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 ...

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