140 The Warrior Tsar, 1689-1725
slaves (kho/opy) and other dependants hitherto exempt. As Klyuchevsky
showed, this was a major change for the worse, since it created a single class of
bondsmen (krepostnye) whose status further deteriorated. This social cost has
to be set against the economic gain derived from the fact that ex-slaves now
had to earn .;nough to pay their poll tax. Moreover, this economk stimulus was
limited by the way the tax operated. Each community divided up its assessment
in such a way that able-bodied farming peasants paid the share of those (for
example, domestics, children) who did not work the land, so that the former's
obligations were correspondingly increased. On balance Peter's policies may
have fostered labour productivity and a growth in GNP; but as yet we cannot
quantify this, so that Strumilin's fourth point, which may be valid, remains to
be proved.
Whereas Strumilin thought the burden on the peasant taxpayer declined by
1 S per cent between 1680 and 1724, a recent Soviet analyst offers the more
plausible estimate/of a 16 per cent increase; if indire£t taxes are included, and
inflation allowed for, the demands of the fisc rose at least 2 Y2 times.^95 This is
not very different from the doubling of the burden that impressed contem-
porary observers. One of these thought that 'the tsar's army costs him less
than those in other countries'.^96 It was the system whereby taxes were assessed
and collected that was mainly at fault, rather than its drain on incomes (it was
equivalent to about 12 per cent of the annual earnings of a day labourer)^97 -
and this takes us back to the administrative context. Peasant wretchedness was
due less to the malignancy of the fisc or to a breakdown of the economy than
to the militarization of Russian society. This was a major element in Peter's
legacy. Klyuchevsky says at one point that in the measures taken to quarter the
army 'we no longer recognize the victor of Poltava'. Alas, today we recognize
all too well the gifted and idealistic leader who becomes intoxicated with
absolute power and exercises it in tyrannical fashion.
9' Anisimov, 'lz ist. fiskal'noy politiki", pp. 135-9. Cf. id., Podatnaya reforma Petra I:
1111edeniye podushnoy podati 11 Rossii, 1719-1728 gg., Leningrad, 1982, p. 278: 2.7 times.
96 Weber, Das veriinderte Russ/and, p. 28; cf. [Muller]. Nouveaux memoires, p. 64.
97 Strumilin, 'K voprosu". p. 185. This estima1e is based on the assumption that a taxpayer was
responsible for two shares al the flat rate. With dues to 1he landowner, this was 20.5 per cent of
income. For other figures on earnings. see id .• 'Oplata truda', pp. 54-6.