fined the
obligations of each with microscopic minuteness. After his death the
work was carried on in the same spirit, and the tendency reached its
climax in the reign of Nicholas, when the number of students to be
received in the universities was determined by Imperial ukaz!

In the reign of Catherine a new element was introduced into the official
conception of social classes. Down to her time the Government had
thought merely of class obligations; under the influence of Western
ideas she introduced the conception of class rights. She wished, as we
have seen, to have in her Empire a Noblesse and tiers-etat like those
which existed in France, and for this purpose she granted, first to the
Dvoryanstvo and afterwards to the towns, an Imperial Charter, or Bill
of Rights. Succeeding sovereigns have acted in the same spirit, and the
Code now confers on each class numerous privileges as well as numerous
obligations.

Thus, we see, the oft-repeated assertion that the Russian social classes
are simply artificial categories created by the legislature is to a
certain extent true, but is by no means accurate. The social groups,
such as peasants, landed proprietors, and the like, came into existence
in Russia, as in other countries, by the simple force of circumstances.
The legislature merely recognised and developed the social distinctions
which already existed. The legal status, obligations, and rights of each
group were minutely defined and regulated, and legal barriers were added
to the actual barriers which separated the groups from each other.

What is peculiar in the historical development of Russia is this: until
lately she remained an almost exclusively agricultural Empire with
abundance of unoccupied land. Her history presents, therefore, few of
those conflicts which result from the variety of social conditions and
the intensified struggle for existence. Certain social groups were,
indeed, formed in the course of time, but they were never allowed to
fight out their own battles. The irresistible autocratic power kept them
always in check and fashioned them into whatever form it thought proper,
defining minutely and carefully their obligations, their rights, their
mutual relations, and their respective positions in the political
organisation. Hence we find in the history of Russia almost no trace
of those class hatreds which appear so conspicuously in the history of
Western Europe.*

* This is, I believe, the true