ABSTRACT
Some historians have argued that the main cause of reform and, eventually, abolition of serfdom in Russia was that it was in a state of crisis in the decades before 1861. The strongest proponents of this thesis were historians writing in the Soviet Union under the influence of the official Soviet interpretation of history (see Chapter 1). There were two main components of the ‘crisis thesis’: that the servile economy had reached a state of crisis, and that serfs, who were suffering from growing exploitation, were protesting in increasing numbers and with growing strength against their servile status. It was further argued that the developing economic crisis and rising tide of ‘the peasant movement’ influenced radical intellectuals in campaigning for the abolition of serfdom.
