ABSTRACT
In nineteenth-century Russia the people, proud of the country’s armed might, loved to watch parades and other military ceremonies. Soviet historians have argued that fear of revolution, or at least of massive peasant jacqueries like that of Pugachov eighty years earlier, also motivated the reformers, both inside and outside the government. The provisions of the reform let the lord keep most of his land and in principle gave the liberated peasants what they had traditionally farmed. Most of the other “Great Reforms” followed the pattern of changes that had occurred earlier in Western society, but they stopped short of providing Russians with full civil liberties or a national representative government. Together with the other Great Reforms and growing economic ties with Europe, the abolition of serfdom helped launch an accelerating modernization of Russia’s society and economy. By 1900 Russia was partly industrialized and, with its rich natural resources, had the basis to become a powerful modern nation.
