Russia. A History

Russia’s urban population was, as already suggested, exceedingly small—some 3 per cent according to the official census of the 1760s, slightly more by the end of the century. The overwhelming majority of urban residents belonged to the legal status of townspeople (meshchane), inscribed in the poll-tax (1.24 roubles—almost twice that of peasants) and liable for the attendant disabilities—most notably, conscription and corporal punishment. The term ‘townsman’ itself was misleading; although many engaged in artisan crafts or petty trades, they also supported themselves through agriculture by tilling garden plots, tending orchards, and raising various kinds of livestock.

The élite in urban society held the rank of merchants (kuptsy), the subject of much legislation in the eighteenth century (which culminated in the ‘Charter to the Towns’ in 1785). It was chiefly for purposes of taxation, not economic regulation, that the state divided merchants into three ‘guilds’ (gil′dy

). According to the system in place before 1775, merchants had to have disposable capital of over 100 roubles to register in the first guild, 50 roubles for the second, and 10 roubles for the third. The guild status, in fact, said nothing about the volume or form of their commercial activities; once all internal tariffs were abolished in 1754, merchants—regardless of guild—could engage in whatever trade they chose, with few restraints. Indeed, ‘merchants’ did not necessarily even engage in commerce; by some estimates, 80 per cent of the Moscow merchants registered in the third guild in 1766 did not engage in trade.

The guild status, however, played a critical role in determining status and obligations. Each guild bore specific responsibilities and had to bear a tax based on their declared kapital. The primary urban service was to participate in the urban magistrate (

magistrat), the elected (and mostly unpaid) councils obligated to collect (but not levy) taxes, to keep population records, to oversee town services (for example, fire-fighting, public health, and road construction), and to maintain law and order. Given the relative frequency and popularity of drunken mêlées (kulachnye boi

), this last responsibility was important. The magistrates also had to deal with major crises like food shortages and epidemics, as in the Moscow plague riots of 1771. In return, guild members had certain privileges—the right to engage in certain types of commerce, display their wares, hang signs, and a few other modest advantages.

Their status was anything but secure, however. If a merchant’s declared capital fell below the specified minimum, he was obliged either to register in the next lowest guild or even to drop from merchant status into the ranks of the common townspeople. Such downward mobility was exceedingly common. As has been recently demonstrated, only a fraction of merchant families in Moscow and provincial towns remained in the first and second guilds for more than a generation; although a few connived to be elevated into the nobility the great majority dropped into the third guild or the common townspeople.

Catherine clarified the legal standing of merchants after 1775 and, in the process, significantly raised the minimum requirements for guild registration. In contrast to the small sums required earlier, merchants now had to declare 10,000 roubles of capital for the first guild, 5,000 for the second, and 1,000 for the third. Those who lacked such capital had to register either in artisanal guilds or in the general pool of urban commoners. Predictably, the new standard caused the massive demotion of merchants unable to meet the new property qualifications: the number of registered merchants plummeted from over 213,053 in 1772 to 24,562 in 1775, a decline of 88 per cent. However, those excluded from guilds could still trade, since the correlation between legal and commercial status was minimal. Still, those who lost guild status became ordinary members of the poll-tax population, with all the attendant disabilities—taxation, conscription, labour, and hindrances to travel.

The few who remained in the merchant guilds, however, enjoyed important new privileges. One was formal exclusion from the poll-tax rolls, although at the price of paying an annual 1 per cent levy on their capital. Moreover, members of the first and second guilds were exempt from the degradation of corporal punishment, could not be consigned to work in onerous places (such as salt mines), and enjoyed important symbols of social status (for example, the privilege of riding in carriages). And they could buy themselves out of military and civil recruitment. Catherine’s legislation also defined their privileged spheres of commercial activity: the first guild could engage in foreign trade, the second in national trade, and the third in local and regional trade.