M. Kh. Reutern on the Russian State and Economy: A Liberal Bureaucrat during the Crimean Era, 1854-60

Abstract

Three ministers of finance, E. F. Kankrin, M. Kh. Reutern, and S. Iu. Witte, shaped Russian economic policy during the nineteenth century.' Each came to represent a comprehensive set of policies or a system relating to the direction and pace of Russian economic development. Count E. F. Kankrin (1774-1844), minister for twenty-one years under Alexander I and Nicholas I (1823-44), gave his name to a set of mercantilist policies designed to strengthen the power of the state by increasing its share of the world's economic resources. Kankrin combined with this a defense of the social status quo. Unsympathetic to the laissez-faire doctrine of the classical economists, he could not accept the nationalist alternative offered by Friedrich List because of its author's unbridled faith in the advantages of industrial development, which Kankrin considered a grave threat to the existing social order.2 In contrast, Count Sergei Witte (1849-1915) exuberantly accepted industrialization. During his time as minister of finance (1892-1903) Russia embarked on a program of protectionism and rapid industrial expansion. Witte desired a viable industrial sector that would effectively exploit the vast untapped wealth of the empire and thereby provide for the maintenance of Russia's status as a great power.3 Unlike Kankrin, who defended the privileged position of the landed gentry, Witte openly solicited an alliance between the state and the new class of capitalists. The passage from Kankrin's mercantilism to Witte's state capitalism thus marks a major shift in state economic policy.