ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how a country which is normally perceived to be backward economically, fiscally and institutionally supported her extensive military activities. The activities of the 'fiscal-military state', it cannot be said that the state increased control over the lives of the majority of its taxpaying population as a result; in contrast, it strengthened the autonomy of community institutions. The Napoleonic Wars demonstrated that it become socially and economically impossible for the state to raise further revenue from taxation, and Russia lacked the institutional basis to service foreign or public debt. Alexander I chose to pursue an idea the establishment of military colonies which, far from seeking to find a short-term, stop-gap, solution to Russia's budget deficit instead involved some three-quarters of a million people in an experiment in social engineering. Robert Lyall reported that the colonies were held in utter abhorrence by the 'peasantry', detested by the regular army and highly disapproved of by all classes of the 'nobility'.
