ABSTRACT
During the mid-eighteenth century, without making major territorial gains, Russia significantly increased her influence both in the Baltic and in central Europe. Russia's prolonged struggle with Turkey gave Prussia and Austria the leverage to ensure that they should benefit from the dismantling of Polish independence. The State which organized the Empire's military effort is described in both Soviet and Western historiography as an 'absolute monarchy'. Unlike the acquisition of the Black Sea coast, the Empire's new western border was marked by no natural barrier. The most dynamic economic growth took place on the periphery of the Empire, in Poland and the south, and here ethnic divisions and sheer distance from the political centre acted as further constraints. Russian rule had been extended over most of the territory which would one day constitute ten of the fourteen 'Union Republics' united with Russia in the USSR.
