Patents in Imperial Russia: A History of the Russian Institution of Invention Privileges underthe Old Regime. by Anneli Aer. HelsinkiReview by: Thomas C. OwenSlavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp. 482-483Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2501963 .

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482 Slavic Review

about the training of Swiss pastors, their family social status in Switzerland, the reasons why they looked toward the Russian empire for a clerical career, the many locations of their churches and missions in cities and villages throughout Russia, the many ecclesiastical and social duties that consumed their time and energy, and, of course, their financial problems. One chapter describes the activity of their wives; here his reconstruction of the events is masterful, in spite of the paucity of evidence. Another chapter, unfortunately short, is devoted to Swiss Capuchins and Jesuits. Much of this information will be of interest to scholars of church history and the history of religion in the Russian empire.

Although the depth of the study is profound, its scope is really quite modest. It has a strictly regional focus, including only the Swiss and placing a heavy emphasis on events that unfolded in Switzerland. Hermann Dalton is mentioned, for example, but actually excluded from the analysis because he was German rather than Swiss, even though he was perhaps the best-known Reform pastor active in Russia in the nineteenth century, and Lord Radstock, the inspired and influential English preacher, is not mentioned at all. The limited framework is set and reinforced by the sociological character of the book. It is designed as a search for consistently reoccurring social patterns and categories within the Swiss emigration (as well as their nuances). Schnei- der is especially interested in understanding the initial motives for emigration and the daily routine of Die Auswanderer once they became established abroad, and he discusses several social theories and methodologies that help to explain the signifi- cance of his material. He has, in fact, only a sketchy interest in religious ideas and political events, and their places in imperial Russian history. These factors do not detract from the excellence of the book, but they may reduce its importance for many Slavists whose interest in the Russian circumstances surrounding the Swiss is likely to be strong.

One serious shortcoming of this otherwise outstanding study must be mentioned. The author has consulted no Russian-language materials and particularly absent are Russian archival sources. Five years ago, perhaps even ten, access to the Russian ar- chives on this topic was restricted to a small company of the privileged, but permission for scholars to enter the reading rooms is now more easily obtained. Schneider's study is archive-intensive but based only on what he has found in the western collections and in the western languages. It is likely that the Russian evidence would have either enriched his conclusions or altered them substantially. His work is very good, but the study is incomplete.

JOHN D. BASIL, University of South Carolina

Patents in Imperial Russia: A History of the Russian Institution of Invention Privileges under the Old Regime. By Anneli Aer. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1995. x, 231 pp. Appendixes. Index. Figures. Tables. Paper.

This Finnish dissertation offers far more than a quantitative survey of patents re- quested and approved by the tsarist government. It analyzes patents and patent laws in the context of the weak entrepreneurial tradition in Russia, the gentry's prejudices against commerce and industry, debates over tariff protection for domestic manufac- turing, and the activities of the Russian Industrial Society and the Russian Technical Society. For anyone interested in the peculiarities of Russian capitalism before 1917, this book serves as an ideal account, concise and well documented.

Patent statistics do not perfectly reveal trends in technological innovation or economic development, as they inevitably reflect idiosyncracies in the law, including application fees and time limits for patent protection, all of which varied over time and from country to country. Still, Anneli Aer's three figures, twenty tables, and three statistical appendixes illuminate some crucial patterns in Russian economic history. For example, in 1895 the Russian government granted only 3 new patents per million inhabitants, compared to more than 300 in the United States, Britain, and Norway,

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Book Reviews 483

270 in France, over 100 in Germany and Austria-Hungary, and 23 in sleepy Portugal. The high percentage of foreign recipients of patents, which declined only slightly from 83 to 77 percent between 1897 and 1904, confirmed the predominance of foreign expertise and technology in the most dynamic sectors of the Russian economy at the turn of the century.

The nightmare of subjugation by foreign technology, reflected in the high per- centage of Europeans, especially Germans, who received Russian patents, inspired not only the traditionally xenophobic Moscow merchants but also high officials of the Ministry of Finance, notably A. N. Gur'ev, to demand rigid bureaucratic controls on foreigners seeking patents: "The government was ... expected to find a solution which would on the one hand encourage Russian invention activity and stimulate the interest of entrepreneurs in improving their production technology [and] on the other hand prevent foreign investors from monopolizing the technology which was important for the development of Russian industry" (138). Tsarism never resolved this dilemma.

To be sure, all governments found it difficult to promulgate patent laws capable of protecting inventors' rights to a fair reward while encouraging the diffusion of innovative technology. Unfortunately, the tsarist bureaucracy failed both to accom- modate the dynamism of foreign capitalism and to stimulate the weak entrepreneurial impulses of Russian merchants.

Rejecting the notion that the Russian state overcame structural obstacles to eco- nomic development, Aer reiterates the findings of recent historiography, which has stressed the high costs of bureaucratic repression. Jealous of its autocratic power, the bureaucracy viewed the granting of an invention privilege "as a special and exclusive right, an exception to the normal law" (182) rather than a right to be enjoyed by inventors under a system of private property. Bureaucratic arbitrariness led to delays of three to five years in decisions to grant patents to inventors; errors in judging the novelty of inventions, entailing further delays and financial losses; the refusal to create an independent patent office or to join the Paris Convention on the treatment of foreign patents (1883); and the toleration of such confusion that "even the courts could not make sense of the laws" regulating patents (158).

Aer's treatment of Sergei Witte's economic program of October 1893 is particu- larly useful. This document was first published, in English, in the summer 1995 issue of Russian Studies in History in an abridgment annotated by Leonid E. Shepelev of St. Petersburg, who noted the importance of the document in his book on tsarist eco- nomic policy some fifteen years ago. Her analysis of the archival document has the added advantage of discussing Witte's recommendations for patent law reform, which did not appear in Shepelev's abridged version.

Finally, this study has considerable relevance for an understanding of Russia's current economic crisis. Lest nostalgic Russians consider Stalin's firm hand a solution to economic backwardness, Aer points out in her last footnote that the Soviet govern- ment granted a paltry total of 424 patents from 1932 to 1975, less than one-quarter of the number approved in imperial Russia in 1900 alone (184).

THOMAS C. OWEN Louisiana State University

Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905. By Don C. Rawson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xvi, 283 pp. Index. Plates. Tables. Hard bound. Paper.

In this lucidly written and cogently argued book, Don Rawson examines the formation of right-wing political parties during the revolutionary crisis of 1905. He explores the ideologies, platforms, and activities of the maze of monarchist political parties, group- ings, and organizations and argues that the defenders of the old order enjoyed no small degree of public support in certain regions of the empire, which in turn en- couraged the autocracy to reassert its authority by 1907. Faced with Tsar Nicholas II's concession of the Duma, the monarchists-no friends of a legislative assembly that limited the prerogatives of autocratic power- realized they had no choice but to or-

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