Catherine The Great

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and Grigory POTEMKIN in administration. Imbued with the ideas of
the Enlightenment, Catherine aimed at completing the job started by Peter
I--westernizing Russia--but she had different methods. Unlike Peter, she
did not forcibly conscript society into the service of the state, but
rather encouraged individual initiative in pursuit of self-interest. She
succeeded to a degree with the upper classes, but did nothing for the
overwhelming majority of the population--the enserfed peasantry.

To learn the needs of the country and to gain popularity, Catherine in
1767 convoked an assembly of deputies to draft a new code of laws (for
which she wrote the guidelines--the Nakaz, or Instruction). Not much came
of the venture. In 1773, Yemelian PUGACHEV led Cossacks, peasants, and
others in a revolt that engulfed large parts of eastern Russia. The revolt,
ruthlessly crushed by the army in 1775, alerted Catherine to the necessity
for reform. In 1775, she reorganized the local ...

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