was in the main form of direct taxation; in 1718 Peter the Great introduced the head, or poll, tax in place of the household tax and the tax on cultivated land.
One purpose of the head tax was to catch shirkers who combined households or failed to till their land. It was levied on the entire lower class of population and it represented a heavy assessment - considerably heavier than the taxes that it replaced. Set at seventy or eighty kopecks per serf and at one ruble twenty kopecks for each state peasant and non-exempt townsman, the new tax had to be paid in money. From 1718 to 1722 a census, a so-called revision, of the population subject to the head tax took place. On private estates, serfs and those slaves who tilled the soil
were registered first. Next came orders to add to the lists household slaves and all dependent people not on the land, and finally even vagrants of every sort. Each person registered during the revision had to pay the same set head tax; on estates, the landlords were held responsible for the prompt flow of money to the treasury. A number of scholars have stressed that Peter the Great's tax legislation thus led to the final elimination of the ancient difference between serf and slave, and the merging of the landlords' peasants into one bonded mass. Legally the mass consisted of serfs, not slaves. In actuality, as already indicated, the arbitrary power of the landlord and the weakness of the peasant made Russian serfdom differ little from slavery. After the revision the serfs were allowed to leave the estate only with their master's written permission, a measure which marked the beginning of a passport system. The head tax, it might be added, proved to be one of the emperor's lasting innovations.
On the whole Peter the Great had to accept and did accept Russian society as it was, with serfdom and the economic and social dominance of the gentry. The emperor, however, made a tremendous effort to bend that society to serve his purposes: the successful prosecution of war, Westernization, and reform. Above all, the government needed money and men. The head tax presents an excellent example of an important social measure passed for financial reasons. But whereas the head tax affected the lower classes, other social groups also found themselves subject to the insatiable demands of the tireless emperor. For example, the merchants, the few professional people, and other middle class elements, who were all exempt from the head tax, had to work harder than ever before to discharge their obligations to the state in the economic domain and other fields of activity.
However, the emperor insisted on service especially in the case of the gentry. State service, of course, constituted an ancient obligation of that class. But, as we have already seen in dealing with the army, under Peter the Great it became a more regular and continuous as well as much heavier obligation. Every member of the gentry was required to serve from about the age of sixteen to the end of his days, and the sovereign himself often gave an examination to boys as young as fourteen or even ten and assigned them to schools and careers. After an inspection, held usually in Moscow, the gentry youths were divided roughly two-thirds to one-third between the military and the civilian branches of service. Peter the Great insisted that in the civilian offices as in the regiments or aboard ships all novices must start at the bottom and advance only according to their merit. In 1722 he promulgated the Table of Ranks, which fisted in hierarchic order the fourteen ranks, from the fourteenth to the first, to be attained in the parallel services - military, civil, and court. The Table, with its impressive ranks borrowed from abroad, served as the foundation
of the imperial Russian bureaucracy and lasted, with modifications, until 1917. The emperor opened advancement in service to all. Entrance into service brought personal nobility, while those of non-gentry origin who attained the eighth rank in the civil service or the twelfth in the military became hereditary members of the gentry. He also began to grant titles of nobility, including 'prince,' for extraordinary achievements, and later emperors continued this practice.
Peter the Great's handling of the gentry represented something of a tour de force, and it proved successful to the extent that the emperor did obtain a great deal of service from that class. But the reformer's successors could not maintain his drastic policies. In fact, we shall see how in the course of the eighteenth century the gentry gradually escaped from its service obligations. At the same time entry into that class became more difficult, so that Peter the Great's effort to open the road to all talents was somewhat diminished. It might be added that some of the emperor's social legislation failed virtually from the start. Thus, for example, in 1714, in opposition to the established Russian practice of dividing land among sons, the reformer issued a law of inheritance according to which the entire estate had to go to one son only - by choice, and to the elder son if no choice had been made - the others thus being forced to exist, as in the case of the British nobility, solely by service. But this law turned out to be extremely difficult to enforce even during Peter the Great's reign, and it was repealed as early as 1731.
The development of the national economy constituted another aim of the reformer and another field for his tireless activity. Again, the emperor thought first of war and its immediate demands. But, in addition, from about 1710 he strove to develop industries not related to military needs, to increase Russian exports, and in general to endow the country with a more varied and active economy. Peter the Great made every effort to stimulate private enterprise, but he also acted on a large scale directly through the state. Ideologically the emperor adhered to mercantilism, popular in Europe at the time, with its emphasis on the role of the government, a favorable balance of trade, and the protection of home industries as reflected in the Russian tariff of 1724. One account gives the figure of 200 manufacturing establishments founded in Peter the Great's reign - 86 by the state and 114 by private individuals and companies - to add to the 21 in existence in Russia by 1695; another account mentions 250 such establishments in operation at the time of the emperor's death. The greatest development occurred in metallurgy, mining, and textiles. In effect, the emperor created the Russian textile industry, while he de-
veloped mining and metallurgy impressively from very modest beginnings, establishing them, notably, in the Urals. He promoted many other industries as well, including the production of china and glass.
To facilitate trade Peter the Great built canals and began the construction of a merchant marine. For instance, a canal was built between 1703 and 1709 to connect the Neva with the Volga. Indeed, the Volga-Don canal itself, finally completed by the Soviet government after the Second World War, had been one of the reformer's projects. In the course of Peter the Great's reign Russian foreign trade increased fourfold, although it continued to be handled in the main by foreign rather than Russian merchants. On the whole, although some of the emperor's economic undertakings failed and many exacted a heavy price, Peter the Great exercised a major and creative influence on the development of the Russian economy. Later periods built on his accomplishments - there was no turning back.
There could be no turning back in culture either. In a sense Peter the Great's educational and cultural reforms proved to be the most lasting of all, for they pushed Russia firmly and irrevocably in the direction of the West. While these measures will be discussed in more detail in the chapter dealing with Russian culture in the eighteenth century, it should be pointed out here that they fitted well into the general pattern of the emperor's activity. Utilitarian in his approach, the sovereign stressed the necessity of at least a minimum education for service; and he also encouraged schools that would produce specialists, such as the School of Mathematics and Navigation established in 1701. His broader plans included compulsory education for the gentry - which could not be translated into practice at the time - and the creation of the Academy of Sciences to develop, guide, and crown learning in Russia. This academy did come into existence a few months after the reformer's death. Throughout his life Peter the Great showed a burning interest in science and technology as well as some interest in other areas of knowledge.
In bringing the civilization of the West to his native land, the emperor tried to introduce Western dress, manners, and usages, often by fiat and against strong opposition. The shaving of beards is a celebrated and abiding symbol of the reign. While the government demanded it 'for the glory and comeliness of the state and the military profession' - to quote from Sumner's excellent little book on Peter the Great - the traditionalists objected on the ground that shaving impaired the image of God in men and made the Russians look like such objectionable beings as Lutherans, Poles, Kalmyks, Tartars, cats, dogs, and monkeys. Similarly it was argued that the already-mentioned calendar reform stole time from God and that the
new simplified civil script should not be allowed to replace Church Slavonic. The
