THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLICE IN THE FACTORY SETTLEMENTS OF THE URAL IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

The local Ural material on the 19th century police has attracted researchers only since the second half of the 1990s. Yet, it mainly concerned the South Ural, as special studies in the Middle Ural and in the Vyatka Ural have not been carried out. This article aims to fill in this lacuna. The object of this study is the transformation of the factory police in the 19th century. The relevance of this topic for historical science lies in the active character of the processes, associated with modernization, and the timeliness of the police reform. To study this, the author has used such historical methods, as historical-genetic, historical-comparative, and historical-typological. This article has examined the measures taken by the authorities of the Urals to improve the police supervision of factory settlements in the second half of the 19th century. The author has compared the pre-reform and new police states, emphasizing the development of the Izhevsk and Votkinsk factory settlements police. The results show that the slowness in carrying out police reforms led to an increase in unrest and crime in factories. The redistribution of local police resources, intended for the countryside, to the cities and factories of the Ural could somewhat mitigate the negative consequences of the inaction of the central government. Thus, the liquidation of the mountain police in the middle of the 19th century significantly weakened police forces in factory settlements, which were restored only in the 1890s.