tion of Russia on every level, waging a two-decade war with Sweden while modernizing the structure and organization of the economy, the society and the government:
As Russia had no modern army, he determined to create one. Russia had no navy, so Peter built one. He founded schools of navigation and mathematics, geography, politics and medicine, philosophy and astronomy. He introduced the potato and encouraged the breeding of native Russian horses. He began the first Russian newspaper and ordered the printing of six hundred books (Massie 95-96).
The sources emphasize the relationship between the economic and military development of Russia under Peter. Cracraft, for example, writes that industrial and mercantile development was accelerated because of military needs, as stated earlier, but also because such development fit in with Peter's economic plans for the nation: "At the basis of his policy lay the notion of the state's directive role in the life of society as a whole, in the economy in particular." Not only did the state control "everything that was connected with the production and marketing of goods" (Cracraft 84)," but the fundamental relationship of production between serf and master was transformed. Ironically, it appeared that a crude form of capitalism would emerge, but contradictory laws affecting hiring and ownership of peasants resulted in a shift back to feudal standards. While the peasants served as the backbone of a developing Russia, the feudal system at the same time prevented a more humane and progressive social and economic evolution. What could have been a period of liberation for workers instead resulted in a deepening of the empire's dependence on serfdom:
Thenceforth industry could develop only as a form of serfdom. . . . This victory of . . . forced labor . . . foreordained that economic backwardness of Russia which became increasin
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