Which of the kings caused the greatest damage to the economy.
We live in a world of myths. Including historical ones. For some reason, the most popular kings among us are considered the most economically insolvent.
After Catherine II - even a flood
It is customary to call the reign of Catherine II brilliant. This is judging by the conquests, magnificent palaces and modern television series. But there is also a downside. Under "Mother Catherine" serfdom flourished. The people lived under the most severe oppression - as under Peter I. But if he radically reformed the country, then the "enlightened empress" simply lived for her pleasure, bathing in luxury. And for 34 years of reign, she literally brought the country to the handle.
The cost of maintaining her yard was 10 percent of the state budget, exceeding, for example, the cost of the fleet. Another 40 percent was spent on the so-called internal management (in practice, this meant the maintenance of the bureaucratic apparatus that had grown greatly under Catherine) and on various measures to knock out taxes from subjects (the fiscal oppression on the peasantry was growing, the collection rate was falling, and, accordingly, the costs of tax authorities on knocking out "tribute"). Only 2 percent (!) Of these very expenses "on internal management" went to the development of communications, construction and other useful things.
Catherine increased the levies from the population by 242 percent. But she reduced customs duties on foreign goods. To the delight of foreigners. Moreover, they imported mainly goods for high society. Imports held back the development of Russian industry. Like serfdom, the factories lacked workers. Under Catherine, mining fell into decay. The introduction of machines at enterprises was not encouraged.
Today, when banking capital rules in Russia, it is customary to sing the praises of the Empress, who started issuing paper money. At first it really played a beneficial role - there was no longer the need to carry carts with monetary "cash". But soon the government turned on the printing press, and the further, the more it was abused, which led to the depreciation of money and dire consequences for the state.
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Since 1769, Catherine II began to borrow abroad (which, for example, Peter I never did and was proud of). I took more and more.
For a time the situation was softened by successful wars. After the partition of Poland, an economically developed region became part of the Russian Empire. The conquest of the Crimea and the Black Sea region led to the development of new fertile lands - Russia began to export grain. And the indemnity received from the defeated Turkey made it possible to settle accounts with foreign creditors for a while.
However, despite these successes, the country continued to slide into debt. Only in the first five years of the reign of Catherine II did treasury revenues exceed expenditures. Then things got worse. The ruinous trip of the empress to the Crimea alone in 1787 with her three thousand entourage, when a separate traveling palace was built for each overnight stay on the way, made a huge gap in the budget: the cost of maintaining the courtyard that year increased by about 1/6, and this is not considering the huge amounts previously allocated to the receiving party - Potemkin.
In the country that exported bread, famine broke out every now and then. Officials began to delay salaries, the state stopped paying bills. Catherine the Great died, leaving Russia in a severe economic crisis - with an empty treasury, internal and external debt of 205 million rubles (which amounted to three annual budgets of the empire).
Paul I wanted the best …
Paul I tried to pull Russia out of debt bondage. And although he did not rule for long, he still managed to carry out several reforms that were positive for the economy. They mainly concerned the relief of the plight of the peasants. The unloved son of the "crazy empress" forgave the arrears on the capitation tax as much as 7 million rubles, which was 1/10 of the annual budget. Reduced the price of salt (it used to have an indirect tax, like the price of gasoline today). He forbade the sale of courtyard people and landless peasants under the hammer, transferring them to someone else's jurisdiction, dividing families. But most importantly, he regulated the corvee. Now the peasant could work for the landowner only three days a week, whereas before he did it almost daily.
Paul, like Peter I, stimulated the domestic industry by providing it with benefits, subsidies and government orders, while prohibiting the import of a number of foreign goods. He encouraged the mechanization of production. And also the transition of the peasants to the merchant class. It was under Paul I that the serf peasant Savva Morozov, who worked as a weaver, opened his workshop and became the ancestor of the famous dynasty of capitalists.
The Savva Morozov manufactory appeared under Paul I.
Under Paul I, new enterprises were opened, but the economic miracle did not work out. The tsar knew nothing about trade and finance. Criticizing Catherine for the uncontrolled issuance of paper money and publicly burning banknotes at the Winter Palace, a year later he issued about a third of the amount that had been printed under his mother in 27 years. And, like her, he began to take loans abroad. But in reality Paul undermined the Russian economy by entering into a fight with England. In November 1800, he banned the import of British goods, and in December - the export of Russian goods to England. The measure was disastrous. After all, England was a key trading partner: it bought a third of Russian agricultural products. The insistent recommendation to develop Asian markets did not have any success. And when Pavel found out that Russian goods illegally still end up on the hated island through Prussia,the latter also came under economic sanctions. But the merchants found other loopholes. Therefore, on March 11, 1801, Paul ordered to stop all foreign trade in general. And a few hours after that he was killed …
The result of his economic activity is the same empty treasury.
Napoleon still crushed Alexander I
"The days of the Alexandrovs are a wonderful beginning" - this is how Pushkin characterized the first years of the reign of the new Tsar. Alexander I started well, but ended badly. He, of course, immediately resumed relations with England, and after a while the British again controlled most of Russian foreign trade. In the meantime, the internal problems only grew.
Economic growth was held back by fools and roads. The feudal landlords can safely be called fools: only 5 percent of the farms were engaged in meaningful farming, in the rest, three skins were tore from the peasants. The situation was aggravated by the fact that half of all serfs were owned by about 3 percent of large landowners - representatives of influential noble families: the Yusupovs, Sheremetevs, Golitsyns … And how could you encroach on them? As for the roads, they were not only bad. They were simply not enough for a huge country. Bread from the Volga region came to St. Petersburg only in the second year after harvesting, and officials interfered with the movement along the rivers and canals - they let only ships of large trade speculators for bribes, and the rest of the ships were detained. The tsar ordered the engineer Augustin Betancourt, famous in Europe, from Spain to create new transport routes and put in order the old ones. He founded the Institute of Railway Engineers in Russia, erected ferries, equipped the country's largest Nizhny Novgorod fair. But he did not have time to continue his endeavors: he fell a victim of palace intrigues.
At the very beginning of his reign, Alexander issued the "Decree on Free Plowmen", according to which the peasants could gain freedom by paying a ransom to the landowner. In 1816-1819, the tsar even abolished serfdom. True, only for the Baltic peasants. To reduce the budget deficit, he suspended the issue of paper money and instituted the silver ruble. But all the plans of the tsar-reformer were broken by incessant wars. Napoleon inflicted colossal damage on Russia. He flooded the Russian market with counterfeit rubles, which devalued the national currency. He burned down Moscow - a large center of industry and trade. Russia had to spend a lot of money on the army. All of this has undermined the financial system. Alexander I began to seek funds and tighten the nuts. Transfer the army to self-sufficiency by creating military settlements,where, in their free time from hostilities, the soldiers were engaged in rural labor. Towards the end of his life, the king was so tired that, they say, he even thought about renunciation.
Victor Mazurovsky. * Napoleon leaves the Kremlin *.
Nikolay I - an effective manager
Nicholas I firmly entered the minds of Russians as the executioner of the Decembrists and the strangler of freedom. And yet this is one of the most successful Russian rulers. He relied on free labor. He closed more than 100 factories that used the labor of serfs, reducing their number from 300 to 13 thousand. Under him, machines were actively introduced in industry, and labor productivity increased 3 times. A tough policy was pursued to protect the Russian market - high customs duties on foreign goods remained. There was intensive construction of roads (including the railroad). All of this sparked an industrial boom.
New industries appeared, new domestic goods were produced, even complex ones - for example, steam locomotives. Mechanical engineering has grown 33 times! Nicholas I hardly borrowed money abroad. An attempt was made to put things in order in finances. Paper notes were taken out of circulation, replaced by banknotes, which were exchanged for silver. But after 6 years, the monetary reform stalled. The outbreak of the Crimean War put an end to the free exchange of paper money for silver.
Alexander II - Yeltsin of the XIX century
Tsar-liberator Alexander II from an economic point of view is a complete loser. The Crimean War, of course, seriously affected the economy. But Alexander, by his actions, exacerbated the negative effect of the military defeat. The new tsar turned out to be a great liberal market leader. Almost his entire reign has been a never-ending economic crisis. Alexander II lowered customs duties by an average of 10 times, imports poured into the country and halted industrial growth. The printing press started up, Russia was again mired in foreign loans. The liberation of the peasants did not give the expected effect. Under Alexander II, famine returned to the country, which had not existed since the time of Catherine II.
Only rail transport developed rapidly. But there was no benefit from this. Alexander II gave the industry into private hands, and even guaranteed the businessmen a rate of profit, if not received, the state compensated for the shortage (approximately on the same conditions today in St. Petersburg, for example, the WHSD is operated). Railroad tycoons overstated spending and gorged on government subsidies. This period of history can be compared with the 90s of post-Soviet Russia. A kingdom of timelessness and speculators.
Alexey Korzukhin. * Collection of arrears * (1868).
Economic miracle of Alexander III
"On the square there is a chest of drawers, on a chest of drawers a hippo, on a hippopotamus a moron." This is how the ungrateful crowd spoke about the monument to Alexander III, erected in St. Petersburg in 1909. But this "swindler" performed an economic miracle in Russia. And the success of his reforms by inertia dragged Russia forward even at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Despite the fact that supporters of free trade set the tone in public opinion (much like in Russia in the 90s market liberals), Alexander III was not afraid to pursue a "non-progressive" course with a firm hand. The famous scientist Dmitry Mendeleev was invisibly behind him. He was not only a chemist, but also a strong economist, on whose views the finance ministers of the time - Vysehradsky and Witte - relied on. Mendeleev scientifically proved that the economic successes of England, France, the United States and Germany were preceded by long periods of state protectionism - high customs tariffs and support for their industries. The liberals simply hated the scientist, and called the economic policy of that time "Mendeleevism." For his views, Mendeleev was not elected by his colleagues to the Academy of Sciences. But on the other hand, the industry in the country grew at a record pace. The financial system was stabilized and preparations began for the introduction of the gold ruble.
The railway industry, when the majority of private traders were removed from it, from a loss-making industry "unexpectedly" became profitable. The railway network expanded rapidly.
The state abolished the poll tax, but introduced numerous indirect taxes, including them in the price of goods and products. Monopolized the alcohol trade. The workers began to live better. But the peasants still suffered from the consequences of their "liberation". They paid taxes for their land 8 times more than landlords. These norms, introduced by Alexander II, were retained under Alexander III. In 1891-1892, due to drought, famine broke out in Russia again, which coincided with epidemics of typhus and cholera. And although the economy proved its resilience, having overcome the consequences of a crop failure already in 1893, the disaster suffered sharply increased the degree of discontent and confrontation in society. The economy was growing. But the revolution was approaching.
Author: Vladlen Chertinov