180 kammarkollegium, was established as an independent college under the direct and personal supervision of the absolute monarch. Indeed, the monarch’s personal supervision of the new college was underlined by the addition to its title of the adjective “royal.” The principal function of the new college was to draw up the annual budget. The process of drawing up the budget was also regularized in 1680, thus providing certain guarantees for the payment of salaries to the military officers and civil servants. The fiscal system of the absolutist Caroline state was adopted as a model in the formulation of the Form of Government of 1720, itself a product of a period concerned with fiscal recovery, as had been the fiscal reforms of Charles XI. Article 31 of the new Form of Government stated, among other things, that: in addition, the budget must be drawn up annually and in good time, and the budget for 1696 should In that connection be used as a correction and a basis, and be so ordered that the servants of the crown’s finances and revenues receive their salaries; but the abovementioned budget (of 1696) should not be exceeded or increased unless the king in council (Kungl. Maj:t) and the indispensable service and welfare of the realm demands it. During the reign of Charles XII, civil servants had witnessed the dismantling of the economic system and of the basis for their support. The fiscal crisis had become especially acute during the last years of Charles XII’s reign, and there can be no doubt about whose interests were reflected in the article of the Formof Government of 1720 quoted above. The development of the process of drafting the annual budget during the reign of Charles XI will be dealt with more thoroughly below. To illustrate further that which has been said above, we may quote a memorandum by Heinrich Fick in which he expressed the Importance of fiscal planning and described howthe Swedes drew up their state budget: Everything said above deals with the ordinary budget that is drawn up without fail each year, since not only the salaries of all the ordinary civil servants are determined in it, but also the ordinary annual expenditures and support for the navy and all the fortifications of the border fortresses, for all official buildings, and for all other needs, and without such a clearly formulated foundation and order neither the state budget can be drawn up in orderly manner, nor can the economy of the state be managed and maintained for very long. Muscovite Russia knew no budgetary planning common to the entire realm. The budget-like estimates drawn up throughout most of the seventeenth century dealt only with local administrative areas or separate 189 190 >8» SRF, 105. TsGADA, f. 248 delo 58 1. 93v. 190
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