Alpha Book

He strove, though
often in a bungling manner, to promote agriculture and to improve the
lot of the peasantry, who still constituted the overwhelming bulk of
forms of the population. He certainly deprived the nobles of many of
their former privileges and sought to rest political power and social
position on ability rather than on birth. He understood that Russia
grievously lacked a numerous and prosperous middle class, and he aimed
to create one by encouraging trade and industries. His almost constant
participation in wars, however, prevented him from bringing many of his
economic and social plans to fruition.
[Sidenote: Ambitious Foreign Policy of Peter the Great]
Internal reforms were but one-half of Peter's ambitious program. To him
Russia owes not only the abolition of the _streltsi_, the loss of
the independence of the Church, the Europeanization of manners and
customs, and the firm establishment of autocracy, but also the
pronouncement and enforcement of an elaborate scheme of foreign
aggrandizement.


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