Government Reform of Peter The Great - Class Structure

Class Structure

Peter's reign deepened the subjugation of serfs to the will of landowners. He firmly enforced class divisions, believing that "just as the landowner was to be tied to service, the townsman to his trade or handicraft, so the peasant was tied to the land." Peter endowed estate-owners to broad new rights, including a requirement that no serf leave his master's estate without written permission. Furthermore, Peter's new tax code significantly expanded the number of taxable workers, shifting an even heavier burden onto the shoulders of the working class.

A handful of Peter's slightly more progressive reforms imitated Enlightenment ideals; he did, for example, create a new class of serfs, known as state peasants, who had broader rights than ordinary serfs, but paid dues to the state. He also created state-sanctioned handicraft shops in large cities, inspired by similar shops he had observed in The Netherlands, to provide products for the army. Evidence even suggests that Peter's advisers recommended the abolition of serfdom and the creation of a form of "limited freedom" (a reality that did not come to pass until two centuries later). Nevertheless, the gap between slaves and serfs shrank considerably under Peter, and by the end of his reign the two were basically indistinguishable.