e; but this
has been changed, and it may now be said that in Russia there are no
castes in the Oriental sense.

If the word Sosloviya be taken to mean an organised political unit
with an esprit de corps and a clearly conceived political aim, it may
likewise be admitted that there are none in Russia. As there has been
for centuries no political life among the subjects of the Tsars, there
have been no political parties.

On the other hand, to say that social classes have never existed in
Russia and that the categories which appear in the legislation and in
the official statistics are mere administrative fictions, is a piece of
gross exaggeration.

From the very beginning of Russian history we can detect unmistakably
the existence of social classes, such as the Princes, the Boyars, the
armed followers of the Princes, the peasantry, the slaves, and various
others; and one of the oldest legal documents which we possess--the
"Russian Right" (Russkaya Pravda) of the Grand Prince Yaroslaff
(1019-1054)--contains irrefragable proof, in the penalties attached
to various crimes, that these classes were formally recognised by
the legislation. Since that time they have frequently changed their
character, but they have never at any period ceased to exist.

In ancient times, when there was very little administrative regulation,
the classes had perhaps no clearly defined boundaries, and the
peculiarities which distinguished them from each other were actual
rather than legal--lying in the mode of life and social position rather
than in peculiar obligations and privileges. But as the autocratic power
developed and strove to transform the nation into a State with a highly
centralised administration, the legal element in the social distinctions
became more and more prominent. For financial and other purposes
the people had to be divided into various categories. The actual
distinctions were of course taken as the basis of the legal
classification, but the classifying had more than a merely formal
significance. The necessity of clearly defining the different groups
entailed the necessity of elevating and strengthening the barriers which
already existed between them, and the difficulty of passing from one
group to another was thereby increased.

In this work of classification Peter the Great especially distinguished
himself. With his insatiable passion for regulation, he raised
formidable barriers between the different categories, and de