ABSTRACT
Industrialization was initiated during the seventeenth century on the basis of extensive privileges and subsidies which the Tsar granted to foreign merchants and native entrepreneurs. During the sixteenth century, the use of land grants for building up the Tsar’s military forces had become extensive; but as more land became available for cultivation, more opportunities arose for the peasants to move to the new land, especially in the areas adjacent to the shifting frontiers. The interrelation between social classes and the economic growth of eighteenth-century Russia presents a certain paradox. In terms of its social position, its increased wealth, its enhanced authority in local government and its power over the serfs, the aristocracy had a record of increasing influence. In eighteenth-century Russia the Tsars retained their autocratic supremacy despite the increasing authority of the landed aristocracy and despite its absolute power over the serfs.
