is extensive, the basic source being, (St. Petersburg, 1860), I, esp. pp. 84-85, 98-102, 114-21, 132-33. On the salt revenues, I, 304-7; Rtb. I, Suppl. II, p. 92. On the tobacco tax, (St. Petersburg, 1912), p p. 7-10; Rtb. I, Suppl, I I , p. 75.

50 XXXI (1881), p. 79; Kankrin, , Weltreichthum …. p. 159 Google Scholar.

51 Weltreichthum..., pp. 8-10.

52 Kankrin, Die Oekonomie …, p. 62.

53 In ibid., p. 205, he notes that, “In Slavic lands the landowners have in general a greater tendency to live beyond their means [than elsewhere].“

54 ll30-31.

55 f.560, op. 38, d. 117, l. 23.

56 Rtb. I, 23, 141, 216; II, 15, 31.

57 (St. Petersburg, 1902), I, 5-14.

58 Rtb., I, 21\.

59 M. K. (Moscow, 1959), pp. 377.

60 Quoted in …, p. 178.

61 ll95-96; Kankrin, , Die Oekonomie …, p. 243.Google Scholar

62 Rtb. I, Suppl. II, p. 96.

63 , p. 90.

64 Kankrin, , Weltreichthum …, p. 112 Google Scholar.

65 The monetary reform of 1839-43 is no exception to this statement.