282 shtats-kontor-kollegiia, and the revizion-kollegiia—were hampered because the local administrative organs failed to submit the necessary accounts. The result was that it was impossible to establish any reliable calculation or budget for the state revenues and expenditures, which also meant that it was impossible to establish any stable economic base for the maintenance of the military and administrative apparatus. Things even went so far that the army was called upon to expedite matters in the local administrative This section will deal briefly with the practical difficulties which 235 organs. developed when the local administrative reform began to be implemented in 1719. It will also deal to some extent with the developments which finally led to the dismantling of the Petrine provincial administration. The point of departure for this account is M. M. Bogoslovskii’s Oblastnaia reforma from 1902, which must still be considered to be the fundamental study of the local administrative reform of 1719, and on which modern Soviet studies of the subject are largely based. From the depths of the archives, Bogoslovskii brought forth valuable source materials which illustrate the problems that arose when the new administrative system was to be implemented. It seems that the Senate and the kamer-kollcgiia met great difficulties in their attempts to find noblemen suitable for the junior and senior positions in the provincial administration and in their attempts to get those who were appointed to report to their posts. During 1720, the Senate was flooded with reports from the various provinces that the reform had not been put into effect, since the appointees to the several positions had not arrived at their posts. The Moscow guberniia reported in January 1720, for example, that of the officials called for by the reform for its nine provinces, only a “small number have reported (to their posts), and those have not yet commenced their activities. Another problem was that the provincial councillors and their tax collectors often proved unwilling to relinquish the administration of their areas to the provincial chief accountants and the zernskie komissary who had arrived at their posts. They simply continued to perform their duties as if nothing had happened. A telling example of this is provided by the provincial councillor in Uglich, a man named Naryshkin, who refused for a long time to relinquish his position to the new voevoda and to move to laroslavl’, where he himself had been appointed voevoda. The reason for Naryshkin’s persistent refusal to move finally emerged when it w'as discovered that he had embezzled a great deal of money from the state tax revenues. " 23fi 237 2;J5 Bogoslovskii (1902), 313. -•'« Ibid., 71. Ibid., 74.
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