ABSTRACT
The quantitative increase and geographical expansion of peasant enlistment in the urban classes which occurred in the late eighteenth century made an important contribution to the accelerated growth of the urban classes observed in the same period. Since the middle of the century enlistment of peasants in the urban classes not only had grown sharply in terms of nationwide totals but also had spread into regions and provinces where it had formerly been weak or non-existent. Growth of the urban classes tended to be somewhat higher in regions of ongoing colonization than in the long-settled regions of the country. As measured by the ratio of peasant registrants to the total in the urban classes, enlistment was in at its weakest among all regions in the Northwest. The gap between urban and overall growth narrowed in the period between the Third and Fourth Revisions, during which the urban classes increased by 20 percent and the total male population by 24 percent.
