Some Aspects of the Establishment of Gendarme Supervision over the Private Gold Mining Industry in Western Siberia

The circumstances of the establishment of the gendarme supervision over the gold mining industry in Siberia, which originally extended to the western part of the region, are being studied. The aim is to reveal the circumstances of the establishment of the gendarme supervision over the private gold mining industry in Western Siberia. To achieve this aim, the following objectives must be solved: (1) to determine the reasons of the emergence of gendarme supervision; (2) to identify the initiators of the supervisory institution; (3) to determine the tasks that this supervision was supposed to accomplish through the activities of the staff officers of the gendarme corps at the gold mines; (4) to analyze the process of drawing up the job instructions for gendarme officers at the gold mines in Siberia; (5) to trace the selection of candidates for the new gendarme post. The main sources for the article were the documents from the central and regional archives of the Russian Federation. The author came to the following conclusions. The main reasons for the emergence of gendarme supervision over the private gold mining industry were: an increase of workers' riots at the gold mines in Siberia and, as a consequence, the need to combat this phenomenon; the need to have reliable information about the state of the gold mining industry; the importance of gold mining for the state treasury. The establishment of gendarme supervision over the private gold mining industry in Western Siberia gave rise to a discussion in the ruling circles. All participants in this discussion had high hopes for the supervision, regarding it as an important tool of the government policy in the gold mining industry. At the same time, each department or official had their own vision of the essence of this supervision: the regional Siberian authorities wanted to limit the gendarmes' activity at the mines exclusively to supervising functions with subordination to themselves, but the gendarme department sought to put gendarme officers in a more independent position, endowing them with executive functions and offering to equate their posts to the governor's one. In the course of the discussion a compromise was found. Job instructions for the gendarme officer at the gold mines in Western Siberia were developed; they listed the gendarme officer's duties. The choice of the candidate for the new gendarme post, which also caused controversy, turned out to be a difficult question, but even there a candidate who suited all sides was found. All this demonstrates how important the gendarme supervision over the Siberian gold mining industry and the great expectations from it were for the authorities.

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