Subordinate classes in Russia: the concept, legal status. What groups were part of the taxation?

Subordinate estates - estates, who paid taxes (to submit) to the state. In our country, legal inequality continued until the end of the XIX century. Some paid taxes, others were exempted from them. About what groups of people were included in the taxation estates, this article will be discussed.

The concept of

Estate is a group of people whose members differ in legal status. As a rule, it is enshrined in legislation. Estates are found only in precapitalist states. The difference of estates from classes is that it is a legal status that is inherited. A person can not move from one to another. The state clearly follows this through legal norms, since in the preservation of the legal situation it feels safe. That is why the estate system is found only in the estate-representative monarchy in the feudal states, and it disintegrates when capitalism emerges.

The monarch (emperor, tsar, sultan, etc.) stands at the head of the state only because he comes from a noble family. His personal qualities and abilities do not depend on anything. Therefore, the transition from one class to another was always perceived extremely negatively: everyone saw this as a threat to the existing system. The elite tried to maintain its position everywhere and at all times. The transition from the class system to the class system was always accompanied by social explosions, civil wars, revolutions.

Kinds of estates in Russia

The integrity of the Russian state and the authority of monarchical power depended on preserving the estate system. In general, they can be divided into two large groups: tax and privileged classes. The first was called "black", the second - "white". For example, "white settlement" is a village exempt from taxes; "Black-eared peasants"-peasants who paid taxes, and so on.

Transformation of Peter the Great

The very concept of "taxable estates" appears only under Peter the Great. Before that, everyone who had to pay taxes was called "tax". Peter the First for the first time applied the tax system in Russia, which exists today: he introduced a per capita tax. Before him, no one was copying the population. Elites even had no idea how many people are in the state. The tax was placed on the settlement, village, village, etc. Such a system was extremely unaffective and unfair. Peter all equated in the rights within his estates. Now everyone had to pay the same fee, which the state will establish.

Before the reform began, an audit was carried out - a census of the population. The documents with the lists were called "auditory tales". The term "fairy tales" is best suited to this document, since it was not possible to verify the reliability of the information. By the way, in our time, after the population census, there are various "Pokémon", "Teletubbies", "Jedi" and other nationalities that do not exist in classifications.

Russia's Subordinate Classes

The whole class of rural inhabitants, petty bourgeoisie, shop workers belonged to the taxation classes. They could be attributed to persons who missed the audit and did not enter the "revision tale", as well as the fugitives. Also to the taxes were equated:

• Foundlings;
• People who do not remember their kinship;
• Illegitimate children, despite the legal status of the mother.

Each of the estates was divided into categories and groups. For example, under Peter the First merchants began to divide into guilds. The first consisted of "noble merchants who have a big auction", as well as pharmacists, doctors, doctors. They could not be separated into a separate class from the merchant class, since the legal status was determined by the birth, not by the occupation. The second guild of merchants included small craftsmen, small traders, as well as "all the vile people in hiring, in black jobs and so on." Merchants did not pay capitation. The state charged them for "entering" the guild. This system resembles modern licensing: you pay money - you get the right to engage in certain activities.

Sources do not in vain call some merchants "vile people." There was a loophole in the law: some of them did not engage in trade, which irritated the state. From them it was impossible either to collect a capitation tax or transfer it according to the laws of the feudal-estate system to another estate.

Circular bail

The society was vigilant to ensure that people could not deceive the state during the audit of fairy tales. The air-giving did not mean at all that every resident is obliged to come to the fiscal body and pay for himself. To build such a system you need huge funds and a lot of time. The state made it easier: it brought people to the lists of "auditory tales", charged the basic tax from the tax-paying classes depending on the number of tax-paying population and billed the whole society. This was called circular bail. If someone decides to deceive the state - for him paid other residents. Such a system resembles the modern payment for public utilities by house-counters in multi-unit buildings: the total debt is divided into all residents.

Subordinate classes of the 19th century: the crisis of the estate system

The class system is becoming obsolete during the development of capitalism. A striking example of the crisis was described by A. P. Chekhov in the Cherry Orchard. Former peasants and merchants had enormous financial fortunes, but were restricted in their rights, while demoralized noblemen had legal privileges before them. In Russia, the crisis is most sharply manifested from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. However, until 1918, the country operates the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, which preserves the estate system.

On May 15, 1883, Emperor Alexander the Third abolished the Manifesto of a poll tax. Russia is the only European state that has freed its citizens from personal taxes. Therefore, it was absolutely wrong to say that the "tsarist regime" squeezed out of the unfortunate subjects "all juices" before the revolutions of the 20th century.