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In assessing Peter's role in this affair, historians have written about Peter's per-
sonal problems with Alexis, tempered with his belief in the law and the impor-
tance of loyalty to the state above all else, without exception. After Alexis's
death, Peter was without a mature, healthy son to assume the throne. On
February 5, 1722, Peter issued a decree doing away with the traditional order
of succession, but he did not indicate who should take the throne. Legend has
it that as Peter was dying, in January 1725, he took a pen and started to write:
“give all to . . .” but could not finish.
Government officials (mostly the Senate and high-ranking nobles) assembled
to decide the succession, and most, especially the Guards regiments, supported
Catherine, the emperor's second wife. From this moment, until the overthrow
of Paul I in 1801, the Imperial Guards regiments forced decisions about rulers,
making the Russian 18th century the century of palace revolutions.
Thus, between 1725 and 1762, Russia went through a period of political
instability. Peter had changed the law of succession, allowing the czar to name
his or her own successor. This had the unintended effect of allowing outsiders
to interfere (often violently) to determine who the next czar would be. The
rulers of this period were generally weak. The imperial guards at St. Petersburg
frequently intervened to change rulers, and imperial favorites often dominated
policy. Yet this “instability” at the top should not be allowed to obscure impor-
tant developments that affected the country at large: Westernization continued
to spread to more people and broader areas of Russian life.
In social terms, the main trend of this period was the process by which the
gentry gradually freed itself from the obligation to do state service. At the same
time, the peasants found themselves under heavier burdens of taxation and
other restrictions. One of Peter's most crucial legacies was the widening of dif-
ferences between the peasant villages and the outside world. Differences
between the upper classes and the peasantry were already quite pronounced
before Peter (mostly because of serfdom). Peter increased the differences. The
classes looked different, talked differently, ate different foods, and thought dif-
ferently. While the peasants remained loyal to traditional dress, customs, and
religious practices, the nobility and government officials were increasingly
exposed to Western-style education, fashions, and secularized culture.
After Peter's reign, the one justification for the system of serfdom was elim-
inated. Serfdom was based on the assumption of service state; peasants served
landlords, landlords served the czar, and the czar served God and his people.
Peter had reinforced the idea of service for all. But after his death, his succes-
sors revoked the requirements of service for the gentry.
Catherine I, a former Lithuanian peasant girl and the mother of Peter's illegit-
imate children, reigned from 1725 to 1727. She left the government in the hands
of her adviser, Aleksandr Menshikov, who was arrogant and corrupt. Menshikov
demoted the Senate to a mere college and created instead the Supreme Privy
Council—a kind of kitchen cabinet of favorites. Catherine died in May 1727,
probably as a result of heavy drinking, which accelerated after Peter's death.
Supposedly before her death, Catherine had signed a document that left the
crown to her grandson Peter (Alexis's son), then to his descendants, and then
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