The Noble Servitor and the Petrine State 131of the old territorial division, the district.^54 These men, who replaced the com-
mandants, were as a rule ex-officers of modest means who had been invalided
out of the army.^55 Unlike their predecessors (or the commissars) they were sup-
nne }-' ...... .., .. .... ri tn .. ..., h,. --,. .. 1 .. rtPrl ,. '"""J h" ....... thP .. lnr<ol ---· .......... nnhilit\1 . ......... .I ....... ThP ... tPrm --·-· p(prtinn -----........... (uuhrir) ,~./. ..... , ~hn11lri ....... ___ nnt ...... ..
mislead us. It implied a devolution of responsibility, not a transfer of power,
and both in theory and in fact the landraty were no more than agents of the
governor. Their functions resembled those of Muscovite okladchiki, except
that the duties which they assigned to their fellow-nobles had to do with
military supply, not actual service. Their main job was to supervise and
accelerate deliveries, or more concretely to force suppliers to part with their
produce on terms acceptable to the army authorities. Unfortunately no infor-
mation is available as to the nature of these contracts or the prices paid, so that
we do not know how far the rural counsellors succeeded in this task. They also
organized another census of households, but this had no better result than its
predecessor and the data collected were soon rendered obsolete by the adop-
tion of a new system of. individual assessment, based on the so-called male
'soul' (dusha).
The introduction of the poll tax between 1718 and 1724 was a bench-mark in
that long drawn-out process, the degradation of the Russian peasant. It should
again be stressed that this had more to do with the state's military policies than
with selfishness or greed on the part of the landowning nobility. It needs to be
seen in the context of two other changes that were taking place simultaneously.
The first of these was the quartering of the army on the rural population, termed
by one historian 'a regular assault on their fellow-subjects by over one hun-
dred regiments'.^56 Although the Swedish war had ended Peter was in no mood
to demobilize a force on which his regime depended so heavily for support.
The second change was the introduction of the sub-province (provintsiya) as
an intermediate tier in the hierarchy of local government organs, between the
guberniya and the do/ya or distrikt (as the uyezd was now called). Unlike the
previous reforms, this was a deliberate effort to remould the administrative
structure on rational Western lines, according to the Swedish example. The
Russian provintsiya was designed as the equivalent of the landshovdingdome.
Sweden also seems to have been the model for the quartering of regiments. The
Russian reformers knew of the cantonment (indelta) system whereby the
Swedish Crown assigned land to farmers in return for the obligation to main-
tain a soldier and his family, and the farmers were allowed to use the soldier's
labour when he was off duty.^57 Unfortunately for the muzhik, the introduction
of this reform did not bring him even the modest advantages enjoyed by the
54 PSZ v. 2879 (28 Jan. 1715); cf. Bogoslovsky, Obi. reforma, pp. 48-9; Peterson, Reforms (see
fn. 48) p. 242.
SS PSZ v. 3003 (22 Mar. 1716).
56 Klyuchevsky, Soch., iv. 185; cf. vii. 326.
57 On this system see Nordmann, Grandeur et /iberte, pp. 87-9. Curiously, Peterson makes only
a casual reference to this aspect (p. 268), although he is at pains to emphasize Russia's
indebtedness to Sweden for the local government reform.