Russia under the Old regime

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cultivable land. Every major conquest carried out by the Russian state was promptly followed by massive handouts of land to servitors and monasteries and the opening of the acquired territories to peasant colonization. In the case of Poland, partitioned in the eighteenth century, we dispose of statistical information to illustrate this connection. As is known, Catherinen liked to make use of land grants as a means of consolidating her shaky internal position. During the first decade of her reign (1762-72) she distributed approximately 66,000 serf'souls'. With the First Partition of Poland in 1772, she gained new territories from which to make handouts to favourites: the majority of the 202,000 'souls' whom she distributed between 1773 and 1793 came from areas taken in the First and Second Partitions. This done, Catherine ran out of resources; in 1793 she even had to renege on the promise of gifts made to generals and diplomats who had distinguished themselves in the recent Turkish war. Only after the Third Partition of Poland could these promises be made good. On a single day, 18 August 1795, Catherine handed out over 100,000 'souls', the majority once again in areas taken from Poland.2 Of the approximately 800,000 male and female serfs of whom Catherine made gifts to dvoriane during her reign, well over half came from territories seized by force of arms from the Polish Commonwealth. We have here clear proof that concealed behind lofty slogans of 'national tasks' lay the very mundane reality of seizing resources to satisfy Russia's insatiable appetite for land, and in the process, shoring up the internal position of the monarchy. The situation has not changed today. For example, census figures show that in Latvia and Estonia, occupied by the USSR in 1940 in consequence of the Nazi-Soviet pact, there has occurred in the subsequent thirty years (1940-70) a very substantial influx of Russians. This migration combined with mass deportations to Russia proper of Latvians and Estonians, has more than tripled the number of Russian inhabitants in these two conquered republics (from 326,000 to 1,040,000) and nearly tripled their proportionate share of the population (from io-8 per cent to 28-0 per cent).3

In the case of Peter the Great, the creator of modern Russia's military might, there were additional reasons for keen interest in military matters. Although he is remembered primarily as a reformer, Peter thought of himself first and foremost as a soldier. His inexhaustible energy directed itself from the earliest towards activity involving competition and physical danger. He began to walk when barely six months old and already as a teenager liked nothing better than to play with live soldiers. When grown to his full giant stature, he loved to share the life of ordinary soldiers on campaigns. When a son was born to him, Peter jubilantly announced to the nation that the Lord had blessed him with 'another