Russian Corporate Capitalism From Peter The Great To Perestroika

Russian Corporate Capitalism from Peter the Great to Perestroika This page intentionally left blank Russian Corporate Capitalism from Peter the Great to Perestroika THOMAS C. OWEN New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1995 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1995 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Portions of Chapter 2 originally appeared in "The Population Ecology of Corporations in the Russian Empire, 1700-1914," Slavic Review 50, no. 4 (Winter 1991), 807-26. Copyright © 1991 by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Inc. Used by permission. Portions of Chapters 2 and 3 originally appeared in "La Demographie des societes anonymes dans I Empire russe (1821—1914)," in Naissance et mort des entreprises en Europe aux 19eme—20eme siecles, ed. Philippe Jobert and Michael Moss (Dijon: Editions de I Universite dc Dijon, 1995). Used by permission. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Owen, Thomas C. Russian corporate capitalism from Peter the Great to perestroika / Thomas C. Owen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0- 19-509677-0 1. Capitalism—Russia. 2. Capitalism—Soviet Union. 3. Corporations—Russia. 4. Corporations—Soviet Union. 5. RussiaEconomic conditions. 6. Soviet Union—Economic conditions—1985-1991. I. Tide. HC335.083 1995 338.7'0947— dc20 94-49317 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Sue Ann This page intentionally left blank Preface Historians justify their work with the general argument that an understanding of the past prepares us to meet the challenges of the future. The study of ancient and faraway civilizations reveals the great variety of human experience and teaches an appreciation of cultural norms different from our own. Recent history sharpens our awareness of current realities and future possibilities by showing the momentous consequences of social and cultural institutions inherited from the past. In this case, it is incumbent upon an American historian of Russian capitalism to draw lessons that might prove useful to those who seek to understand and engage the new capitalist institutions in the former Soviet Union. What began as a historical investigation of an apparently extinct economic system became a commentary on one of the great social and economic dramas of our century: the transformation of the economy and society of the largest country in the world after centuries of autocratic rule, both tsarist and Soviet. The study of corporations under the tsarist regime has some relevance for an understanding of post-Soviet capitalism because it makes clear the strength of anticapitalist attitudes in Russian culture, not only under Soviet Marxism, b