Russia under the Old regime

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subjects, too, were called slaves', remarks a Russian historian, thus calling attention to the survival of strictly patrimonial relations in an age of seeming westernization.18 The money which the crown extracted from the country through the intermediacy of its agents it spent not on the inhabitants but on the court and armed forces. 'It spent no more on the provinces than it had to spend in order to exploit them.'1'

After 1762, the Russian monarchy became in large measure the captive of groups which it had originally brought into existence. The trappings of imperial omnipotence served merely to conceal its desperate weakness - as well as to camouflage the actual power wielded by dvoriane and chinovniki.

Under these circumstances, the situation seemed ripe for the elite to move in and seize the political prerogatives claimed by the crown. To understand why this did not happen we must investigate the condition and political attitudes of the principal social groupings.