175 for a fiscal system modeled on Sweden’s simply did not exist. It had already been announced, of course, that the local administration was to function according to the Swedish pattern from January 1720 onward, but as late as February of that year it was unclear to what extent the prescribed system of local administration existed out in the provinces. The kamer-kollegiia claimed, too, that it was unable to perform the duties required of it in light of the delay in the reformof the local administration. In a report written in 1723, Stefan Kochius, the secretary of the college, pointed out that the adopted method of fiscal administration was a simple one, but that it had nonetheless created great problems in its practical application, since it “was not to take place only in the kamerkollegiia, but also in other subordinate organs located throughout the realm, and, in particular, the new system cannot be adopted in the kamerkollegiia as long as the subordinate organs continue to function according to the old usages. It was inevitable that when the local administrative system, that part of the state apparatus in most direct contact with the economic and social realities out in the provinces, began to be set up it would become evident that carrying out the reformin accordance with the Swedish model would be impossible. It was simply impossible to transfer in a mechanical manner a foreign system of administration, itself a product of a long societal development, to a country with an entirely different historical background, and one finds an appreciation of this fact even among some of the Russian civil servants. Aleksei Makarov, for example, insisted that “the regulations for the kamer-kollegiia were not worked out by the councillor Pick on the basis on which they should have been, and to not a little extent they are different from the situation and the law in the Russian empire. Nor did the situation within the Russian fiscal administration improve over the next few years. In 1723 Peter noted: “see to it (that you) give the kamer-kollegiia complete authority {moch) over those who do not make known revenues and expenditures. And if they do not do it, they themselves will be responsible and they will be held answerable. The internal organization and working conditions of the kamer-kollegiia became the subject of the government’s careful attention in that same year. At the bidding of General Procuror laguzhinskii, Stefan Kochius wrote 169 170 ”171 ” 172 ” 173 '•» ZA (no. 54), 63. PSZ, VI, no. 3,500, p. 123; Miliukov, 470. TsGADA, f. 248 delo 58 1. 80. >72 TsGADA, f. 19 delo 8 1. 1. >7* ZA (no. 179), 134; TsGADA, f. 9 otdelenie 1 dclo 33 11. 436—437.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=