ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the highlights of the plans and offers some comments on the character of Catherine II's views on the internal problems of Russia in the second half of her reign. Catherine is nothing if not empirical, constantly on the look-out for the possibility of anchoring both her thoughts and actions on Russian reality, and practice. As Catherine read the wide-ranging description of English social organization and legal life which Blackstone gives in his Commentaries, she could not fail to be reminded of the social and administrative problems which plagued her empire. The Empress pays only slight attention to the needs and problems of the clergy, who—characteristically—are not considered as an estate of the realm, although they were a closed and hereditary chin or soslovie. Catherine's plans, aims, efforts, and partial success created the framework for the transformation of society in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and the sine qua non for the reforms of the 1860s.
