Great Muscovite Law Code

Impact

All classes of persons were affected by the Ulozhenie. The law's most enduring and significant consequences centered on its codification of serfdom, however. This system became the backbone of the economy and a fundamental determinant of the historical trajectory of the Russian state. Although serfdom had long provided both elites and the state with more or less stable sources of income, labor, and conscripts, it also fostered diverse and huge challenges that ultimately hampered the country's development. Under conditions of serf labor, for example, there was little incentive for investment in more productive or efficient farming methods and technologies, with the result that agriculture in Russia remained less efficient and productive than in many Western European regions. Russia's industrial and military development also lagged for similar reasons. Not surprisingly, the peasants themselves chafed under the burden of serfdom. After 1649, rebellions grew in frequency and scale. Peasant unrest, along with Russia's humiliating defeat in the Crimean War (1853–1856), which also could be traced to serfdom, eventually persuaded Alexander II to abolish the system “from above” in 1861, before the peasants abolished it themselves “from below.” By 1861 serfdom was widely blamed for a stifling backwardness in many aspects of Russian society, whether in agriculture, industry, military effectiveness, or public morality.