IOACHIM MAI. Das deutsche Kapital in Russtand. 1850 - 1894. Berlin. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften. 1970. 255 S.

JOACHIM MAY. German capital in Russia. 1850 - 1894. Berlin. 1970. 255 pp.

The work of Dr. I. May, a historian from the GDR who studied in the USSR, is the first consolidated work in Marxist literature devoted to the history of the penetration of German capital into Russia. It covers the period from the 50s of the XIX century to 1894 and is only the first part of the study conceived by the author. In the second volume, the author intends to bring the presentation to 1917.

I. May had the opportunity to use the materials in the archives as

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Both the GDR and the Soviet Union. This allowed him not only to see the same processes in the coverage of both sides, but also, to a certain extent, to fill in the gaps in the surviving documentation by supplementing the information available in the archives of one of these countries with data extracted from the archives of the other country. Historians who deal with the problems of the Russian economy know how incomplete the documents of banks and industrial enterprises are preserved in our archives, and how valuable the opportunity to attract additional materials here is. When working on the book, I. May relied on extensive literature covering both general problems of the development of the German and Russian economies, as well as certain specific aspects of the topic he studied. Since the role of foreign capital in general and Russo-German trade relations in particular has already been studied in Soviet studies of recent years, many of the author's conclusions in the most general form will not be new to the Soviet reader. However, thanks to the work of AND. Therefore, a significantly expanded documentary base is provided for these conclusions.

I. May examines not only the actual export of German capital to Russia, but also covers in detail the general political and trade relations between the two countries, convincingly showing how these relations affected the influx of German capital investments. The author divides the period considered in the book into two stages, the boundary between which is 1877. This periodization is quite reasonable: in 1850, a new customs tariff was introduced in Russia, which played a significant role in its trade policy, and then the Crimean War predetermined the direction of financial and trade relations of tsardom - the English and French markets were closed to it, and the only real supplier of the necessary funds and industrial goods was the rapidly developing economy. Prussia; in 1877 there was a sharp increase in protectionist tendencies in Russian politics; 1894 was the year of the conclusion of the Russo-German trade treaty, which had a great influence on the further nature of economic relations between the two countries. However, this periodization somewhat blurs another important milestone - 1887, when, as a result of the sharp aggravation of the customs war between Russia and Germany, Russian securities passed into French hands, when, as a result of legislative measures of the tsarist government that restricted the rights of foreign subjects to own land and real estate in the western provinces, German enterprises had to change many things its investment policy. By the way, both of these phenomena are well traced in the work of I. May.

The period considered by the author, especially its first half, is characterized by the fact that most of the foreign, including German, capital flowed to Russia in loan form, in the form of government loans and especially bond capital of railway companies. This form of capital inflows is relatively easy to account for. Covering this issue, J. May shows the bacchanal of speculation that was played out around railway grunderism. It is much more difficult to study the volume and nature of the activity of capital flowing into banking and industrial enterprises. First of all, these capitals are very difficult to identify and calculate, so the author often had to be satisfied with stating the presence of German capital in a particular enterprise. In addition, it is not so much the absolute figures of German investments that matter, as their specific weight in the total mass of foreign investments in this industry and their comparison with capital of Russian origin. In the first case, the author has to use the data of P. V. Olya, although their reliability has long been questioned. However, there are no other aggregate data on foreign capital yet, as well as calculations of Russian capital proper for various branches of industry (L. E. Shepelev's works concern only joint-stock enterprises).1 .

When accounting for German capital investment, especially in the mid-nineteenth century, there is a significant-

1 L. E. Shepelev. Joint-stock company in Russia. "From the History of Imperialism in Russia". Collection of articles. Moscow -L. 1959; his. Joint stock statistics in pre-revolutionary Russia. "Monopolies and foreign capital in Russia". Collection of articles, Moscow-L. 1962.

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there is another specific difficulty that the author is well aware of. We mean the need to draw the line between the export of capital from Germany, and his emigration to Russia. When emigrated capital continues to maintain some business ties with Germany, it is not easy to distinguish it from exported capital. In addition, as the author shows, in some cases the exported capital is gradually denationalized and turns into emigrated capital. The point, in particular, is that at a much higher level of profit than in Germany, subsidiaries of German firms founded with a small initial capital quickly covered this capital and further expanded production at the expense of profits extracted in Russia. Under these conditions, the Russian branches of German electrotechnical and chemical companies in the 19th century were firmly tied to their parent companies (except for the private family ties of the owners of enterprises in Germany and their branches in Russia) not so much financial as scientific and technical dependence-patent agreements, the lack of production of the most complex products and personnel for independent research in these industries. In the textile industry, breaking ties with the parent company was much easier. In this sense, very convincing material is given by I. May on pages 210-214, which deals with textile enterprises founded in the western (Polish) provinces of Russia initially with German money. Although the owners of these enterprises retained German citizenship, I. May quite rightly believes that in this case there was not an export, but an emigration of capital. It is possible that a similar process of denationalization took place with a number of trading firms, despite their natural preservation of permanent ties with Germany. It is also necessary to distinguish the emigration of capital from the personal emigration of people who subsequently made capital in Russia. I. May does not draw this line clearly enough. The well-known Mr. Schliemann, who arrived in St. Petersburg with 150 rubles in his pocket (and even then borrowed-p. 88), naturally cannot be considered a representative of emigrated capital. It seems that this was also the case with the founder of the bank "J. V. Junker & Co." (p. 64) and the founder of the firm "Gelferich & Sade" (p. 103).

The big and extremely important problem of relations between German and Russian banks is presented by I. May somewhat contradictory. In accordance with the way this problem is currently being solved by Soviet researchers, the author emphasizes that the participation of German capital in Russian banks never reached the level at which German hands would have held controlling stakes, and that a certain dependence of Russian banks on their German partners in conducting joint operations did not lead to their loss. independence (p. 222-223). However, in the course of the presentation, the author sometimes admits formulations that seem exaggerated. This is especially true for the Russian Bank for foreign trade; I. May claims that after the increase in its share capital in 1881, with the help of the German Bank and the Vienna Banking Union, it fell into "relations of dependence on the German Bank", which was creating its own system of participation (p.160). It seems that even for 1881, this is said too strongly. The author's legitimate desire to reveal all the links between German banks and Russians, even if small blocks of shares were in German hands or the size of these blocks is unknown, also creates the impression of greater dependence as a result of detailed transfers of German owners than it actually was, especially since the thesis about the independence of Russian banks is formulated only at the very end of the book.

And it is absolutely wrong to exaggerate the importance of the fact that German specialists were invited to serve in Russian banks. Taking into account that young Russian banks adopted the techniques of doing business from German ones, such an invitation of specialists was natural. The vagueness of I. May's position on this issue is especially noticeable when it comes to the director of the St. Petersburg International Commercial Bank A. Y. Rotshtein. Recognizing that this native of Germany gave all his strength and abilities to the service of the International Bank and the tsarist government, I. May at the same time writes: "This still does not mean that Rothstein did nothing in the interests of German capital in Russia." The proof is provided by the fact of saving-

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Rothstein's lack of business connections with his own father, who speculated in paper rubles on the Berlin Stock Exchange (p.172), and the fact that the St. Petersburg International Bank contributed to the influx of German capital into Russia. But if we recall that the attraction of foreign capital was the goal of the policy of S. Y. Witte, whose trustee was Rothstein, and that the International Bank was no less, if not more, conducive to the influx of capital from France, it becomes clear that Rothstein's activities in some cases could coincide with the interests of German capital, but were not aimed at to promote these interests. I. May's book very successfully covers the question of the nature of the impact of German investment on the development of the Russian economy. From the very beginning, the impact was twofold. On the one hand, the influx of foreign (in particular German) capital into Russia, especially in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the process of accumulating own capital in the country was just beginning, accelerated the industrial development of Russia.

promoted the emergence of new industries in it. On the other hand, German firms that settled in Russia, after initially investing relatively little capital, began, as already noted, due to the high level of profitability, not only to finance the further development of their Russian branches at the expense of profits received domestically, but also to develop themselves at the expense of funds siphoned from Russia. Using the example of electrotechnical and chemical enterprises, I. May also reveals another consequence of the export of German capital to Russian industry: by setting up their branches in Russia and suppressing Russian enterprises that were in their infancy for many years, German firms hindered scientific research in these industries and the training of Russian qualified personnel.

The above objections or doubts about a number of issues covered in the book by I. May do not in any way reduce its overall high assessment.

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