States of Obligation : Taxes and Citizenship in the Russian Empire and Early Soviet Republic

Beginning in the 1860s, the Russian Empire replaced a poll tax system that originated with Peter the Great with a modern system of income and excise taxes. Russia began a transformation of state fiscal power that was also underway across Western Europe and North America.__States of Obligation__is the first sustained study of the Russian taxation system, the first to study its European and transatlantic context, and the first to expose the essential continuities between the fiscal practices of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.Using a wealth of materials from provincial and local archives across Russia, Yanni Kotsonis examines how taxation was simultaneously a revenue-raising and a state-building tool, a claim on the person and a way to produce a new kind of citizenship. During successive political, wartime, and revolutionary crises between 1855 and 1928, state fiscal power was used to forge social and financial unity and fairness and a direct relationship with individual Russians. State power eventually overwhelmed both the private sector economy and the fragile realm of personal privacy.__States of Obligation__is at once a study in Russian economic history and a reflection on the modern state and the modern citizen. Title Page......Page 4 Contents......Page 8 List of Tables and Figures......Page 12 Preface......Page 13 List of Russian Terms......Page 18 Introduction: A Short History of Taxes: Russia and the World from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries......Page 23 The Analytic Categories: The State, the Economy, and the Person......Page 24 Taxes and Regimes: Russia in International Context......Page 30 And Russia in Its Own Context......Page 43 Historians on Russian Taxation......Page 46 Part 1. People, Places, Things: The Old Regime, Economic Knowledge, and the Coming of the New Order......Page 51 The Fiscal Idiom of Civic Reform......Page 53 The Novelty of the State Budget and the New Space of Economics......Page 59 The Fiscal Reformers......Page 68 Poll Taxes, State Knowledge, and the Problem of Equivalencies......Page 71 “And Yet the Arrears Were Never Collected”: The Problem of Accountability......Page 80 Ignore the Person: The Logic of Property Taxes after 1855......Page 87 The Making of an Urban-Rural Divide......Page 90 Indirect Taxation, the Free Market, and Their Discontents......Page 100 The Excise Inspectors......Page 113 The Public View of the Private, and the Meanings of Laissez-Faire......Page 115 Part 2. The Politics of Visibility, the Technologies of Intimacy: Taxes and the Remaking of Urban and Commercial Russia......Page 123 3 Wealth in Motion: New Money, New Taxes, and a New Bureaucracy......Page 125 Capitalism and Privacy in Russia and the North Atlantic......Page 126 The Tax Inspectorate, Nikolai Bunge, and Popular Welfare......Page 141 Dead Souls: The Inheritance Tax and the Economic Personality......Page 152 Corporations, Personhood, and the Case for Transparency......Page 161 Enter the Citizen: The Apartment Tax......Page 164 The Laws of 1885 and the Map of Commercial Russia......Page 175 Disclosure, Exposure, and the Uses of the Norm......Page 180 Capital Gains, Contracts, Deeds, and Urban Real Estate......Page 192 Economic Individuation and State Aggregation......Page 201 Back to the Person: Russia and the International Debate over the Income Tax......Page 206 The Russian Income Tax and the Political Crisis of 1905......Page 214 The Inexorable Logic of Universalism......Page 220 The Mechanisms of Participation......Page 234 The Individual and the Personality in Fiscal Practice......Page 240 Evasion and Transparency......Page 249 The Income Tax and the Great War......Page 255 Russia and the Modern State......Page 264 Part 3. The Politics of Obscurity: Peasant Taxes, Excises, and the Vodka Monopoly to 1917......Page 271 Revenue, Per Capita Rates, and the Limits of Social Reform......Page 273 From Laissez-Faire to Nationalization......Page 282 Treasure, Public Order, and Public Health......Page 291 Prohibition, the War Budget, and the Financial Catastrophe......Page 307 8 The Peasant and the Fisc: The State Budget and the Persistence of Collective Tax Apportionment......Page 312 Peasant Direct Taxes and the State Revenue Budget to 1914......Page 313 State Policy and the Practices of Uncertainty......Page 323 9 The Local Practices of Peasant Taxation......Page 338 Repartition......Page 339 Arrears and Forgiveness......Page 344 Collection and Punishment......Page 356 Taxes in Kind......Page 373 Was a Peasant a Person? Rural Taxation and the War-Time Crisis......Page 376 Part 4. The State and Revolution, the State and Evolution: Fiscal Practices and a New Regime, 1917–30......Page 383 10 Soviet Russia and the Continuing History of the Russian State......Page 385 Urban Taxes, Nationalization, and the Achievable Utopia......Page 399 The Peasantry, Limited Government, and Unlimited Force......Page 411 12 The Economy of Licences: Taxes and the New Economic Policy......Page 432 Afterword. Russia, Socialism, and the Modern State......Page 449 Notes......Page 452 Bibliography......Page 578 Index......Page 615 Title Page 4 Contents 8 List of Tables and Figures 12 Preface 13 List of Russian Terms 18 Introduction: A Short History of Taxes: Russia and the World from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries 23 The Analytic Categories: The State, the Economy, and the Person 24 Taxes and Regimes: Russia in International Context 30 And Russia in Its Own Context 43 Historians on Russian Taxation 46 Part 1. People, Places, Things: The Old Regime, Economic Knowledge, and the Coming of the New Order 51 1 The Fiscal Instruments of Regime Change from the Eighteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries 53 The Fiscal Idiom of Civic Reform 53 The Novelty of the State Budget and the New Space of Economics 59 The Fiscal Reformers 68 Poll Taxes, State Knowledge, and the Problem of Equivalencies 71 “And Yet the Arrears Were Never Collected”: The Problem of Accountability 80 2 Three Tax Reforms, Three Visions of the Polity 87 Ignore the Person: The Logic of Property Taxes after 1855 87 The Making of an Urban-Rural Divide 90 Indirect Taxation, the Free Market, and Their Discontents 100 The Excise Inspectors 113 The Public View of the Private, and the Meanings of Laissez-Faire 115 Part 2. The Politics of Visibility, the Technologies of Intimacy: Taxes and the Remaking of Urban and Commercial Russia 123 3 Wealth in Motion: New Money, New Taxes, and a New Bureaucracy 125 Capitalism and Privacy in Russia and the North Atlantic 126 The Tax Inspectorate, Nikolai Bunge, and Popular Welfare 141 Dead Souls: The Inheritance Tax and the Economic Personality 152 Corporations, Personhood, and the Case for Transparency 161 Enter the Citizen: The Apartment Tax 164 4 Systematic Intimacy: Business Taxes and the Disciplining of Commercial Russia 175 The Laws of 1885 and the Map of Commercial Russia 175 Disclosure, Exposure, and the Uses of the Norm 180 Capital Gains, Contracts, Deeds, and Urban Real Estate 192 Economic Individuation and State Aggregation 201 5 Mass Taxation in the Age of the Individual: The New Personal Taxation in Russia and the World 206 Back to the Person: Russia and the International Debate over the Income Tax 206 The Russian Income Tax and the Political Crisis of 1905 214 The Inexorable Logic of Universalism 220 6 The Income Tax as Modern Government: Assessment, Self-Assessment, and Mutual Surveillance 234 The Mechanisms of Participation 234 The Individual and the Personality in Fiscal Practice 240 Evasion and Transparency 249 The Income Tax and the Great War 255 Russia and the Modern State 264 Part 3. The Politics of Obscurity: Peasant Taxes, Excises, and the Vodka Monopoly to 1917 271 7 Everyone and No One: Indirect Taxes and the Vodka Monopoly to 1917 273 Revenue, Per Capita Rates, and the Limits of Social Reform 273 From Laissez-Faire to Nationalization 282 Treasure, Public Order, and Public Health 291 Prohibition, the War Budget, and the Financial Catastrophe 307 8 The Peasant and the Fisc: The State Budget and the Persistence of Collective Tax Apportionment 312 Peasant Direct Taxes and the State Revenue Budget to 1914 313 State Policy and the Practices of Uncertainty 323 9 The Local Practices of Peasant Taxation 338 Repartition 339 Arrears and Forgiveness 344 Collection and Punishment 356 Taxes in Kind 373 Was a Peasant a Person? Rural Taxation and the War-Time Crisis 376 Part 4. The State and Revolution, the State and Evolution: Fiscal Practices and a New Regime, 1917–30 383 10 Soviet Russia and the Continuing History of the Russian State 385 11 The Meanings of Utopia: Taxes, Urban Unities, and the Several Assaults on Peasant Separateness, 1917–21 399 Urban Taxes, Nationalization, and the Achievable Utopia 399 The Peasantry, Limited Government, and Unlimited Force 411 12 The Economy of Licences: Taxes and the New Economic Policy 432 Afterword. Russia, Socialism, and the Modern State 449 Notes 452 Bibliography 578 Index 615

Beginning in the 1860s, the Russian Empire replaced a poll tax system that originated with Peter the Great with a modern system of income and excise taxes. Russia began a transformation of state fiscal power that was also underway across Western Europe and North America. States of Obligation is the first sustained study of the Russian taxation system, the first to study its European and transatlantic context, and the first to expose the essential continuities between the fiscal practices of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

Using a wealth of materials from provincial and local archives across Russia, Yanni Kotsonis examines how taxation was simultaneously a revenue-raising and a state-building tool, a claim on the person and a way to produce a new kind of citizenship. During successive political, wartime, and revolutionary crises between 1855 and 1928, state fiscal power was used to forge social and financial unity and fairness and a direct relationship with individual Russians. State power eventually overwhelmed both the private sector economy and the fragile realm of personal privacy. States of Obligation is at once a study in Russian economic history and a reflection on the modern state and the modern citizen. 

Beginning in the 1860s, the Russian Empire replaced a poll tax system that originated with Peter the Great with a modern system of income and excise taxes. Russia began a transformation of state fiscal power that was also underway across Western Europe and North America. States of Obligation is the first sustained study of the Russian taxation system, the first to study its European and transatlantic context, and the first to expose the essential continuities between the fiscal practices of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Using a wealth of materials from provincial and local archives across Russia, Yanni Kotsonis examines how taxation was simultaneously a revenue-raising and a state-building tool, a claim on the person and a way to produce a new kind of citizenship. During successive political, wartime, and revolutionary crises between 1855 and 1928, state fiscal power was used to forge social and financial unity and fairness and a direct relationship with individual Russians. State power eventually overwhelmed both the private sector economy and the fragile realm of personal privacy. States of Obligation is at once a study in Russian economic history and a reflection on the modern state and the modern citizen.