Spon ascending the throne after the
death of Nicolai the First in 1855,
his eldest son Alexander the Second (1855-1881), in search of more
flexible methods, carryed out some
major state transformations. At the
Government's instructions, there were created in guberniys (the Provinces)
committees
of noblemen for preparation of the peasant
reform. On February 19, 1861, Alexander
the Second signed draft laws on the abolition
of serfdom. After the fall of serfdom, there
were carried out some reforms of a political
nature, including the reform of local self-
government.
In 1864 there were created elective bodies of power on the scale of a gubernia
(province) and a uyezd (district) - zemstvo institutions (Zemstvos). In the
process of
reforms of the 60ies, zemstvos appeared in
33 gubemias of Russia (by 1914 - in 43).
They were to be occupied with supply of
provisions to the population, charity, industry and trade, road construction,
postal services, insurance, material help to people's
education and health care, etc. Zemstvos'
bodies included gubemia (provincial) and
uyezd (district) sobraniyes (assemblies)
convened once a year, gubemiya (provincial) and uyezd (district) upravas (boards)
in the capacity of executive bodies in charge
of zemstvo's affairs, elected for a two-year
term. The Zemstvos were controlled by the
Ministry of the Interior and the respective
governors (chiefs of provinces) who had the
right to annul any resolutions of a zemstvo
institution. The main source of funds for the
activity of zemstvo institutions were local
taxes collected with due regard for the
immovable property and its profitability.
Zemstvo institutions needed detailed
statistical data necessary for correct economic management, and the government
bodies
were unable to provide them with such data.
Many zemstvos started organizing their own
local statistics. By the end of the XIXth
century, 25 out of the 34 zemstbo gubernias
had statistical bodies. They were created
either by inviting individual statisticians for
jobs that included search for, and systematization of, materials required, or by
setting up
a statistical bureau. One of the ways to
obtain information was to retrieve data from
existing primary reports and, in addition, to
collect data on the spot from volosts (small
rural districts), through teachers of people's
schools, other agents, without sending there
any staff members.
Having emerged as an instrument of
appraisal, for collection of materials on
objects of zemstvo taxation, zemstvo statistics very soon set the tasks of
studying the
economic life of Russia, the current position
and further development of the Russian village. In those zemstvos where the
targets of
statistics were not limited to determination of
value and profitability of the sources of taxation, the organization and
activities of statistical bureaus (offices) were more complicated. and the
materials collected were richer
and more diverse. Among such zemstvos,
two types could be singled out: Moscow and
Chernigov zemstvos. Their common feature
was collection of data by way of expeditions,
that is, the members of the statistical bureau
travelled over all the uyezds, one by one, and
gathered on the spot materials on all the
issues that were covered by the investigation
programme. The aims and methods of work
made all the difference.
The Chernigov statistics focussed on the
determination of quantity and quality of
arable lands whereas the Moscow branch
centered around the situation with the agriculture and agricultural population,
the ways
and forms of labour application to the land.
With the Chernigov statisticians, land was
the foremost object of investigation, whereas
the Moscow statisticians directed their
attention to the people who tilled that land.
According to the Chernigov system, work
started from listing' the lands, drawing on the
map the plots' boundaries, identifying the
classes of soils on the spot with the help of a
specially assigned bureau member according
to the adopted classification, obtaining data
on the specific productivity of soils on every
plot. From the data received, there was
derived the mean productivity of soils in the
uyezd, the mean productivity of the plots.
According to the Moscow system, information was received on every economic unit
in the uyezd and on the general conditions of
life and activities of the population through
personal observation by statistical workers
travelling to the spots. An essential operation
in the local study of villages consisted in the
"podvorny" (house-to-house) census providing the following information on each
household: the number of dwelling houses
and uninhabited buildings and their dimensions, the family composition and the
number of workers by sex, the acreage of allotted
and bought land and the ways of its cultivation, the acreage of rented land and
the rent
rates, the numbers and types of cattle, the
numbers and the sizes of uncultivated Helds,
the number of hired hands, etc. Before the
"podvomy" censuses started to be taken,
there was practised extraction of various data
from the documents provided by the volosts (small rural districts). Additional data were
derived by the statistical bureau from the
multitude of available books and documents.
The "podvorny" census was complemented
Üó a survey of the general conditions of the
village. The Moscow way of organizing zemstvo statistics got disseminated on a
wider
scale and was adopted by many zemstvos.
The original differences gradually faded
away, the work programmes drew nearer to
each other, and there was elaborated a certain type of zemstvo statistics that
was similarly organized in all the gubernias (provinces) of Russia.
The detalization of accounting in the
zemstvo statistics surpassed everything
encountered earlier in the statistical practice. Detailed programmes of
observation
were used, methods of observation were
improved, groupings were widely
employed, statistical tables received further development. Congresses and
conferences of statisticians played a major positive role in the development of
statistics.
From 1887 to 1917 there were convened
17 congresses (conferences). Apart from
studying the peasants' everyday life, the
budgets, the zemstvo statisticians were
engaged in the studies of people's education, and from the beginning of the
80ies,
worked in the sphere of sanitary and medical statistics.
In its development, the zemstvo statistics
passed three stages:
- the emergence and systematic implementation of statistical work (1870-1894);
during this period the zemstvo statistical
bodies were independent from the government in respect of organization and
finances;
- the extention of the programme of
work, including the property appraisal (1894-1900); during this period the activities of the zemstvo statistical bodies
was put
under the government control;
- the period when the zemstvo's statistical work was subsidized by the
government (1900-1917), which restricted their independence. Practically, all the zemstvos'
statistical work was suspended at the beginning
of the first world war.
Zemstvo statisticians not only widely and
masterfully interpreted the various statistical
methods, but were also busy working out and
applying them in combined ways. They made
a success in elaborating the methods of interrogation (the main data source at
that time),
the observation card forms; skillfully using
the methods of non-complete accounting and
combining them with complete accounting,
sample surveys, etc. A significant feature in
the process of elaboration of materials by
zemstvo statisticians was a systematic and
wide use of groupings, especiflly combination
ones proposed by Alexander Polikarpovich
Shlkevich (1849-1909). In the works of
zemstvo statisticians there were revealed the
functions of groupings as a method of
analysing relationships and as a mode of singling out the type of phenomena,
which
paved the way for subsequent development of
the theory of typological grouping.
A considerable contribution to the development of zemstvo statistics was made by
V.I. Orlov (Head of the Moscow zemstvo
statistical bureau in 1876-1885), P.P. Chervinsky, V.E. Varzar, S.A. Kharizomenov, V.G. Groman (Head of statistics of
the Penza zemstvo), F.A. Scherbina (Head
of the Statistical Bureau of the Voronezh
zemstvo, a Corresponding Member of the
Russian Academy of Sciences (1904), and
others.
The work for the organization of state
statistics, activated in the 40-50ies of the
XIXth century, also continued in the 60ies.
Having been formed in these years, it was
maintained almost unchanged during the
entire post-reform period.
The Emperor's command of July 27,
1861, singled out the Zemstvo Division from
the Central Statistical Committee into an independent agency "for ensuring a
success in the
progress of the peasants' affairs". According to
the approved regulations, cases lodged with
the Minister's Council on matters subject to
zemstvo-economic settlement were preceded
and executed in the Zemstvo Division (Full
Code of Laws of the Russian Empire,
Collection 2, Volume 36, Section 2).
The Regulations on the statistical organization at the Ministry of the Interior
were
approved on April 30, 1863, by Emperor
Alexander the Second (Opinion of the State
Council with the resolution of Emperor
Alexander the Second: "So it shall be".
Full Code of Laws of the Russian Empire,
Collection 2, Volume 38, Section 1).
The Regulations provided for the establishment of the Statistical Council and
the Central Statistical Committee of the
Ministry of the Interior.
In accordance with the Regulations of
1863, the object of the Statistical Council's
activities was "the establishment of the
Tightest and truest ways of collection and
processing of statistical data in the Empire
and the uniform direction of all the work of
this kind". The Statistical Council was
entrusted with: discussion of ways for implementation of all the statistical
work and measures concerning collection of data throughout the Empire and
requiring co-operation of
various agencies; discussion of production of
private statistical work of different agencies
and establishment of a common form for
their publication: improvement of ways for
registration of statistical data obtained in the
process of regular clerical work in various
agencies.
In accordance with the royally approved
Regulations of May 24, 1875, the Council
had to "assist to Ministries and other main
departments in work on administrative
statistics", and "... only such matters are
subject to indispensable consideration of the
Council that refer to the statistical arrangement or implementation of any
statistical
work through the jurisdiction of the
Ministry of the Interior".
According to the Regulations of 1863,
the purpose of the Central Statistical
Committee was implementation of statistical
work under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
the Intwerior. It was entrusted with the collection, checking, processing of
data annually received from local statistical committees,
the elaboration of statistical information furnished by other agencies on the
basis of
decisions taken by the Statistical Council.
As regards the work and scientific orientation, all the provincial, regional and
urban
statistical committees were subordinared to
the Central Statistical Committee. The
management of the Central Statistical
Committee was effected by the Director who
was a member of the Minister's Council and
a permanent member of the Statistical
Council. He was chosen from a range of persons with special accomplishments and
knowledge in the field of statistics, was
appointed and discharged on a presentation
from the Minister of the Interior by Royal
Decrees to the Governing Senate and by
Royal orders.
In 1866 there was published the first
compendium of the Central Statistical
Committee "The Statistical Time-book of
the Russian Empire". It contained information on the surface area, population,
industry, trade, transport, people's education,
crime statistics, etc. This was the first
Russia's statistical yearbook (since 1905 it
was entitled "The Yearbook of Russia", and
after 1912 - "The Statistical Yearbook of
Russia").
On the boundary between the XIXth
and the XXth century, the experience of the
government and zemstvo statistics in Russia
allowed to scientifically comprehend the
application of statistics in different areas.
There started to emerge branch statistics:
agricultural, industrial, of railway transport,
of trade, of labour, budgetary, and statistics
of population.
This period was characterized by a wide
use in statistical practice of various surveys
and censuses.
A long-lasting period of preparation preceded the most important Census of
Population of the Russian Empire (1897)
prior to which inspections served as sources
of available data. From 1862 through 1897,
there were conducted 98 local population
censuses in cities/towns (in 1869 under the
guidance of P.P. Semenov, in 1881 and
1890 under the guidance of Yu.E. Yanson,
and in 1882 under the guidance of A.I. Chuprov, I.I. Yanzhul, A.S. Posnikov). The
General Census of Population was conducted as of February 9 (January 28), 1897,
and was headed by P.P. Semenov. Three
categories of population were taken into
account: available, settled (permanent) and
registered (ascribed). The programme of the
Census included 14 indications, and three
census forms were used. The Census was a
success, its results were published in the two
volumes of the "All-Imperial General Code
of the processed results of the General
Census of Population conducted on January
28, 1897" and individual volumes for
gubernias, regions, four cities/towns. In
agricultural statistics, there were conducted
"podvomy" (house-to-house) censuses of
peasants' households.
In 1903 and 1910, the Central Statistical
Committee conducted the Census of
Agricultural Machinery and Implements.
Since 1875 there were conducted censuses of military horses (altogether 9
censuses
were carried out in the post-reform period).
There were no cattle censuses. Since
1904, data on cattle numbers started coming
annually. Since 1883, the Central Statistical
Committee organized statistics of crop yields
on the basis of data samples.
In the field of industrial statistics, the
most significant were the industrial censuses
of 1900 and 1908 conducted on the initiative of, and under the guidance of, V.E. Varzar. The census of 1900 covered only
unexcisable manufactures, and the census of
1908 - the entire manufacturing industry
of factories and plants.
The statistics of education was represented by school statistics. The first
school census was conducted in 1880.
Since the second half of the XIXth century there was raised the level of
statistical science towards whose development a considerable contribution was
made by the mathematical school of the St.Petersburg University
founded by Paphnuti Lvovich Chebyshev (1821-1894). He and his disciples, and first
of all Andrey Andreyevich Markov (1856-1922) and Alexander Mikhailovich Liapunov (1857-1918) set up the Russian school of the
theory of probabilities.
The achievements of the mathematical
school started getting applied in demography
and insurance business, in particular in construction of mortality tables. The
understanding of the fact that, with time, statistics
could become an exact, mathematical science was combined with the view of
statistics
as a social science that was ascending from
description of phenomena to their analysis.
However, not all the scientists shared the
notion of statistics as a mathematical science.
Yuly Edwardovich Yanson (1835-1893), a
Corresponding Member of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, belonged to this
group of scientists. He believed the revealment of cause-and-effect relationships to be
the main purpose of statistics, and thought
that the theory of probabilities could not
ensure the finding of causes of studied phenomena. As an advocate of descriptive
statistics, he admitted that statistics was a
self-sustained science independent of mathematics, in particular of the theory
of probabilities, negated the role of large numbers,
paying much attention to the problems of
observation and grouping, organization of
practical statistics.
Yanson's ideas produced a tremendous
inHuence upon a whole generation of Russian
statisticians: L.V. Feodorovich,
A.N. Antsipherov, K.G. Voblyi, L.V. Khodsky and others.
A considerable contribution to the development of the theory of statistical
observation was made by Alexander Ivanovich
Chuprov (1842-1908), a teacher at the
Moscow University. In particular, he gave
preference to the application of the expedition method of data collection when
the
quality of the observation materials
increased, and to the inclusion in the observation programme of questions for
obtaining "cross-data" with a view to strengthening
the control of materials received during the
observation. Theoretically he generalized the
practice of zemstvo statistics regarding the
compilation of combination tables, developed the theory of monographic survey.
One can date the emergence of stohastic (from a Greek word meaning "to suppose")
statistics back to 1880 when Vladimir
Andreyevich Kosinsky, then a student of a
law faculty and afterwards a well-known
Russian economist, in his booklet "On
Ways of Developing Statistical Materials"
substantiated a progressive possibility of
using mass sample surveys, based on the
theory of probabilities, with a preliminary
grouping of facts, so that it would be possible to apply inductive methods to
the groups
thus obtained.
The formation of stohastic school in
Russia was prompted by the work of A.V. Vassiliev, a Professor of the Kazan
University (1853-1929), V.I.Bortkevich (1863-1931), A.A.Chuprov (1874-1926),
and others. In A.V. Vassiliev's article "the
Laws of the Accidental and Mathematical
Statistics" ("The Herald of Europe", 1892) it was proven that, having at one's
disposal data of a mass observation, it would
be possible to judge whether any fundamental causes have changed or the observed
changes stay within the boundaries of mere
accidental things. His conclusion was that
social statistics based on the theory of probabilities becomes a branch of
mathematics
- mathematical statistics.
V.I. Bortkevich's best known work was
"On Statistical Regularities" ("The Herald
of Law", Nos.8. 10, 1905). He showed that
statistics had nothing to do with the elementary probabilities described by
Bernulli's
theorem. In real life there occur events that
represent the effect of several causes.
Therefore, stohastic statistic must base its
methodology not on the elementary but on
the mean probability.
À.À. Chuprov, the great Russian statistician, the real head of the stohastic
school
could generalize the ideas of this school,
give philosophic justification to its fundamental notions, reveal the
relationship
between statistics and the theory of probabilities. He anticipated and
stimulated the'
turn to the probability-oriented justification
of statistical knowledge, prompted the
development of mathematical statistics. His
theoretical and methodological works made
considerable influence on the practice of statistical analysis and in
particular, on the dissemination of the sampling method, to
which there greatly contributed his connections with the zemstvo statisticians,
his
statements at the All-Russian congresses of
the zemstvo statisticians, etc. The main
ideas were expounded in his monographs:
"The Essays on the Theory of Statistics" (St.Petersburg, 1909) "The Main
Problems of the Correlation Theory" (Moscow, 1926), his article "The Main
Targets of the Stohastic Theory of
Statistics" ("The Herald of Statistics",
1925, Nos. 10-12). These works supported
the idea of dividing all the sciences into
nomographic sciences, studying general regularities - eternal and invariable,
and ideographical sciences, explaining the regularities of specific phenomena in
definite conditions of place and time. In accordance with
this, statistics as an object science could be
referred to the ideographical class and, as a
methodological science, to the nomographic
class. The scientist made important additional conclusions about the subject-
matter
of scientific cognition: on the occurence,
alongside with the synonimous functional
relationships, of the so-called free, varying
relationships, appearing in the form of a
complex entanglement of many stable, independent elementary causes; on the
probability as a principal basis for measurement of
free relationships, ensuring the objectivity of
the characteristics thus received. À.À. Chuprov much contributed to the dissemination of the probability-oriented views
in
Russia as well as abroad.
He also worked out the theory of groupings. His work "On the Ways of Grouping
Statistical Observations" ("Proceedings of
the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute",
Volume 1, Issues 1-2, St. Petersburg, 1904).
The propositions of this article found
practical application, in particular, in the
works of Grigory Ivanovich Baskin (1866-1937), a zemstvo statistician, who put forth
the principles of regioning, combination
groupings, secondary groupings in the peasantry studies.
The following trends were revealed in the
statistical science of the second half of the
XIXth century - the beginning of the
XXth century: the establishment and elaboration of the probability-oriented
statistics;
the generalization of statistical methodology
through the combination of the practical
experience of statistics, zemstvo statistics in
the first turn, with the mathematic-and-statistical methods; the differentiation
of statistical science.
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