the 1780s of export of surplus grain to the voracious European market, particularly
that of wheat since it was not a staple food for peasants and towns. In the second
half of the eighteenth century Russia’s grain exports, primarily wheat, rose 47-fold.
At the same time, Catherine II maintained pragmatic protectionist policies,
particularly regarding the grain market. From the time of Peter I, export of rye
grain, a staple of the peasant and urban diet, was effectively banned to preserve
domestic stability; Catherine II continued that policy, keeping a vigilant eye on
grain prices and shutting down such exports during times of dearth (as in 1785–6).
Philosophically Catherine’s vision of the ideal society included maintaining social
groups in their given spheres—merchants in trade, peasants in farming—so she
supported small-scale peasant manufacturing rather than opening up the labor
market for industry. In herInstructionof 1767 she wrote,“Agriculture is thefirst
and principal Employment to which a People ought to be incited; the next is the
manufacturing of their own Productions.”Catherine’s successor Paul I reasserted
some state control. He maintained the relatively liberal tariff policies of the 1780s,
kept vigilance over the grain market, and restored ministries for commerce, mining,
and manufacturing.
All in all, the importance of indirect taxes increased over the century. Export
trade receipts rose in Elizabeth’s reign 2.5 times and state income from customs
rose three times with increased demand. By mid-century indirect taxes constituted
more than half of state income, whereas direct taxation had previously been
dominant. By 1762, sources of indirect income included state monopolies, less so
salt and increasingly vodka (about a third of income), customs on import and
export (about a tenth), fees such as leases on state properties, minting, taxes on
industry (about a quarter). By the 1790s, direct taxation accounted for only
30 percent of state income.
SOURCES OF INCOME: DIRECT TAXATION
Even though statistically the share of direct taxation in state revenue fell over the
century (as state deferred to nobility), nevertheless, it constituted a large portion of
state income and a major burden on peasants. Direct taxation was revolutionized by
Peter I with the poll tax. In thefirst years of the Great Northern War (1700–21)
taxation efforts had been chaotic and unsystematic. Peter I demanded that wealthy
lay and church landholders subvent naval construction; he introduced new taxes
(stamp tax on paper, extra tax oniasakpayers, a one-tenth tax, bridge and road tolls,
a new salt tax); he dragooned labor forcibly for projects from shipbuilding in
Voronezh to construct St. Petersburg and the Azov harbor. After Russia’s victory
over Sweden at Poltava in 1709, more systematic solutions evolved: in 1718,
adopting an ideafloated since the 1680s, the household tax was replaced with a
head tax levied on all male taxpayers, rural and urban. Various lower social groups
were folded into the taxpaying ranks (slavery was abolished and slaves became serfs,
Muscovy’s“itinerant people”were declared taxpayers).
Fiscal Policy and Trade 327