220 In this context, of course, it was perfectly natural to devote attention to the auditing of accounts, without which no efficient fiscal administration could be maintained. Chief Procurator P. 1. laguzhinskii had suggested already in 1725, in a memorandum addressed to the Senate, that the revizion-kollcgiia should be reestablished. According to laguzhinskii, the Senate’s auditing office could not command the same respect as could an Independent college. While it was informed when the auditing office had criticisms of some organ’s administration of funds, the Senate was unable to pursue these matters of fiscal control because of its large backlog of important business. Thus, according to laguzhinskii, the simple fact was that no real auditing was taking place. His description of the situation deserves to be quoted at length: The audit has hitherto been entirely nonexistent, since not only have the accounts neither been submitted, audited, nor carried out, but no one has been appointed who could execute that task, and the colleges and chancelleries have proved to be careless in this connection, and this in spite of the fact that, after my special reminders, the accounts were requested from them; it has not been possible, in View of the great amount of state business in the Senate, to demand the submission of the accounts properly in the way they should be demanded; the revenues consist of circa eight millions, and without an audit it is impossible to know to what extent there are any losses. laguzhinskii won support for his suggestion, and in July the Senate Issued an ukaz separating the auditing office from the Senate and establishing it as an independent college “in order that there may be permanent overseeing of revenues and expenditures, was never carried out.^^" With the creation of the Supreme Privy Council, the Senate lost its authority as the supreme executive organ. Supervision of the fiscal administration and of the question as to which changes should be introduced in order to improve the fiscal situation now became the prerogative of the newly formed council. Nonetheless, the Senate did not relinquish the initiative in the matter of the reestablishment of the revizion-kollegiia; instead, it encouraged the council to execute the Senate’s ukaz of July 1725.34« The Supreme Privy Council finally authorized the reestablichment of the revizion-kollegiia in February 1727. The ukaz issued by the council in connection with the reforms to be introduced in the administration as 345 The Senate’s ukaz, however, ” 346 ChOIDR (I860), kniga 4, smes’, p. 272. PSZ, VII, no. 4,753, p. 524; see, in addition, Slany, 215—217. See ViAZEMSKii, 242—243, for the discussion in the prerevolutionary historical literature concerning the ineffectiveness of the Senate’s ukaz. Slany, 215—217. »45 »46 348
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