Functioning of the small credit management system in the Olonets province during the post-reform period

The relevance of the research is determined by the importance of studying the state involvement in the organization of the credit system at the grassroots level. This issue has been underrepresented in historiography, so the article provides important insight into it and introduces new documents into scientific circulation. The article is aimed at studying the main features of the small credit system management in the Olonets Province during the post-reform period. Based on the dynamics of its development, one can draw a conclusion about the nature of the penetration of commodity-money relations into peasant communities. Three stages in the development of this system were identified. The first one belongs to the period from the middle of the XIX century to 1904 and is characterized by repeated changes in the government structures to which small credit organizations were accountable. The second stage covers the period from 1904, when the small credit reform was carried out in Russia, until the beginning of 1911. In the Olonets Province, the reform was not fully implemented, since the provincial committee for small loans created here did not have employees who would deal with this issue on a permanent basis. At the third stage, which started with the creation of a branch of the State Bank in Petrozavodsk in 1911, this shortcoming was remedied, as the management of the small credit business in the province was transferred to a special inspection.