ABSTRACT
Perry Anderson contrasts the West European development with an East European displacement' of politico-legal coercion upwards towards a centralized, militarized summit the absolutist state'. On the other hand, in the eastern socioeconomic system according to Anderson this new form of feudal domination was not caused by dissolution of serfdom, but stimulated by external threat. In Prussia or Russia the erection of bureaucratic and military organisation therefore was a sheer device' useful for preserving and strengthening the second serfdom' of the dependent peasants. The internal socio-economic dynamic of the societies generating this system of domination. An argument important here is that of the French Marxist medievalist Guy Bois. The military was permanently on stage, especially in the twenty-six fortresses, and the military troops actually did the bulk of the daily police work, this despite the fact that the officers believed it unprestigious and an impediment to training activities.
