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Introduction

Corruption as a phenomenon has been familiar to people since ancient times. This is not one of the oldest, but also not a relatively young phenomenon of social reality. For about seven centuries now, history has taught that throughout the course of civilization, humanity has been quite successfully fighting this evil. But even at the beginning of the third millennium, we, the people, have not yet managed to eradicate corruption, in the full sense of the word.

DEFINITION OF CORRUPTION IN GENERAL

In order to move on to consider the historical origins of corruption, first we must define corruption. As is known, there are many definitions of this phenomenon, perhaps this is explained by the presence of different typological and specific approaches to the study of corruption. Joseph Senturia gave the clearest definition of this phenomenon in his work, defining corruption as: “The abuse of public power for private gain.” This is a rather capacious and concise definition that can be found in specialized literature.

If we have more or less figured out the general term and given it a definition, then what about the narrower concept of “corruption in government bodies and institutions.” The Russian Legal Encyclopedia of 2003 defines state corruption as follows: “the use by civil servants (officials) and representatives of public authorities of the position they occupy, by virtue of their official rights and powers, for illegal enrichment, obtaining and using material advantages and other benefits, such as for personal and selfish purposes."

Corruption has been known since ancient times. Mentions of it are found in historical sources that have reached us, relating to all centers of ancient Eastern civilizations (Ancient Egypt, China, India, etc.). Early references to the phenomenon of corruption can be found in the writings of these ancient civilizations. Of course, this term did not include the breadth of the modern definition of corruption as such. We can find our first acquaintance with the elements of the definition of state corruption in some of the two oldest sets of laws that are currently known to mankind: "Code of Hammurabi" (Babylon, 2200 BC) and "Edict of Narmaba" (Egypt, 1200 BC).

In the Middle Ages, the concept of “corruption” had, first of all, a canonical meaning. It meant such actions as “seduction” and “seduction of the devil.” Corruption in the theology of Catholicism has become a manifestation of sinfulness, for according to the writings of the Apostle John, “sin is lawlessness.” A striking example is the possibility of purchasing absolution with money (indulgence) or church rank (simony). The famous political figure Nicolo Machiavelli wrote about such dishonest officials in his works, comparing corruption to a disease that is initially difficult to recognize, but easy to treat, and later - easy to recognize, but almost impossible to treat.

HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF CORRUPTION

If we consider the origins of the emergence of corruption in society, then, apparently, they should be sought in primitive society. They are probably associated with pagan beliefs - our ancestors, completely dependent on the forces of nature, tried to appease the gods who personified these forces. People made sacrifices to them, which were essentially unique gifts. As society developed and the first servants of the cult appeared - shamans, sorcerers, healers, etc., “close to the gods,” they also began to be given gifts and offerings in order to gain the favor of the gods themselves through them.

The first ruler who is mentioned as a fighter against corruption was Urukagina, the Sumerian king of the city-state of Lagash in the second half of the 24th century BC. Despite demonstrative and often brutal punishments for corruption, the fight against it did not lead to the desired results. At best, the most dangerous crimes were prevented, but at the level of petty embezzlement and bribes, corruption was widespread. The first treatise discussing corruption - "Arthashastra" - was published under the pseudonym Kautilya by one of the ministers of Bharata (India) in the 4th century BC. e. In it, he made a pessimistic conclusion that “the king’s property cannot, at least in a small way, not be appropriated by those in charge of this property.”

Mention of corruption and its condemnation are present in all leading religions of the world. You can find confirmation of this in the Bible and the Koran: “Do not accept gifts, for gifts make blind those who see and pervert the work of the righteous” (Ex. 23:8, see also Deut. 16:19); “Do not misappropriate one another’s property and do not bribe judges to deliberately appropriate part of other people’s property” (Quran 2:188), etc.

However, starting from the end of the 18th century, a turning point occurred in the West in society’s attitude towards corruption. Liberal reforms took place under the slogan that state power exists for the benefit of the people subject to it, and therefore subjects support the government in exchange for officials’ strict observance of the laws. In particular, according to the US Constitution, adopted in 1787, accepting a bribe is one of two expressly mentioned crimes for which the President of the United States can be impeached. Society began to exert more and more influence on the quality of work of the state apparatus. As political parties and government regulation grew stronger, episodes of collusion between the political elite and big business became a growing concern. However, objectively, the level of corruption in developed countries during the 19th-20th centuries decreased significantly compared to the rest of the world.

In the second half of the 20th century, corruption increasingly began to become an international problem. Bribery of senior officials abroad by corporations has become widespread. Globalization has led to the fact that corruption in one country has a negative impact on the development of many countries. However, the countries with the highest levels of corruption were no longer limited to the Third World: liberalization in the former socialist countries in the 1990s. accompanied by flagrant abuses of office. In its issue of December 31, 1995, the Financial Times declared 1995 the “year of corruption.” To promote awareness of corruption, the UN established International Anti-Corruption Day (December 9).

The origins of corruption in Russia

government corruption extortion

Until approximately 1715, corruption in Russia was not considered a type of crime. Strictly speaking, they did not attach much importance to this phenomenon, since government officials existed through bribes and other “feedings”. The history of the fight against corruption in our country begins from the time of Peter the Great. Bureaucrats began to be paid official salaries, and all kinds of additional material incentives from outside began to be considered unlawful and illegal. There is a well-known anecdote when the king, in a fit of anger at the embezzlement of his officials, ordered the issuance of a decree according to which any employee who stole the value of a rope was to be hanged on this rope. The king was dissuaded, saying that otherwise he would lose all his subjects. However, some time after the death of Peter the Great in Rus', a rapid increase in corruption among officials was again recorded. And only with the coming to power of Catherine II, this growth began to decline significantly, as she again returned fixed wages to government bodies. They began to receive their salaries in paper money, which soon began to lose their value. But the fact remains that corruption as a phenomenon originated a long time ago and continued to exist and develop throughout the centuries of our history. After the Great October Revolution, a very effective method of combating corruption was used - execution. Thanks to this harsh method, corruption among officials began to decline sharply. This punishment existed almost until the Great Patriotic War. During the Soviet era, attitudes towards corruption were ambivalent. At the same time, a special class was emerging, consisting of managers and separated from the “ordinary” people, and there was a clear opinion that corruption is an unacceptable fact for a socialist society. This duality destroyed the state apparatus, even leading to the fact that positions with a large amount of authority were simply sold. And the revelation of facts of enormous abuse of power led in the 80s. to mass shock and was a serious reason for the collapse. Despite the slogans of the fight against the vices of the Soviet regime, the government of B. Yeltsin was able to surpass Soviet employees in corruption. All these facts have served as a good basis for corruption today.

The history of domestic corruption is outlined in a number of reputable publications. Here we will dwell only on some “key” points.

The origin of “legal” corruption dates back to the 9th-10th centuries, when, following the example of Byzantium, the institution of “ feeding” - the ancient Russian institution of sending the head of state (prince) of his representatives (voivodes, governors) to the province without monetary remuneration. It was assumed that the population of the region would “feed” the governor. The latter had enormous powers, and it is clear that the population did not skimp on offerings... The “fattened” governors, returning to the capital - Moscow, took with them the accumulated goods, “gifts”, “surpluses” of which were confiscated even upon entering the “golden-domed” treasury... This is how the mutual responsibility of provincial and metropolitan bribe takers arose. Feeding was officially abolished in 1556, but the tradition of living and getting rich at the expense of subjects actually survived for a long time, perhaps to this day. How else can one explain the amount of wages - often below the subsistence level, established in modern Russia for employees of the police, customs service, state sanitary and epidemiological service, etc.? There was no shortage of moral and sovereign condemnation of bribery (in the 13th century, Metropolitan Kirill, then Tsars Ivan III, Ivan IV the Terrible, under whom the first known execution for a bribe took place), but - “Corruption is a chronic and incurable disease of any state apparatus of all times and of all peoples."

Feeding transformed into extortion(bribery for actions that violate current legislation) and bribery(for actions without breaking the law). By the 15th century extortion and bribery already formed a system of bribery and corruption. The first law that determined the punishment for bribery of judges was the Code of Laws of 1497. A new manifestation of bribery - extortion known since the 16th century. From the same time, the practice of “bribe for a license” began, started by the Tsar’s father-in-law, boyar Ilya Miloslavsky. And the head of the Zemsky Prikaz, Leonty Pleshcheev, turned the court into an instrument of unlimited extortion. Pleshcheev's brother-in-law, Pyotr Trakhaniotov, who was in charge of the Pushkarsky order, did not pay salaries to the archers, gunsmiths and other subordinates for months, embezzling money. Driven to despair, the people staged a riot in Moscow on May 25, 1648, demanding the extradition and execution of Pleshcheev, Trakhaniotov, and Morozov. Since the rebellion could not be stopped, the Tsar (Alexei Mikhailovich) was forced to hand over first Pleshcheev, who was beaten to death by the crowd, and then Trakhaniotov, who was executed “according to the rules.” The Moscow riot of 1648 turned out to be the only (and to some extent successful!) action against bribe-takers and corrupt officials in Russian history.

Corruption in Russia became a massive, total evil by the 18th century. Peter I was shocked by its scale. He tried to fight it with the usual repressive measures, including the death penalty (Edicts of August 23, 1713, December 24, 1714, February 5, 1724). The Siberian governor Prince Matvey Gagarin, the chief fiscal officer (Chief Prosecutor) Alexei Nesterov and others were executed for bribery. But everything was in vain (let us remember that Peter’s closest associate, Prince A. Menshikov, was also the largest corrupt official...).

Immense corruption reigned in the country and under the heirs of Peter - Catherine 1, Elizabeth, Catherine 11 and others. By the twentieth century. in Russia, “bribery is inextricably intertwined and fused with the entire system and way of political life.”

Centuries passed, the socio-political system changed, but corruption in Russia remained immortal. Thus, “Corruption settled in the Soviets even before they came to power... Corruption pierced the structures of Soviet power from the very first minutes of its real rule.” And from the first days of its existence, the Soviet state attempted to combat bribery with the most severe measures, including the death penalty, and was equally in vain. By the 70s of the twentieth century. Soviet nomenklatura and bureaucracy right up to the leaders of the state and the Communist Party were totally depraved and corrupt(suffice it to recall “cotton”, “fruit”, “fish”, they are also “Uzbek”, “Kazakh”, “Moldavian”, “Moscow”, “Odessa” and other cases and processes that reflected only the visible, superficial part of the phenomenon ).

The real, not idealized or mythologized history of the Russian state indicates that corruption, along with other social ills (theft, drunkenness, lawlessness, etc.), poverty and lack of rights for the majority of the population, have always been extremely widespread in the country. And “The Russia that we lost” (S. Govorukhin) is no better than the one we gained...

RESULT

The leadership of our country understands the situation well and is developing a set of measures to combat corruption. President of Russia D.A. Medvedev declared the fight against corruption a priority direction of state policy. In his opinion, “corruption is enemy number one.” Russia has already developed a presidential package of anti-corruption laws and there is reason to believe that after its approval, an effective fight against corruption will begin in the country.

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“There, only Bonuro does not live for bribes
There, “no” for “yes”, I exchange it for the treasury"

Dante Alighieri.
"The Divine Comedy"
Hell. Circle eight. Fifth ditch. Song 21-40.

In The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri placed bribe-takers in the eighth (penultimate) circle of hell.

Of course, there is no evidence of corruption dating back to the pre-literate era, but theoretically it can be assumed that it could have existed in those times. In primitive and early class societies, there was, of course, a certain payment to the priest, leader or military leader for personal appeal and help.

As the state apparatus became more complex, the situation began to change - rulers of the “highest rank” demanded that “lower-ranking employees” be content only with a fixed “salary”. Nevertheless, “lower-ranking officials” preferred to secretly receive from petitioners (or demand from them) additional payment for the performance of their official duties.

In the Old Testament, the word “bribe” is already found: “...I know how numerous are your crimes and how grave are your sins: you oppress the just, you take bribes, and you drive out the beggar who seeks justice from the gates...” (Am., 5:12).

In the same Bible, in the “Book of Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach,” the father instructs his son: “Do not be a hypocrite before the lips of others and be attentive to your mouth... Let not your hand be stretched out to receive... Do not do evil, and you will not evil will befall; move away from untruth and it will evade you... Do not strive to become a judge, lest you be powerless to crush untruth, lest you ever fear the face of a strong man and cast a shadow over your righteousness...”

There are documents indicating corruption in Jerusalem in the period after the Babylonian captivity of the Jews in 597 - 538. before the Nativity of Christ.

Well, probably the most famous fact of bribery in the history of mankind is the bribery of Judas Iscariot, who sold himself for the sum of thirty pieces of silver.

The New Testament also records facts of “corruption” - the transfer of bribes to the Romans guarding the tomb of Christ. The story goes that after the crucifixion of Jesus, a group of Pharisees came to the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, and told him that Jesus had promised his disciples that he would rise three days after his death, so they asked the hegemon to place a guard at the tomb and thereby “secure” him . The procurator gave them guards with instructions to “guard as you know” the Holy Sepulcher. When Jesus was resurrected, the frightened Roman guards informed the Jews about this, and they decided to make offerings to the soldiers so that they would tell Pontius Pilate that the body of Christ was stolen at night by his disciples, while the guards were sleeping. Thus, the Roman guards were bribed by paying “for silence,” which is confirmed by the fact that the Roman seal on the coffin remained intact!

The Book of Acts also describes a case when Simon, seeing that “at the laying on of the hands of the Apostles the Holy Spirit is transmitted,” brought them money, i.e. a bribe with the request: “Give me this power too,” to which the Apostle Peter answered him: “...Your silver will bring you destruction, since you thought of receiving the gift of God for money...”.

Let us note that in the early stages of the history of the development of ancient societies (ancient Greek city-polises, Republican Rome), when there were no “professional” government officials, corruption was almost absent. This phenomenon began to flourish only in the era of the decline of antiquity, when such government officials appeared about whom they said: “... He came poor to a rich province, and left rich from a poor province...”. During this period, a special term “corrumpire” appeared in Roman law, which was synonymous with the words “spoil” and “bribe”, and served to designate any abuse of office.

Thus, bribery and corruption appear from the moment when the separation of management functions in public and economic activities occurred, when an official, official, “manager” has the opportunity to manage resources and make decisions not in the interests of society, but in their own.

Corruption was also known during the formation of states in the ancient centers of human civilization - Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and Judea in the 3rd-2nd millennia BC. In the religious and legal literature of these states there is evidence of special relations within the elite that have developed since time immemorial. Thus, in one of the texts of Ancient Egypt, in the 22nd century BC, in the “Instruction of the King of Heracleopolis to his son Merikara” it is said: “...Elevate your nobles so that they act according to your laws. He who is rich in his house is impartial, he is the ruler of things, and does not need...” This quote directly speaks of offerings to Egyptian nobles, and only the supposed wisdom of some kings, who made them immensely rich, could reduce the corruption of the “ancient bureaucrats.”

One of the oldest mentions of corruption is also found in the cuneiform writings of Sumer from the mid-third millennium BC, when the Sumerian king Urukagin tried to stop the abuses of judges and officials who extorted rewards.

The oldest evidence of official corruption can be found in the archives of Ancient Babylon, in the second half of the 24th century BC. e., and later, in the 19th century BC. e., in the famous Laws of the Babylonian king Hammurabi, it is directly stated: “... § 5. If a judge examined the case, made a decision and prepared a document with a seal, and then changed his decision, then this judge should be convicted of changing the decision that he decided, and he must pay the amount of claim in this case twelvefold; Moreover, in the assembly he should be driven out of his judicial chair, and he should not return and sit with the judges in court...”

In the Arthashastra, an ancient Indian treatise of the 4th century. BC. “on the art of statecraft” it is emphasized that the most important task facing the tsar is the fight against embezzlement, and the treatise lists 40 ways of stealing state property! The author of the treatise writes that “...It is easier to guess the path of birds in the sky than the tricks of cunning officials. Just as it is impossible to determine whether the fish swimming in it drink water, it is impossible to determine whether the officials assigned to the affairs are appropriating property...” And the main means of combating embezzlement in those days was banal surveillance, and the informer received a share of the property confiscated from a person convicted of an official crime.

Information about large-scale corruption is known in the Hellenistic world. Thus, in the 320s BC, Cleomenes, the Greek governor of Egypt appointed to the place by Alexander the Great, used his position to manipulate the supply of grain from Egypt to Greece. Greece at that time did not produce enough grain, and imported it in large quantities, mainly from Egypt. Cleomenes created artificial obstacles to these supplies, which led to an acute shortage of grain in Greek cities, grain prices in Greece increased many times over, and the population of Greece was on the verge of a famine of death (the famine in Greece lasted from 329 to 325. BC), the Greek governor of Egypt himself earned a huge fortune from grain speculation.

Similar, very large-scale corruption speculations were known in the 4th century. BC. and in metals trading. A certain “Sicilian financial tycoon” bought up all the iron, monopolizing the market, and then sold it at a price 3 times higher than the previous one, making a 200% profit.
Corruption is clearly stated in the ancient Roman (fifth century BC) “Twelve Tables” - the legislative code of the Republic, where the word “corrumpere” is already habitually used in the sense of changing testimony in court for money and bribing a judge: “...Table IX : “Will you really consider as severe the decree of the law that punishes with death the judge or mediator who was appointed during the court settlement [to hear the case] and was convicted of accepting a monetary bribe in [this] case?)..." (Aulus) Gellius, Attic Nights, XX. 17-3).

There were more than forty forms of bribery in Rome, and bribing voters and buying offices was very natural and widespread (as it is today in Russia).

In the 3rd century BC. was the richest state, much richer than Rome, was Carthage, which, however, did not prevent it from being the most corrupt state of antiquity. As the Greek historian Polybius wrote, “...in Carthage nothing is considered disgraceful, which leads to profit... applicants for government positions receive them by openly paying bribes...”. By the end of the 3rd century. BC. corruption in Carthage reached such proportions that, as the famous German historian T. Mommsen noted, “... the government and state bodies of Carthage were dominated by a party that actually defended not the interests of its own country, but the interests of Rome...”. Moreover, this happened during the Second Punic War, which lasted almost 27 years, and it was precisely the opposition to the “corrupt party,” according to T. Mommsen, that explains the fact that Hannibal, fighting against Rome, was actually left to his own devices and did not receive reinforcements from Carthage, which ultimately led to his defeat.

Another historical detail is also interesting - the Romans “at the end” of their power (in the 3rd-5th centuries AD) corrupted, even bribed... their enemies, that is, the barbarians! Roman aristocratic commanders paid huge sums of money to the Goths, Vandals and Huns so that they... would not attack Rome, and thus the top German leaders were corrupt for a long time at the highest, “interstate” level, which did not stop those barbarians , for which there was not enough money, eventually defeat the most powerful state of antiquity.

There was a practice of selling official positions in Byzantium, and for many centuries, and as the French historian A. Guillou writes: “... every official, at least in the highest echelon of the Byzantine bureaucracy, officially bought his position, and in the future, Of course, he tried to recoup the money spent in this way through some additional fees or bribes from the population...”

The massive spread of corruption in Europe began in the Early Middle Ages, when monetary relations began to rapidly develop, the size of the state apparatus grew and the branches of government merged, contrary to the principles of Roman law. The concept of “corruption” in Christian theology takes on the meaning of “sin” or “devilish deception,” but, nevertheless, as Thomas Aquinas wrote, corruption in those days was usually viewed as a manifestation of the very essence of society. And it was in the Middle Ages that a fundamentally new understanding of corruption appeared as an antisocial phenomenon that permeated the entire society from top to bottom, and as the fundamental basis of any deviation from the law.

True, in the Middle Ages the problem of corruption was “successfully solved” by burning the Inquisition at the stake or cutting off limbs, and the residents of medieval Prague simply threw the most hated officials out of the windows.

But, nevertheless, it was in the Middle Ages that the system of commercial or state bribery was widely used by clergy. Let's take, for example, the Order of the Templars, the “Knights Templar,” as we know, fabulously rich. The Templars were indebted to kings and popes; they provided banking services to the nobility, transported and guarded in dangerous areas the enormous valuables entrusted to them by merchants. However, wealth and power rarely keep anyone honest, and in an attempt to guarantee the absolute honesty of their spiritual brothers, the order's charter forbade knights from having their own money. But if a Templar died, and money was found on the deceased in an amount exceeding that allowed by the senior commander, he was denied a Christian burial, which was the most terrible and demonstrative punishment in those days, because it doomed the soul of the “corrupt official” to eternal damnation. But as we know, despite all their wealth and power, the Templars ended very poorly. King Philip IV the Beautiful of France, who owed huge amounts of money to the Knights Templar, destroyed the order in 1307, “agreeing” with Pope Clement V, who declared the Templars heretics and excommunicated them from the church. Most of the Templars were burned at the stake after torture, a smaller part, who admitted their guilt, were imprisoned in monasteries. The Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, after monstrous torture, was burned on the Jewish Island in Paris (now the tip of the Ile de la Cité).

And in the Catholic Church, massive corruption is well known, for example, the same sale of indulgences. In addition, in 1409, the ritual of enthronement of the new Pope, carried out after the election of the conclave of cardinals, included a special action designed to remind the Supreme Pontiff of his mortal nature and turn him away from thoughts of abuse. And when the newly elected pope entered St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to receive the anointing and tiara, a bunch of tow was burned three times in front of him, which was accompanied by the exclamation: “Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world!” Sit transit gloria mundi!

The story is also known that at the end of the 14th century, during the period of “dual popery,” the famous bandit Robert of Geneva was elected one of the two popes under the name of Clement VII. And at the beginning of the 15th century, a third pope, the sea pirate Balthazar Causse, came to the papal throne under the name John XXIII. It is believed that the “elections” were not without bribing the votes of the cardinals.

In the Ottoman Empire, both in the Middle Ages and later, corruption was monstrous, and it is still believed that the Sultan’s officials signed the peace treaty with Russia for a bribe. Yes, the Ottoman Empire, like the Roman and Byzantine ones earlier, decomposed and fell apart due to the fact that everything and everyone was bought and sold - people, positions, services, and favors.

But this is the “flattering and selfish” East. What about “civilized and puritanical” Europe? Yes, the same thing... In February 1610, the authorities of the Netherlands, for example, issued the first edict in history that prohibited... trade in air! We were talking only about transactions with shares that “were not in the actual possession of the seller at the time of the transaction.” In 1689, the Amsterdam lawyer Nicolaas Meijs Van Houli ensured that all transactions began to be registered and taxed, but before that, abuses and bribes in uncontrolled transactions were commonplace.

There was even a tax on bribes, for example on the island of Java in the 18th century, when the island was a colony of Holland! Corruption in Java, as contemporaries noted, as in Holland itself, reached incredible proportions. The governor-general, with a salary of 700 guilders a year, brought home a fortune of 10 million guilders. A junior merchant paid (officially!) 3,500 guilders for appointment to a post with a salary of 40 guilders per month and received an annual income of up to 40 thousand guilders in this position.

England “did not lag behind”... Trying to stop bribery and theft in the Royal Navy, the British Admiralty in the 18th century came up with a red thread running through the entire length of the ship's rigging, which could not be pulled out without unraveling the entire rope or the entire rope, so that from the smallest scrap one could recognize the “property of the crown.” But the Admiralty officials did not take care of the main thing - after all, they stole more often in order to give bribes to the same bureaucrats who “defiantly fought” with these very bribes.

In England and other countries, an almost open “cultivation of corrupt traditions” flourished in the highest echelons of power, and the famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote: “... People who boast of their wealth boldly commit crimes in the hope that they will be able to escape punishment through corruption state justice or to receive forgiveness in exchange for money or other forms of remuneration... Corruption is the root from which flows at all times and under all temptations contempt for all laws...”

Charles Montesquieu noted: “... it is known from the experience of centuries that every person who has power is inclined to abuse it, and he goes in this direction until he reaches the limit assigned to him...”. Corruption in France was encouraged by the “state sloppiness” characteristic of the absolutist royal power. The first population census was carried out only by Napoleon, at the beginning of the 19th century, and before that, the French kings simply did not know how many subjects they had, and certainly did not know how much property they had, so taxes were distributed “by eye,” which contributed to corruption - royal officials, on whom the determination of the amount of the tax depended, could sharply reduce it for a donation “personally into their pocket.” Moreover, a similar system existed in those days in many European, and, especially, Asian countries.

The modern meaning of the concept of “corruption” was finally established in the 15th - 16th centuries, and corruption is usually understood as bribery and corruption of officials (government officials), as well as social and political figures.

Soon after the death of one of the leaders of the French Revolution, Mirabeau was discovered to have taken bribes from the king, and his body was thrown out of the Pantheon in disgrace. And already in the middle of the 20th century, it was proven that one of the most famous Jacobin leaders, Danton, also received money from the king. Both Mirabeau and Danton promised the king protection and patronage. And both deceived him... Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793 in Paris, on the Place de la Revolution, formerly Place Louis XV, and now Place de la Concorde (Placedela Concorde).

Under Emperor Napoleon, his ministers Fouche and Talleyrand received bribes from all the royal courts of Europe who wanted to secure the patronage of the emperor.

And in the 19th century, the word “Panama” became a household word - the French company that built the Panama Canal, in order to hide its difficult financial situation, bribed a large group of deputies and ministers. The matter ended with the collapse of the company and the ruin of hundreds of thousands of shareholders.

In 1884 in the United States, Oliver Payne, treasurer of Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, bribed...the Ohio State Legislature and ensured the election of his father Henry Payne as a senator from this state. “... Bribes, blackmail, and extortion were the basis of most legislative acts of the state assembly...” wrote one of the researchers of American politics of that time.

The emergence of corruption in Rus' dates back to the 9th - 10th centuries, when Kievan Rus actually arose, and such a concept as “feeding”, i.e. the prince sent his governors and governors to the provinces, without paying them, but endowing them with enormous powers, assuming that the population would “feed” him, which naturally led to monstrous bribes and abuses. Those. Initially, corruption for officials in Russia was a legal activity; government officials, governors and governors lived off “feedings,” that is, on donations from those who were interested in their activities. Having collected the bribe, the governors returned to the capital, where the surplus of accumulated wealth was taken away from them in favor of the treasury.

By the 15th century, corruption in Russia had acquired a systemic character, and the official performed some action for the offering, and, by the way, his direct duties. This was called “bribery” and was perceived as the norm, although only if the official did not break the law. If he was bribed to do something illegal, which was possible thanks to his position, this was already considered “extortion”, which they tried to fight. The first law on punishing judges for bribery was published in the Code of Laws of 1497, and already in the Code of Laws of 1550, the issue of bribery was considered in more detail, so for a clerk who drew up a false protocol for a bribe or distorted the testimony of the parties, a punishment was provided - imprisonment, in addition, he had to pay a fine equal to the amount of the claim.

In 1556, “feeding” was abolished, but mutual responsibility and the lack of moral condemnation of bribe-takers in provincial and capital districts still remained, and the local population did not skimp on gifts, since there was no other way out.

Since the 16th century, a new manifestation of corruption arose in Rus' - “extortion”. Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the Head of the Zemsky Prikaz, Leonty Pleshcheev, turned the court into an “organization” engaged exclusively in extortion; all court cases were resolved according to the principle - “whoever gives the most will win.” At the same time, the practice of “bribery for a license” began, started by the Tsar’s father-in-law, boyar Ilya Miloslavsky. And Pleshcheev’s brother-in-law Pyotr Trakhaniotov, who was in charge of the Pushkarsky order, did not pay salaries to the archers, gunsmiths and other subordinates for months, embezzling the money for himself. Driven to despair, the people started a riot in Moscow on May 25, 1648, and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was forced to extradite Pleshcheev, who was torn to pieces by the crowd, and then execute Trakhaniotov. This riot turned out to be the first (and last, by the way) in Russian history, a popular uprising against corruption. And Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich had to promise the people that he himself would ensure that the newly appointed judges “carried out punishment without promises.” The Council Code of 1649, published after the riot, provided for numerous punishments for crimes that fell under the concept of corruption: forgery when copying a court case, concealment of fees when registering cases, oppression of the population. But corruption still hasn't disappeared...

One of the first who was surprised by the scale of corruption in society and in the public administration system was Peter the Great. By his decrees (dated August 23, 1713, December 24, 1714, and February 5, 1724), Peter introduced repressive measures, including the death penalty, for all those who were found to be corrupt. It was during the reign of Peter I that it was first realized that corruption is a terrible evil for the state, undermines the country's budget and corrupts society.

Since 1715, officials in Russia began to receive a “fixed salary” - a salary, and a bribe in any form began to be considered a crime. However, the state apparatus under Peter the Great grew so large that maintaining it became problematic, and salaries, already very modest, were paid irregularly, so bribes were still the main source of income, especially for lower-ranking officials.

Peter decided to toughen the penalties and rashly wanted to issue a decree according to which any official who stole an amount equal to the price of ... rope should be hanged, but his associates unanimously declared that in this case the sovereign would simply be left without subjects. The emperor listened to his advisers, but still introduced the death penalty for bribery.

The post of Prosecutor General (Ober-Fiscal) was established specifically to combat corruption, and on the personal instructions of the Emperor, Alexey Nesterov was appointed to this position. He valiantly fulfilled his duties, waged an active fight against embezzlement and bribery, and after many years of investigation he exposed the Siberian governor, Prince Matvey Gagarin, of corruption, who was hanged in front of all the honest people... And three years later, Chief Fiscal Nesterov himself was accused of corruption and quartered. So repressive measures helped little...

As the historical anecdote goes, Balakirev, Peter’s jester, once asked the emperor what the similarities were between a wheel and a lawyer. “So what?” Peter laughed. “...And the fact is, Your Imperial Majesty, that both need to be “lubricated” more often!...”

Well, the “main bribe-taker” of Russia during the time of Peter the Great was Prince Alexander Menshikov, the “right hand” of the emperor. “I have only one hand left, a thieving one, but a faithful one,” said Peter the Great after Lefort’s death. Repeatedly Peter “taught” his favorite Danilych with a baton, but Peter never got up to executing him. And Menshikov took bribes, and stole, as they say, not even “carriages”, but entire cities. When in 1727 Alexander Danilych “...was accused of high treason, theft of the treasury and exiled with his family to Berezov, his property was confiscated: 90 thousand serfs, 6 cities, estates in Russia, Poland, Prussia and Austria, 5 million. rubles in gold in cash and 9 million in English and Dutch banks, etc...” (TSB).

Peter passed away, corruption continued to flourish in Russia, and the “feeding” system was restored again. There were examples when Russian “statesmen” did not hesitate to use illegal financial support from other countries. A striking example of corruption “on the foreign policy front” is Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who was in charge of Russian foreign policy during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, which was expressed in the permanent alliance of Russia with England and Austria against all other European states. But the secret office of Alexander Ivanovich Shuvalov irrefutably proved that the “strategic priorities” of the Russian chancellor were based on... regular transfers received for more than 15 years from London and Vienna. So this was already a fact of not only corruption, but also direct treason. Bestuzhev-Ryumin escaped execution only thanks to Elizabeth’s promise, which she made upon accession to the throne - the queen assured her subjects that not a single person would be executed on her orders. The Chancellor was demoted and sent into exile, but after the death of Empress Elizabeth, during the reign of Catherine II, Bestuzhev-Ryumin returned to St. Petersburg, managed to receive a bribe from Grigory Orlov, and then an offering from the Empress, albeit with an order to immediately and forever go “to treat ailments” to European resorts.

Catherine II returned a fixed salary to officials, but it was issued in paper money, which by the beginning of the 19th century began to depreciate greatly in comparison with silver and gold, so corruption continued.

In addition, in Russian culture it so happened that custom prevailed over current legislation. Over the centuries of serfdom, in the conditions of which offerings to the owner were natural, features of the mentality also developed. The “tradition of gifts” was transferred to relationships with government authorities, so people brought offerings, considering them not as a bribe, but as a gift and not realizing that they were thereby corrupting officials. And for civil servants, in turn, it was difficult to resist a bribe, since refusal of a “gift” was perceived as an insult.

As a result, by the middle of the 19th century, officials of almost all ranks constantly abused their positions and were in fear of exposure. However, it is enough to read “The Inspector General” by N.V. Gogol.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Arkady Ivanovich Nelidov was appointed to the post of governor in Kursk, who was famous for his modesty, honesty and categorically did not take bribes. The entire “Kursk society” was very indignant. “What does it matter to us that he is honest and does not take bribes? But you can’t do anything with him!”

Emperor Nicholas the First, during the Crimean War, struck by corruption and theft, said this to his son, the heir to the throne: “It seems that only two people in Russia do not steal - me and you!”

Well, the words of A.S. Pushkin: “Vaska the cat is a rogue, Vaska the cat is a thief - well, like a chief prosecutor!”!

Whoever wrote about bribery in Russia in the mid-late 19th century - Krylov, Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, and especially Saltykov-Shchedrin, and then Chekhov, and many other writers. And these are just writers... However, read the same “life writer of Moscow”, journalist V.A. Gilyarovsky... He writes well about bribes to the Moscow police: “...Before the holidays, Okhotny Ryad carried food bribes with Moscow Skvoznik-Dmuzanovsky carts. They also gave it “dry”, in envelopes....” Something has changed?

At the beginning of the twentieth century, corruption reached the highest officers, for whom the thirst for profit was generally not characteristic, and who previously lived by the concepts of valor, honor and dignity. At the beginning of the First World War, in August 1914, General Rennenkampf abandoned the commander of the Second Russian Army, Samsonov, to the mercy of fate, which had grave consequences for Russia. True, it was still not possible to prove the fact that Rennenkampf received a bribe, and he avoided retribution. In 1915, the Minister of War Sukhomlinov was convicted of treason, who allegedly transferred secret information through his wife to the Austro-Hungarian military attaché and his agents for bribes (which was also not proven true).

The revolution in Russia seemed to have eradicated corruption... but only for a while... Under Stalin, the attitude towards corruption in general took a very interesting turn - on the one hand, punishment for “abuse of official position” was tightened up to the death penalty, and on the other hand, civil servants very quickly they formed an inviolable and uncontrollable class; representatives of the nomenklatura were virtually immune from jurisdiction and were not too afraid of punishment.

The fight against corruption was rather demonstrative and political in nature and was used to deal with undesirable persons. An illustrative example is the case of Abel Enukidze, who held the position of secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, which he used for his personal interests. The party apparatus, of course, knew about this, but no one was particularly outraged as long as “Comrade Enukidze kept pace with the general line of the party.” But as soon as he aroused Stalin’s displeasure, repressions immediately followed, and in 1937 Yenukidze was shot.

By the way, it was in the 30s that the never-before-existent “envelope” system appeared (very successfully revived in the perestroika and post-perestroika periods). All top ranks in the party apparatus, the NKVD, the prosecutor's office and the army were given a second salary, not declared anywhere, which “stimulated loyalty” to the leader.

Only Khrushchev canceled this, which, of course, made him a lot of enemies, which served, in particular, informally, of course, as the reason for his resignation in 1964. One of the stories of that time was that Frol Kozlov, Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, was exposed for “abuse of official position,” i.e. in those days, the second person in the state, but when the results of the investigation were announced, Kozlov was paralyzed. And Khrushchev said: “If he gets better, we’ll expel him from the party and we’ll put him on trial. If he dies, we’ll bury him on Red Square.” These words of Khrushchev determined the further direction in the “fight against corruption” in the USSR - “if not caught, not a thief.” More precisely, this concerned, of course, the “party-bureaucratic elite”, because there was no official term “corruption” in the USSR, the authorities did not recognize this word, it appeared only in the late 1980s.

There were terms “bribery”, “connivance”, “abuse”, but given the constant shortage of products, equipment, goods, products, opportunities to get housing, etc., many, or rather the majority, holding at least some positions, took it for granted to let them go for bribes of scarce products, allocation of equipment and materials, appointment to responsible positions, adjustment and reduction of planned targets, concealing fraud. Everyone used their official position as best they could, especially when it came to trade - if a “Soviet person” wanted to live relatively comfortably, he had to have “his” people (“blat”) in the stores. The reason was, of course, a shortage (by 90%) of consumer goods.

It is believed that the collapse of the USSR is associated with corruption discovered in the mid-to-late 1980s at the highest level, not to mention the directors of stores and trades, directors of enterprises, etc.
But, nevertheless, radical liberals led by B.N. Yeltsin, who came to power under the slogans of “fighting corruption,” once in power, “blocked the achievements” of their predecessors. The official incomes of government officials remained quite modest, but at the same time it was almost impossible to do business without their permission, and privatization turned out to be a particularly generous “feeding trough”.

In addition, the very fact of “decentralized post-Soviet corruption” is interesting - if in other countries it is enough to “give a hand” to one or two high-ranking officials, then in Russia you have to pay all officials without exception, from the receptionist to the tax inspectors.

Today's Russian government, like the rulers of past eras, is allegedly trying to resist powerful corruption, but as long as in the mass consciousness of the people and especially officials, corruption, bribes, and gifts are perceived as a normal and inevitable phenomenon, nothing will change. And as long as bribes are offered, they will be taken, no matter how severe the punishments for this may be. Will we be able to jointly break the vicious circle of corruption, will Russia emerge from it? For now this question is rhetorical...

And as they say, time will tell...

Many modern historians consider corruption to be a real cultural phenomenon of humanity, and therefore do not see the point in all measures to combat it. From a logical point of view, there is a grain of truth in this statement, but very often corruption is perceived as a purely Russian tradition, although in fact it has a worldwide character. If you are interested in the history of corruption in the world, you can find the first mentions of it in records dating back tens of thousands of years before our era. This means that this fact partly confirms the theory of scientists, which we have already mentioned. Therefore, we can safely draw a parallel between the history of corruption in Russia and the same process in other countries.

Of course, this phenomenon, depending on the state in which it manifests itself, is distinguished by its own characteristic features. However, in general the processes can be considered identical. Despite the fact that the whole world is fighting against this, as many say, shameful phenomenon, and even the International Anti-Corruption Day has existed for more than thirteen years, not a single country or political regime has been able to win. Today we will trace the history of the emergence and development of corruption in Russia. And we will definitely evaluate this topic from a global perspective.

Terminology of the question

Diving into the history of corruption, many call it “bribery.” However, in fact, this term has a much broader interpretation. If we consider it in this sense, it becomes clear how serious a “disease” this phenomenon is for humanity.

After studying several different dictionaries, we can say that corruption is actions carried out to benefit from one's official position. That is, we mean not only a bribe with money or abuse of one’s powers, but also any way of dressing one’s position for benefit. Most often, of course, it is measured in monetary terms.

It is impossible to talk about the history of corruption in general without mentioning the main forms of its manifestation. It is worth considering that even the same shape can have different scales. It depends on the position of the official and his capabilities. The higher they are, the greater the scale of disaster that he can cause. In modern Russia they sometimes amount to billions of dollars.

So, referring to the history of corruption, its following forms are distinguished:

• extortions;
• bribes;
• using one's position for personal gain.

The world community condemns any of the above options. But examples of corruption prove that some types of bribery were even completely legalized, which is a distinctive feature of our country. However, this phenomenon came to us from the Byzantine Empire, firmly rooted, like many other foreign trends.

We consider the issue from the point of view of world culture

The history of corruption is deeply rooted in ancient times. Scientists believe that it was transformed from the tradition of giving gifts in order to get what they wanted from members of the tribe who were at a higher level of the hierarchical ladder. In primitive society, gifts were presented to leaders and priests, because the well-being of the entire community and each of its members in particular depended on them. It is interesting that historians cannot name the exact date of the emergence of corruption, but they are definitely sure that it was a constant companion of humanity and developed along with it.

A natural stage in the maturation of our civilization is statehood. But this important process is always accompanied by the emergence of officials, who represent a kind of social layer between the elite and the common people. At the same time, sometimes unlimited power is concentrated in their hands, which means they get the opportunity to enrich themselves due to their advantageous position.

If we turn to the origins of corruption, the first written mentions of it were made in the Sumerian state. Approximately two and a half thousand years BC, one of the kings harshly persecuted bribe-takers and became known as an implacable fighter against corruption. A little later, one of the Indian ministers devoted an entire scientific treatise to this problem, highlighting in a special line his regrets about the impossibility of somehow changing the situation for the better. These facts give us every right to assert that the history of combating corruption began literally immediately after the emergence of this phenomenon. Therefore, in this case we are talking about interconnected, and therefore codependent processes. Understanding this phenomenon facilitates further study of the issue.

Corruption: history and modernity

As humanity developed, corruption also changed. The emergence of the rudiments of the judicial system marked the emergence of its new type. Now judges, who have enormous power and, by the nature of their work, are obliged to be as impartial as possible, have the opportunity to resolve disputes outside the legal field. Corrupt judges were a real scourge of Europe, because only very wealthy people could prove anything in court.

It is interesting that even the main religious cults of the planet seriously condemn such behavior and promise real heavenly punishment for it.

By the eighteenth century, attitudes towards bribery began to change noticeably in society. In the history of corruption, this moment can be considered a turning point. This is due to the growing self-awareness of the population and the promotion of liberal and democratic freedoms. Officials began to be perceived as people obliged to serve the people and the head of state. The state has increasingly begun to assume the functions of a regulatory body that carefully monitors the quality of services provided by officials. They are also being closely watched by political parties. However, this new system caused another round of corruption. Now there is a possibility of collusion between the economic and political elite in order to gain benefits. The scale of such conspiracies is difficult to describe in a few words. In the history of the development of corruption, this was a new stage, which, according to scientists, has not ended to this day.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are considered to be marked by the fight against bribery and collusion. However, this can be done to one degree or another effectively only in developed countries. Here the bureaucratic apparatus, of course, is extremely ramified, but the state has several levers of influence over it. But developing countries are literally a breeding ground for corruption, where nothing can be done without an impressive amount of money or connections.

If we evaluate the twentieth century from the point of view of combating this problem, it becomes clear how ineffective all the measures taken to this day are. Corruption has the status of an international problem, because in the modern world it is so easy for corporations to collude with each other and actually rule countries. In such conditions, it is very important to turn to the history of the fight against corruption in order to develop an effective set of measures that can change the situation for the better.

The biggest corruption scandals of recent years

Summarizing and briefly presenting the history of corruption, we cannot say that we have already lost the battle to this phenomenon and should finally come to terms with it. Here and there, real scandals periodically break out, exposing the corrupt actions of sometimes very important people. For example, not so long ago, journalists were making noise in the media about the arrest of the crown princes in Saudi Arabia. They found themselves involved in a huge scandal over an oil scam. It is unknown how this case will end, but it clearly illustrates the full scale of the problem.

It is also known that the Queen of Great Britain herself was not so far from corruption. Journalists found out that she has several offshore accounts in foreign banks. Moreover, they have tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on them.

The American Pentagon has also experienced many accusations of corruption. From time to time, information leaks out that amounts allocated for military programs disappear in an unknown direction. And officials holding important positions enrich themselves at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.

Despite the fact that such scandals become known to the world community, they generally fade away. They almost never reach court proceedings, which indicates the imperfection of the existing anti-corruption system.

The history of corruption in Russia

It is difficult to say when our ancestors first encountered such a phenomenon as bribery, but it was already mentioned in the chronicles. It is known that one of the first metropolitans in Rus' ardently condemned the monetary bribe that was customary to give for certain services. Moreover, the clergyman himself put this sin on a par with witchcraft and drunkenness. The Metropolitan called for executions for such offenses in order to completely eradicate this phenomenon. Scientists studying the history of corruption in Russia believe that such a cardinal decision, made at the dawn of the development of Ancient Rus', could well have completely changed the situation in its infancy.

Historians claim that the Slavs adopted bribery from their Byzantine neighbors. It was there that it was customary not to pay officials a salary; they received their income from the population, who paid them for certain services. During the reign of Yaroslav the Wise, the bureaucracy was quite extensive. The state could not pay everyone who served it, and this is where the system from Byzantium came in very handy. Slavic officials, with permission, began to take bribes, which allowed them to feed their families. It is interesting that at that time bribes were divided into two categories:

• bribery;
• covetousness.

The first category was not punished by law. This included, for example, monetary compensation for expediting a particular case, including judicial consideration. But if an official takes a bribe to announce a certain decision, this could be interpreted as extortion and would be severely punished. However, the history of the fight against corruption in Russia proves that there were not so many actual cases of punishment.

For example, in the seventeenth century, a prince and a clerk were subjected to public flogging for taking a bribe with a barrel of wine for making a decision that contradicted the order of the sovereign. This case was documented and is one of the rarest phenomena of that time.

Corruption under Peter I

The great reformer inherited a country with an already established bureaucratic apparatus and “feeding” traditions that were practically impossible to eradicate. The term "feeding" refers to the Byzantine custom of leaving a gift to officials for their work. It was not always measured in monetary terms. Often officials received food products, and they very willingly took eggs, milk and meat, since the state system of remuneration for their labor was practically not formed. Such gratitude was not considered bribery and was not condemned in any way, and for a state that did not have the opportunity to maintain its bureaucracy, it was an excellent way out of the situation. However, such an approach was fraught with a lot of pitfalls and, first of all, difficulties in distinguishing between the concepts of ordinary gratitude within the framework of “feeding” and a bribe.

Historians believe that it was under Peter I that the bureaucratic apparatus grew to unprecedented proportions. However, in fact, the reformer king came to power in conditions when bribery had reached its apogee and was considered practically the norm in government structures. The history of the fight against corruption under Peter I received a new development, because for the first time the tsar himself tried to show by his own example that one can live honestly on the salary allotted to him. For this purpose, the reformer, according to the title assigned to him, received a monthly certain amount of money, on which he lived. Peter's contemporaries wrote that the sovereign often experienced an acute need for money, but invariably adhered to his principles. In order to teach officials to live within their means and eradicate the principle of “feeding”, the king assigned them a fixed salary, but it often happened that it was not paid on time, and local bribery continued to flourish.

The Tsar, outraged by the level of corruption in the country, more than once issued all kinds of decrees that provided for punishments for corrupt officials. Peter I personally beat his associates, who, by the way, stole in huge quantities with sticks and whips. But the tsar failed to correct the situation - theft and bribery continued to flourish throughout Russia. One day, an angry emperor even decided to issue a decree to hang anyone who stole enough money to buy a rope. However, the then governor-general warned the king that he would have to rule the country without subjects. After all, to one degree or another, absolutely everyone steals everywhere in Rus'.

Corruption in Russia after the death of the reformer Tsar

It so happened that in history the period that came after the death of Peter I can be considered stagnant. The country very quickly returned to its previous order. Salaries for officials were officially abolished, and bribes were finally merged into one with offerings made as gratitude.

Often, overseas guests later wrote in their notes about their trip to Russia that it was quite difficult to distinguish robbers from officials at first glance. This was especially true for judges who made the necessary decisions depending on the size of the bribe. Officials no longer feared punishment from above and constantly increased the amount of payment for their services.

Reign of Catherine II

After the accession of Catherine II to the throne, the fight against bribery in the country took a new turn. If we talk briefly about the history of corruption in Russia, then we can confidently say that from the first days of her reign, the queen declared war on those who want to live at the expense of the people and plunder the state treasury. Of course, Catherine II was primarily concerned about her well-being, because the damage from the theft, expressed in numbers, literally shocked her. In this regard, it developed a set of measures to combat corruption.

First of all, the empress returned the system of regular salary payments to all officials. At the same time, she assigned civil servants a very high salary, which allowed them not only to adequately support their families, but also to live on a fairly large scale.

Catherine II believed that this would be quite enough to reduce the percentage of theft. However, she was very seriously mistaken; officials did not want to part with the opportunity to receive money for nothing and continued to take bribes en masse. Some of the empress's contemporaries, who were prominent public figures at that time, believed that even Pugachev's bloody rebellion, which shook Russia with its scale, arose due to the exorbitant exactions of officials and landowners, who literally took every penny from ordinary people.

The Empress carried out various checks on the provinces more than once, and each time their results were not satisfactory. Throughout her reign, Catherine II managed to radically change the situation in the country.

Tsarist Russia: corruption and the fight against it

Over time, the situation in the country only worsened. For example, under Paul I there was a depreciation in the value of banknotes, which significantly reduced. As a result, they increased the size and frequency of their extortions. In short, the history of corruption in Russia has never seen such a favorable set of circumstances for the development and establishment of bribery as a system.

By the nineteenth century, the state of affairs in Russia with theft worsened. The people practically officially supported the officials. In many provinces it was customary to collect a certain amount of money in order to pay the police. Otherwise, criminals would collect their payments, and consequently, many decisions would be made in their favor.

Almost everyone talked about corruption in the country. Satirical stories and serious journalistic articles were written about her. Many public figures were looking for a way out of the situation and saw it only in a total change of regime and political system. They classified the established system as rotten and outdated, pinning their hopes on the fact that global changes in the country would be able to completely eradicate corruption.

The young Soviet regime zealously set out to eradicate theft in the public sphere. This required the creation of a separate structure that monitored officials and investigated cases of bribery. However, this idea almost immediately proved to be a failure. Supervisory authority employees often exceeded their authority and did not hesitate to take bribes. This practice quickly spread throughout the country and became commonplace.

In order to radically resolve the situation, a decree was issued, which provided for a real prison term as punishment for bribes. Also, all property of the convicted person was confiscated in favor of the state. A few years later, the measures became stricter, and now a citizen could easily be shot for bribes. For the entire existence of corruption, these were the most stringent measures to eradicate this problem.

Often the fight against corruption took the form of real punitive operations. Sometimes entire teams of workers from different enterprises, headed by their bosses, were put on trial. Of course, it cannot be said that in Soviet Russia, bribery was defeated by all of the above measures. Rather, it took on slightly different forms, and the process itself became hidden. The punitive function of the party forced officials to take bribes with great caution and fear. Most often, corruption consisted of certain services provided by some officials to others. But still, in the history of the fight against corruption in Russia, this was one of the most favorable periods.

Modern Russia

The collapse of the USSR became a time of rampant corruption. The state significantly reduced control over all officials in the regions, and people familiar with the thieves’ mentality gradually began to come to power. It is precisely this that they began to instill in government structures. During this period, almost everything was bought and sold. The country was plundered, and ordinary people could not achieve anything, without even giving a minor official the requested amount of money.

Today we can say that the fight against corruption is still underway. Laws against bribe-takers are gradually becoming stricter, and real criminal cases are being taken to court. Ministers and lesser officials receive terms. And the president regularly announces adopted programs to combat bribery and theft.

Will this help to defeat corruption completely? We think not. In the entire history of the development of corruption in Russia, no one has yet managed to do this. However, we hope that over time our capital will still leave the “honorable” one hundred and thirty-first place in which it currently occupies.

1. Historical background for the emergence of corruption. History of the development of the fight against corruption.

2. Causes of corruption. Concept and classification of causes of corruption (economic, institutional, subjective).

3. The concept of preventing corruption. Ways to prevent corruption.

1. Historical background for the emergence of corruption. History of the development of the fight against corruption.

The historical roots of corruption probably go back to the custom of giving gifts to gain favor. In primitive and early class societies, payment to a priest, chief or military commander for personally seeking their help was considered a universal norm. The situation began to change as the state apparatus became more complex and professionalized and the power of the central government increased. Professional officials appeared who, according to the plans of the rulers, should have been content only with a fixed salary. In practice, officials sought to take advantage of their position to secretly increase their income.

One of the oldest mentions of corruption is found in the cuneiform writings of ancient Babylon. As follows from deciphered texts dating back to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e., even then the Sumerian king Urukagin faced a very acute problem of suppressing the abuses of judges and officials who extorted illegal rewards. He went down in history as the first fighter against corruption who reformed public administration in order to suppress abuses on the part of the royal administration, judges, and temple staff, reduced and streamlined payments for rituals, and introduced severe penalties for bribery by officials.

The rulers of Ancient Egypt faced similar problems.

The first treatise condemning corruption - "Arthashastra" - was published under the pseudonym Kautilya by one of the ministers of Bharata (India) in the 4th century. BC. The ancient Indian author identified 40 means of theft of state property.

Despite demonstrative and often brutal punishments for corruption, the fight against it did not lead to the desired results. At best, the most dangerous crimes were prevented.

In the Roman Empire, with its extensive bureaucratic apparatus, corruption flourished. It was at this time that the term “corrumpire”, discussed above, appeared in Roman law. Bribes are mentioned in the ancient Roman “12 Tables” (5th century BC).

In late Republican Rome, Gaius Julius Caesar achieved severe punishment for bribery and gifts to officials. It was forbidden, for example, for governors in the provinces to accept golden wreaths from subject cities. However, bribery of voters was so widespread in ancient Rome that Roman citizens began to consider the amounts they received as legitimate salaries.

The enormous growth of the bureaucracy in the Late Empire led to positions being viewed as pieces of property that could be exploited.

Emperor Augustus tried to counteract this and distributed his personal funds to voters so that they would no longer demand anything from candidates for public office, but to no avail. The destructive influence of corruption was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Over the next almost thousand years - during the Middle Ages, the concept of "corruption" acquired exclusively ecclesiastical, canonical meaning - as seduction, the temptation of the devil. Corruption in the theology of Catholicism has become a manifestation of sinfulness, for according to the Apostle John, “sin is lawlessness.”

Of all types of corruption, the world's leading religions condemn bribery of judges first of all.

Despite the condemnation of the church, in Europe in the early Middle Ages, the use of official position for personal extortion from the population often became the generally accepted norm. After all, the more centralized the state was, the more functions were concentrated in their hands by secular and church officials, using omnipotence and lack of control for personal enrichment. The right to grant indulgences, release from punishment due to the remission of sins, provided considerable additional income.

In the south of France, such corruption was especially rampant. There were churches, for example, in which masses had not been celebrated for more than thirty years. Many priests neglected the salvation of the souls of their parishioners and engaged in commercial activities or ran large estates.

In medieval Britain, corruption flourished widely in almost all branches of government.

The process of formation of a centralized state in Rus' was accompanied by the formation of an extensive management system. Since that time, corruption in Russia has become systemic.

The formation of the state apparatus was carried out according to the principle of localism, based on the criteria of nobility of origin. Exemplary punishments of corrupt officials usually did not produce almost any results, because new extorters of bribes appeared in place of those eliminated (demoted or executed). This moderate tolerance for corruption is most clearly visible in the countries of the pre-colonial East. Thus, in the Middle Ages, corruption in China was legalized and strictly regulated from above. Officials fed from the population, under the supervision of imperial emissaries.

The modern concept of corruption begins to take shape at the turn of the New Age with the beginning of the formation of centralized states and currently existing legal systems.

An important impetus for understanding the political aspect of corruption is given by the works of Niccolo Machiavelli. He compared corruption to a disease, for example, consumption. He noted that if an emerging illness is detected in a timely manner, which is given only to wise rulers, then it is not difficult to get rid of it, but if it is neglected so that everyone can see it, then no medicine will help.

Subsequently, the emphasis in understanding corruption was shifted to its legal side. Thomas Hobbes would write a century later that corruption “is the root from which flows at all times and under all temptations contempt for all laws.”

The conclusion made in the middle of the 17th century turned out to be relevant at the beginning of the 21st century.

Society's attitude towards the personal income of government officials is gradually beginning to change. The ideology of the social contract proclaimed that subjects pay taxes to the state in exchange for the fact that it wisely develops laws and strictly monitors their strict implementation. Personal relationships began to give way to purely official ones, and therefore the receipt by an official of personal income, in addition to his salary, began to be interpreted as a violation of public morality and the norms of the law.

However, despite the spread of advanced ideas of education, the rule of law, and civil society, in real life in modern times, corruption does not disappear. Its form, favoritism, retains its significance.

For example, the Prussian King Frederick II suspected that the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa was bribing his ministers. Under these conditions, he also considered it possible to provide Maria Theresa’s ministers with comparable “material support.”

The first chancellor of a united Germany, Otto von Bismarck, is associated with “reptile funds” - “reptilienfonden”, which are literally inscribed in “golden letters” in the history of German corruption.

Bismarck considered himself free from the obligation to pay money to the king and formed secret funds from them that were used for bribery.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In many countries, laws are passed against bribery (for example, the Bribery in Public Organizations Act of 1889 - Great Britain), anti-corruption legislation becomes very ramified.

A new stage in the evolution of corruption in developed countries was the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. On the one hand, a new rise in government regulation measures and, accordingly, the power of officials began. On the other hand, big business was born, which, in the competition, began to resort to “buying up the state.”

As the importance of political parties grew in developed countries (especially in Western Europe after the Second World War), party corruption developed, when large firms paid not to politicians personally, but to the party treasury for lobbying their interests. Major politicians have increasingly begun to view their position as a source of personal income.

In the 2nd half of the twentieth century, after the emergence of a large number of politically independent countries of the “third world”, their state apparatus, as a rule, initially turned out to be highly susceptible to systemic corruption. The fact is that the “eastern” traditions of personal relations between the boss and the petitioners are superimposed on huge uncontrolled opportunities associated with state regulation of many spheres of life.

In the “third world,” kleptocratic regimes appeared (in the Philippines, Paraguay, Haiti, and most African countries), where corruption completely permeated all types of socio-economic relations, and simply nothing was done without a bribe.

The growth of world economic relations also stimulated the development of corruption. When concluding contracts with foreign buyers, large transnational corporations even began to legally include the cost of “gifts” in negotiation costs.

The problem became even more pressing in the 1990s, when post-socialist countries demonstrated the extent of corruption comparable to the situation in developing countries.

At the present stage, corruption has increasingly begun to become an international problem. Bribery of senior officials abroad by corporations has become widespread. Globalization has led to the fact that corruption in one country has a negative impact on the development of many countries.

UDC 343.35:328.185

M.V. PERMYAKOV,

Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor

State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education "Ural Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia"

history of corruption in the Russian Federation

The work examines the historical aspects of the emergence and formation of corrupt behavior in Russian society, as well as certain legal measures to counter this phenomenon in pre-revolutionary Russia.

It seems appropriate that before considering the problems associated with corruption in modern Russia, it is necessary to turn to the history of the emergence of this phenomenon.

It should be noted that the first legal manifestation of corruption was “feeding” - the ancient Russian institution of the prince sending his governors and governors to the province without monetary compensation, so that they would be “fed” (maintained) by the population of the corresponding territory. The governors were in charge of all affairs in the district under his control: they controlled the army, judged and imposed punishments, supervised the collection of taxes, etc. At the same time, the governors abused their power, unscrupulously took rewards, extorted offerings from residents, and profited from the people's needs. They were, as a rule, appointed for two years, but instead of governing, they mostly sought to enrich themselves during this period.

However, the feeding system was not effective. And therefore, in 1556, feeding was officially abolished; the money that went to the feeders was now collected by the state as a tax. From this centralized fund it was possible to pay “help” to service people, although the tradition of living and getting rich at the expense of their subjects was preserved. This was especially evident in the army. At that time, Russia did not have a regular army. The only permanent army were the archers, who, when the war ended, went home. In peacetime, these people fed from the estate, others also from the estate; This feeding lay entirely with the peasantry attached to estates and estates.

This type of feeding was called “feeding military men.” Only thanks to the reforms of Peter I, a regular army and navy were created, which were entirely supported by the state.

Things were not going well in the state's judicial system. Bribery among judges in the exercise of their powers became so widespread that the Code of Law of 1497 established criminal liability for the first time for accepting bribes by judges. The extreme corruption of judges served as a serious obstacle to the implementation of judicial equality.

Bribery was then treated with great tolerance, although formally bribes were strictly prohibited. But custom required that those who appeared at the trial place donations “on candles” in front of the images. By Easter, all officials had the right to accept “red eggs, usually with a few coins in addition.”

“Praising the clarity and simplicity of our laws and courts, which had no need for either interpreters or attorneys, - no less praising Vasily’s love of justice - foreigners noticed, however, that the rich were less likely than the poor to be guilty in litigation; that the judges were not afraid and were not ashamed to bend their souls in their decisions for money. One day they reported to Vasily that a Moscow judge, having taken money from the plaintiff and defendant, accused the one who gave him less. The Grand Duke called him to his place. The judge did not hesitate and answered with an air of innocence: “Sir! I always believe better in a rich man than in a poor man,” meaning that the former has less need for deceptions and strangers. Vasily smiled, and the greedy man was left, at least, without serious punishment.”

In the Code of Laws of 1550, punishment in the form of imprisonment was quite common. It was provided, in particular, for bribery, false accusation of judges of deliberate injustice (Articles 4, 6 of the Code of Law of 1550)

The Council Code of 1649 took the path of further increasing the frightening beginning of punishment and the process of its execution. The leading type of punishment was the death penalty. More than fifty types of criminal acts could be punished by death penalty according to the Council Code. Moreover, in the case of applying punishment in the Council Code, the principle of uncertainty of punishment was in effect. For example, if boyars and governors, without a sovereign decree, release military men from service for a bribe (Article 11, Chapter 7), then they will face “cruel punishment, whatever the sovereign will indicate” (the choice of types of punishment is not limited). This principle of uncertainty of punishment opened up wide possibilities for judicial arbitrariness.

In local government, the same process of centralization, unification and bureaucratization took place as in the center, but at a slower pace. From the end of the 17th century. The main administrative-territorial unit of Russia became counties, which were divided into camps and volosts. From the beginning of the 17th century. there is a displacement of what was characteristic of the 16th century. “Zemstvo principle” by the voivodeship administration. Even during the period of the existence of governors-feeders, governors were appointed to border cities to carry out military administration, and clerks - for financial administration. In this capacity they were preserved during the heyday of provincial and zemstvo self-government. The Troubles, which almost led to the collapse of the country, demonstrated the need for the existence in the province not only of military power, but also of a body connecting the entire (and not just the tax) population of the province with the center.

In addition, the growing financial needs of the state, the inability to ensure unity and the development of a gigantic territory without redistribution were the most important reasons for the centralization of control. During the Time of Troubles, at general class meetings, the population itself began to elect a governor not only with military, but also with administrative and judicial functions. The purpose of the appointment of the governor was to

management in the interests of the king, and not for the sake of feeding, in connection with which the local population was instructed: “do not give feed to the governors, and do not inflict losses on yourself.” but, as noted by the famous historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, “voivodes of the 17th century. were sons or grandsons of governors (feeders) of the 16th century. In the course of one or two generations, institutions may have changed, but not morals and habits. The voivode did not collect feed and duties in the amounts specified in the statutory charter, which was not given to him: but voluntary contributions “in honor” were not prohibited, and the voivode took them without the statutory tax, as much as his hand could. In their petitions for appointment, applicants for voivodeship positions directly asked to be released to such and such a city for the voivodeship “to feed themselves”... They wanted to make the voivodeship an administrative service without a salary, but in reality it turned out to be an unpaid salary under the pretext of an administrative service. The unclear scope of the governor's power encouraged abuses. The uncertainty of rights and obligations, inevitable with such a combination of regulation and arbitrariness, tended to abuse the former and neglect the latter, and in the voivodeship administration, abuse of power alternated with its inaction.”

Over time, among the abuses of officials, they began to distinguish between bribery - performing services for a bribe without violating the current legislation and extortion - receiving a bribe for committing actions that violate the law.

In the 18th century corruption is acquiring a massive, total character in Russia. Peter I was horrified by the scale of bribery and tried to fight it with the usual repressive measures, including the death penalty, which was reflected in his Decrees of August 23, 1713, February 5, 1724, but all was in vain. Corruption was and remains the same. This was especially evident in abuses in the service. Peter's brother-in-law, Prince B. Kurakin, in notes about the first years of his reign, says that after the seven-year reign of Princess Sophia, introduced “in all order and justice,” the “dishonorable” reign of Queen Natalya Kirillovna began, and then “great bribery and state theft began, that to this day (this was written in 1727 - author’s note)

continues with multiplication, but it is difficult to remove this ulcer.”

Many of Peter's prominent associates were on trial for bribery and were punished with monetary penalties, and some were executed. Siberian Governor Prince M.P. Gagarin was hanged for abuse of office in 1721; St. Petersburg vice-governor Korsakov was tortured and publicly flogged; two senators were publicly punished; Vice-Chancellor Baron P.P. Shafirov was removed from the chopping block and sent into exile; A.A. Kurbatov, being in 1711-1714. vice-governor of Arkhangelsk, was accused of bribery and embezzlement and put on trial; one investigator in cases of embezzlement was shot. About Prince Y.F. himself. Dolgorukov, senator and president of the Revision Board, considered an example of incorruptibility, Peter said that he too was “not without reason.” Then the guardian of the law, “the sovereign’s eye,” Prosecutor General P.I. Yaguzhinsky said: “Does your Majesty want to reign alone, without servants and without subjects? We all steal, only one is bigger and more noticeable than the other.” Peter realized how difficult it was to cleanse such a corrupted atmosphere with just the threat of the law, no matter how severe it was, and was often forced to resort to more direct and shorter methods.

One of the main reasons for such a scale of bribery and embezzlement was due to the fact that as a result of the reforms of Peter I, a branched bureaucratic apparatus was formed, that is, governing the country through numerous officials acting on the orders of the highest authorities, who were more concerned about their own interests than about the good of the state.

To combat bribery, since 1711, the positions of fiscal officers were introduced in the center (over-fiscal of the Senate, fiscal of central institutions) and locally (provincial, city fiscal). they exercised control over the activities of the entire administration, identified facts of non-compliance, violation of decrees, embezzlement, bribery, and reported them to the Senate and the Tsar.

In 1722, the most important control body was created - the prosecutor's office. The first prosecutor general was Pavel Ivanovich Yaguzhinsky. The Prosecutor General became, among other things, also a non-

the official head of the Senate, the fiscals (secret supervision of the empire) were subordinate to him.

With the death of Peter I in 1725 and the subsequent series of palace coups, the picture in this area of ​​public life did not change at all. An example of this is the case of the most prominent statesman of that era, V.N. Tatishchev, which characterizes the way of thinking and customs observed at a later time. Having been put on trial in 1739 for extortion he committed on the border of Siberia, he was on trial for several years, without ceasing to serve in important government positions.

Here we note one important detail. In 1741, during the next palace coup, the daughter of Peter I, Elizaveta Petrovna, ascended the throne, one of whose first decrees was the abolition of the death penalty (Decree of August 23, 1742), including for official crimes.

As in the old days, every position was viewed primarily as a source of income.

Thus, Belgorod merchants complained that Voivode Morozov punished with a whip and even cut off the ears of those of them who did not want to participate with him in robbing the treasury. but their complaints remained without consequences. Another governor went around houses before Christmas, like those who go and glorify Christ, and collected a bountiful harvest of forced gifts.

Such actions went unpunished. Elizabeth herself exposed before the Senate the Voronezh governor Pushkin and the Belgorod Saltykov, who made shameful exactions from the residents, but the Senate did not take any measures against them.

Justice requires pointing out that one of the main reasons why Elizabeth’s government did not begin to eliminate these outrages more energetically was its impotence. It only knew how to legislate. The complete collection of laws totaled 3,830 acts issued during this reign, 800 more than under Peter I. But one of the last fruits of this legislative intemperance, the Decree of August 16, 1760, amazingly revealed and exposed one of the main shortcomings of the government regime of that time

nor, namely, a complete confusion of the roles and functions of legislators, judges, and administrators. He talks about the disdain for the laws of precisely those individuals who are obliged to apply them.

The judges were not the only ones to blame for the delays that were repeated ad infinitum in the trials of that era. On March 11, 1754, at a meeting of the Senate P.I. Shuvalov also pointed to another reason for this phenomenon - the state of the legislation itself, where since the time of Peter the Great, decrees were piled one on top of another in indescribable disorder. Elizabeth vigorously supported his remark: “An angel would not understand them,” she exclaimed, adding that many of these laws were incomprehensible and some did not correspond to more modern morals and ideas.

During the years of her reign, Catherine II also paid great attention to the fight against such a phenomenon as bribery. It was under her that the Office of Overseers was created, which, being a collegial body, acted according to the rules established in the General Regulations, that is, it was equated in status to the state collegium. The office carried out investigations in cases where employees were accused of malfeasance in office instead of the College of Justice. Only maxims were sent to the College of Justice.

The fight against malfeasance was carried out in two directions - by establishing strict discipline and reporting and replacing financially responsible persons with battalion officers, who changed after a year.

In general, legislation under Catherine II was aimed at eradicating abuses in the service and strengthening discipline. At the same time, the legislator sought to protect the “honor of the uniform” and did not welcome publicity during the investigation of official crimes. The last legislative act of the Russian Empire that was in full force was the Code on Criminal and Correctional Punishments of 1845 (as amended in 1866 and 1885). Article 401 provided for liability for bribery of an official or other person in the government

or public office, who, in a matter or action relating to his official duties, accepts, although without any violation of his duties in any way, a gift consisting of money, things or anything else. In Art. 402 we were talking about liability for extortion - receiving a bribe to do or allow something contrary to the duties of the service. Extortion of a bribe was recognized as the highest degree of extortion (Article 406).

Extortion at that time was interpreted very broadly, namely:

Like any profit or other benefit acquired in the course of service through oppression or threats and, in general, fear of oppression;

Demanding gifts or payment not established by law, or a loan, or any services, profits or other benefits relating to the service or position of the person or action guilty of that, under any guise or pretext;

Any extortions not established by law or in excess of a certain amount in money, things or anything else;

Illegal outfits of ordinary people for their own or someone else's work.

Thus, we see that the prerequisites for the development of such a phenomenon as corruption in modern Russia originated in ancient times. This was due both to the peculiarities of management and the personality of the rulers of those times, and to the imperfection of the legislation in force at that time. All the above reasons explain the fact that in modern Russia corruption has taken root and is a very common phenomenon in all spheres of life.

Bibliography

1. Karamzin N.M. Tradition of centuries. - M., 1988. -S. 534-535.

2. Ignatov V.G. History of public administration in Russia. - Rostov-n/D, 2002. - P. 102.

3. Klyuchevsky V.O. Historical portraits. - M., 1990.

The material was received by the editor on 10/22/10

Key words: corruption, bribery, extortion, corruption extortion, punishment for corruption crimes.

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