The forming of the customs policy of Russia in the first half of the 19th century

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the influence of customs policy on the economic development of Russia in the first half of the 19th century. If we do not take into account the demands of the coalition allies, then this policy was mainly determined by the struggle of two forces with opposing economic interests. One of the forces was “agrarians”, landowners-nobles, interested in free trade, that is, in the free export of agricultural products and the duty-free receipt of manufactured goods from industrial countries. Another force, whose role is still downplayed by historians, was the absolutist state, personified by the monarch and the central bureaucracy. The state was interested in maintaining military and financial power, and in economic independence. This implied an industry that had to be protected from foreign competition by high customs duties. The interests of these forces were reflected in the ideological confrontation. On the one hand, the ideas of Adam Smith’s “political economy” proclaiming freedom of trade were popular among the nobility. On the other hand, the bureaucracy used in its practice the ideas of traditional mercantilism. After the end of the Napoleonic wars, duties were significantly reduced (tariff of 1819), but the relative freedom of trade led to the massive ruin of Russian manufactories. As a result, the tariff of 1822 marked a decisive turn towards mercantilist politics. Although Treasury Secretary Kankrin was lip service to protectionism, he retained the most important mercantilist ban on metal imports by sea. In the absence of competition, the Ural industrialists were not interested in introducing new technology, and the industrial revolution passed by the Russian metallurgy. Thus, while the thoughtless transition to free trade in 1819 caused the ruin of a large part of the manufactures, the mercantelist policy carried to the extreme caused technical stagnation in the most important branches of the economy. This predetermined the further economic lag in the process of “great divergence”.