STEFAN PLAGGENBORG

TAX POLICY AND THE QUESTION OF PEASANT

POVERTY IN TSARIST RUSSIA

1881-1905

The relationship between industrialization, tax policy, and the impoverishment of peasants leads directly into the center of economic and social history of all developing societies. The basic situation is simple, as we can see in many countries of the so-called Third World. The government intends to follow a more or less state-sponsored program of more or less rapid industrialization by exploiting inner sources of raw materials and capital accumulation. Foreign loans and direct foreign investments are equally important elements of the country's way to wealth — the governments' stereotype promise to its hesitating population. But instead of attaining sudden fortune many people of those countries slip down the path of poverty. The impoverishment of a big share of the population seems to be the inevitable consequence of industrialization.

Why should consideration of modern countries in transition be given, when the historical case of barist Russia is to be the main object of analysis? The title of the Paris conference where this paper was given was "Economic cultures and economic policies in the Russian Empire and in the USSR, 1 86 1 - 1 956."* The introductory remark wants to demonstrate that the Russian situation cannot be regarded as a singular one. One should keep in mind that Russia at the end of the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century can be considered as a special historical case and as a model of economic development under the conditions of backwardness.1 By comparing the historical matter of Russia with more contemporary examples, we notice very similar problems of capital accumulation from internal sources.2 Taxes then start to play the major role in the development programs of governments. But if we find very similar, from time to time even the same problems and solutions: could we speak of a particular economic culture of economic backwardness? This subject deserves greater analysis and theoretical work than can be possible within the limits of this study.3 But this article might make some initiatory contributions.

First I shall concentrate on economic policies, and give some facts and analyses on the topic indicated in the title. I will not give a detailed description of taxes and tax policy here, because this was done elsewhere,4 but follow more the line of arguments

Cahiers du Monde russe, XXXVI ( 1 -2). janvier-juin 1995, pp. 53-70.