146 The Imperial Century, 1725-1825weak post-Petrine regime committed itself to a programme of demilitarization,
was the number of recruits called for in the decree subsequently changed,
evidently because of a policy disagreement among those responsible;^9 and in
the following year the Imperial manifesto contained no specific figure, !h!s
being ieit to the Senate to determine after checking the poll-tax records.^10
These minor exceptions underline the point that the military authorities were
generally able to impose their view of the army's 'needs' upon the monarch
and his or her civilian advisers.
Recruitment was initially the responsibility of the various commissars set up
in the country areas by Peter I; the provincial governors and district voivodes
(who were restored in 1727) exercised a supervisory role. As the army withdrew
from its high-profile role in local government (see below, p. 307), a more
complicated procedure developed. Reduced to essentials, it involved a joint
military-civilian recruiting board, which came to be known as the rekrutskoye
prisutstviye, in each province. This was constituted afresh for each levy, and
was attached to the local fiscal office (Kazennaya palata) once such bodies had
been set up in 1775. The chief member of the board was known as the 'military
receiver' (voyennyy priemshchik). He was a senior military officer appointed
by the War College (from 1801: War Ministry) in St. Petersburg. The donors
had to appear before the board in person along with those men who had been
selected as recruits. The latter were examined as to their physical fitness and, if
deemed acceptable, had their heads shaven, took the oath of allegiance, were
divided into batches, and were handed over to a 'squad officer' (partiyonnyy
ofitser) detailed to escort them to their respective units. The donors were given
an official receipt (zachet, kvitantsiya) for each man handed over. The whole
procedure was not supposed to take more than two to three days and had to be
completed within two months from the day when the decree ordering the levy
was issued.
This bald description does scant justice to the many complex problems
which this procedure created. Who was liable to the levy and who exempt?
How were recruits chosen? Who might substitute other individuals for those
:iesignated, or commute his obligation by a cash payment? Under what condi-
:ions might receipts be issued, and how was fraudulent conduct to be dealt
Nith? All these questions evoked furious argument, and a consequent mass of
egislation-for everyone knew that the stakes were high: a recruit was unlikely
!Ver to see his family again. Enlistment was literally a life-and-death matter for
hose liable to it. This element of finality explains why the authorities were, or
tt least pretended to be, so concerned about equalizing the burden and why
hose selected so often tried to evade their fate. In some cases they were aided
Lnd abetted by their masters or by local officials, while in others they were
eadily sacrificed to the state's voracious appetite for the lives of its subjects.
9 PSZ vii. 4859 (26 Mar. 1726).
10 PSZ vii. 5169, 5195 (29 Sept., 3 Nov. 1727).