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Preparations for the Mining Reform in Russia in the 1860s: European Guidelines and Russian Realities

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Abstract

This article analyzes the activity of two commissions, the Mining Commission and the Tax Commission, which functioned in the 1860s under the Ministry of Finance to develop a draft reform of mining and metallurgical legislation of Russia. The role of various factors affecting decision making by members of the commissions is clarified, special attention being paid to the importance of international experience. Emphasis is placed on the views of participants in the discussion regarding the prospects of private entrepreneurship in the mining industry and the use of the experience of Western European countries in addressing the issues of subsurface resource management, taxes, and the organization of state supervision. It is revealed that the proposals of the Mining Commission relied on the rules and institutions already existing in Russia, trying to give them a more European look, while the Tax Commission categorically rejected not only the domestic practices but also international experience if they did not comply with current liberal ideas about freedom of enterprise. The differences in their approaches are explained by the composition of the members of the two commissions. The former, composed of representatives of the higher echelons of the mining department, based its proposed reform on its members’ desire to reconcile the interests of the Treasury and entrepreneurs. To this end, they sought to expand opportunities for private enterprise while preserving professional supervision by a special mining department. The latter commission, mostly represented by mine owners, liberal economists, and the “enlightened bureaucracy,” brought to the fore the interests of entrepreneurs. This resulted in the commission’s focus on the complete elimination of sectoral governance, which was intended to lead to freedom of enterprise. Depending on the attitudes of the Russian reformers to the development of the industry, they made different choices regarding legal and institutional innovations, either accepting or rejecting the European experience. The author concludes that the choice of legal and institutional innovations and the adoption or rejection of European experience depended primarily on the ideas of the Russian reformers about the development of the industry—either with state control or without it.

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Notes

  1. Neklyudov, E.G., Mining Reform in Russia in the Second Half of the 19th–early 20th Centuries: From Conception to Implementation, St. Petersburg: Nestor–Istoriya, 2018.

  2. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, in 23 vols., St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3 “Draft Mining Regulations, Drawn up by a Special Commission” p. 8.

  3. This was a somewhat simplified picture, only in general terms corresponding to reality; for more details, see Grammatchikov, V.A., Mining Legislation and Mining Administration of England, Belgium, France, Austria, and Prussia, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1870; Shtof, A.A., Mining Law: A Comparative Presentation of Mining Laws in Force in Russia and the Main Mining States of Western Europe, St. Petersburg: Tip. M.M. Stasyulevicha, 1896; Abamelek-Lazarev, S.S., The Question of Subsoil and the Development of the Mining Industry from 1808 to 1908, St. Petersburg: Tip. obshchego pechatnogo i oischebumazhnogo dela Slovo, 1910.

  4. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 90–92.

  5. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 92, 93.

  6. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 96, 97, 168–170.

  7. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 4 “Draft Mining Charter, Drawn up by the General Meeting of the Commission,” pp. 149–157, 274–280. This innovation was never introduced in Russia. Disputes about the advantages and disadvantages of freedom to mine continued even at the beginning of the 20th century (Neklyudov, E.G., The influence of mining law systems on the development of world metallurgy: The view of a Ural mine owner, Quaestio Rossica, 2014, no. 3, pp. 229–241). In practice, it was introduced in 1870 only on private lands in the Kingdom of Poland, while in the rest of the empire, accession with its inherent rules for subsoil use was preserved.

  8. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 98–102. The “rule of indivisibility” was preserved in the legislation, but its effect concerned only leasehold districts.

  9. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 245–253. The “rule of indivisibility” was preserved in the legislation, but its effect concerned only leasehold districts.

  10. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 253, 254. The “rule of indivisibility” was preserved in the legislation, but its effect concerned only leasehold districts.

  11. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, p. 254. The “rule of indivisibility” was preserved in the legislation, but its effect concerned only leasehold districts.

  12. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 255–270. The “rule of indivisibility” was preserved in the legislation, but its effect concerned only leasehold districts.

  13. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 4, pp. 345–372. Russia continued to collect the “pood tax” until the beginning of the 20th century, when a trade tax common to all branches of Russian industry was introduced, which also included elements of income taxation. The so-called additional mining tax remained only for leasehold plants.

  14. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, p. 78.

  15. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, p. 69.

  16. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 78–82.

  17. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 3, pp. 298, 299, and others.

  18. Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 36, nos. 36 667 and 36 719.

  19. Proceedings of the Commission Imperially Established to Revise the System of Taxes and Fees, St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova i K°, 1868, vol. 13, part 4, pp. 121–148.

  20. Neklyudov, E.G., Mining Reform in Russia in the Second Half of the 19th–early 20th Centuries: From Conception to Implementation, St. Petersburg: Nestor–Istoriya, 2018, p. 104.

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  1. Institute of History and Archaeology, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia

    E. G. Neklyudov

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Correspondence to E. G. Neklyudov.

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Translated by B. Alekseev

Evgenii Georgievich Neklyudov, Dr. Sci. (Hist.), is Chief Researcher at the Center for Economic History of the Institute of History and Archaeology, RAS Ural Branch.

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Neklyudov, E.G. Preparations for the Mining Reform in Russia in the 1860s: European Guidelines and Russian Realities. Her. Russ. Acad. Sci. 92 (Suppl 10), S910–S915 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1019331622160080

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