Mining Supervision Reform in Russia in the Second Half of the 19th — Early 20th Centuries: Projects and Their Implementation

Abstract

This article traces the process underlying the creation of a new model of state supervision of the private mining industry as an integral part of the general reform of the institutional basis of this strategically important sector of Russia’s economy. The study covers the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and includes both the period of preparation of reform projects in the Mining and Tax Commissions in the 1860s, and the subsequent period of implementation of an option they proposed. The author determines the main differences between the two alternative projects arising from the different composition of the participants in the preparatory commissions. It is established that after the decision of the Minister of Finance Michael Graf von Reutern in 1868 to leave the reform process in the hands of the Mining Department, it began to be carried out according to the project proposed by the Mining Commission. This project involved the establishment of departmental mining supervision distinguished by the specialisation of functions and the professionalisation of officials. Additionally, the author considers the main responsibilities of district engineers determining their specifics conditioned by the peculiarities of the organisation of the Russian mining industry. Then, the research traces the expansion of functions of mining supervision and the coordination of its actions with regional civil authorities, the police, and other forms of industrial supervision in Russia in the 1890s. The author describes the course of the spread of a new model of mining supervision across the empire. At the same time, special attention is paid to the establishment of mining administrative districts in the largest Ural mining region. It is revealed that, as a result of the reforms, Russian mining supervision became organisationally equal to that in Western Europe but received a significantly more extensive functionality that went beyond the scope of technical supervision and was not provided for by the initiators of the reform.