L. Nauka. 1981. 275 p.

Modern Soviet historiography, which covers the politics of the autocracy in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, its relations with various classes and institutions of society, is significant and interesting. As an element of domestic policy, commercial and industrial policy is the main content of relations between tsarism and the bourgeoisie. The research of the senior researcher of the Leningrad branch of the Institute of History of the USSR, Doctor of Historical Sciences L. E. Shepelev introduces a new approach to the development of this problem.

Based on the analysis of the legacy of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, the author outlined the content and direction of his work, which aims to reveal the connection between politics

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states with the economic needs of society and the interests of the ruling class. Special attention is paid in the book to the peculiarity of Russia, where the autocracy was the exclusive representative of state interests, which gave it a certain freedom of action in setting tasks and choosing methods of economic policy (p. 10).

In terms of research methodology, the approach of L. E. Shepelev is characterized by the desire to consider industrial policy in a long historical retrospective. It was only necessary, perhaps, to emphasize more the transitional character of the first years of the twentieth century, including in the sphere of trade and industrial policy of the autocracy. It is not by chance that the author notes the second stage (1900-1904) in the activity of S. Y. Witte. The conclusion reads: "By the beginning of the twentieth century, industry in Russia had reached such a level of development that tsarism had to reckon with it not only because it was interested in its development, but also because of its already acquired economic and political significance" (p.258). During these years, due to the transition of capitalism to the imperialist stage, a more noticeable manifestation of state-monopoly tendencies began, which led to a qualitative change in relations between the autocracy and the bourgeoisie.

The three main periods of industrial development identified in the monograph (1862-1881; 1881-1892; 1892-1903) also reflect certain milestones in the internal policy of the autocracy. The paper also considers the stage of the industrial promotion policy (1850s-early 1860s).

L. E. Shepelev covers a wide range of issues: commercial and industrial taxation, conditions for the establishment and operation of industrial institutions, banks, joint-stock companies, monopolistic associations, customs and railway tariffs, money circulation, conversion of state loans, railway construction, attraction of foreign capital, organization of commercial and technical education, working question. It is thanks to this choice of questions that the author was able to show the connection between trade and industrial policy and the general economic policy of the autocracy.

A large part of the book is devoted to the analysis of program documents, which record the awareness of representatives of the ruling elite, the goals and objectives of trade and industrial policy, and methods of their implementation. The history of drawing up programs, discussing them, and even presenting them to the tsar shows the struggle within the ruling class on economic policy issues and the impact of the capitalist evolution of the country on this struggle; at the same time, the true goals of commercial and industrial policy are revealed. L. E. Shepelev emphasizes that capitalism could not have been and was not the goal of the tsarist government's policy. It accepted the capitalist system of economy only as a means of developing large-scale industry in the country (p. 19), which was to serve to solve political problems (p. 21-22).

Among the most important issues covered in the monograph are the legal conditions of entrepreneurial activity. Legislative acts of the autocracy and administrative orders of its departments concerning the sphere of trade and industry reflect the traditional desire of Russian absolutism for "guardianship", supervision, and petty regulation. L. E. Shepelev reveals the class orientation of the legislative activity of tsarism in this area and its impact on industry. It is interesting to analyze the projects of revision of commercial and industrial and general commercial legislation, which in most cases were not implemented. The archaic nature of legislation throughout the second half of the 19th century and even the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the formal preservation of many prohibitive measures, was a concrete manifestation of the complexity of the objective conditions in which entrepreneurial activity developed and which were the result of the preservation of feudal remnants.

The tsarist government, and especially the Ministry of Finance, according to L. E. Shepelev, skillfully used these circumstances in order to influence private industry, assigning an exorbitant role to administrative orders. The monograph shows various twists and turns of discussions on the issue of subordination of the management of industry and trade and proves that the preservation of the Department of Trade and Manufactures in the Ministry of Finance still had positive consequences.

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The author comes to the conclusion that the departments were able to pursue their own line, which differs from the government's policy in general (p.15). This is an important point in explaining the general inconsistency of the tsarist government's activities, and it allows us to speak about the departmental nature of the trade and industrial policy. The Ministry of Finance acted as a conductor of the bourgeois principle in it. At the same time, the monograph emphasizes the conditionality of bourgeois tendencies, in particular the development of large-scale industry, by the main economic needs of the country and its state interests.

A special feature of the book is the image of specific carriers and guides of the political line of the government and especially the Ministry of Finance. The reader is presented with a gallery of figures whose political and economic views, level and nature of education, administrative experience and personal qualities gave individual features to government activities. The disclosure of this factor strikes a blow at modern foreign bourgeois historiography, which sharply contrasts the activities of individual government representatives, primarily Witte, with the entire course of commercial and industrial policy and ignores its general conditionality with the capitalist development of Russia.

L. E. Shepelev uses the materials of advisory and entrepreneurial organizations of the bourgeoisie to describe the development and implementation of trade and industrial policy. For the first time, he consistently examines important issues of general legal regulation of the activities of these organizations, the main lines of their relations with the state apparatus; the book systematizes ideas about the types of these organizations, about their differences in representing and protecting the interests of industrialists before the government.

Despite all the significance and diversity of the range of issues that are considered in the monograph, I would like to note one that remains out of the author's field of view. This is a question about the sources of information of the Ministry of Finance when developing its trade and industrial policy, i.e., about its statistical work and the collection of mass data on the state of Russian industry. The strengthening of programmatic principles in politics and its scientific foundations led in 1885 and especially in the 1890s to a significant reform in the methods of collecting statistical data, expanding the information obtained, and increasing its reliability. In the general list of activities carried out by Witte, one should mention the invitation to work in the ministry from among unreliable large zemstvo statistician V. E. Varzar, who is credited with developing the principles of the new commercial and industrial taxation (1898), and then the program and methodological foundations of industrial censuses.

Assessing the role that the autocracy played in the development of industry, L. E. Shepelev emphasizes the contradictory, inhibitory nature of the policy of the tsarist government: "The trade and industrial policy of the tsarist government found its fullest expression in customs protectionism. The implementation of this line of policy was connected with the preservation of feudal remnants. This was the worst way to promote industrial development compared to free trade" (p. 255).

The monograph comprehensively covers many aspects of the trade and industrial policy of the Russian government at a long historical stage, which is important for developing general issues of economic and social policy of the autocracy. The author was able to make interesting observations about the nature of the state apparatus of the autocracy, its legislation, to highlight some aspects of the formation of the Russian bourgeoisie and the development of its class consciousness, to identify the legal conditions for the existence of Russian industry, which affected its location and organizational forms in a certain way. Of great interest are the author's comments on the legal status of certain social groups, which will help to study the estate and class structure of Russian society in the period of capitalism.

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