history. With this single act the monarchy created a large, privileged,Westernized leisure class, such as Russia had never known before.’Other scholars have since modified this evaluation considerably,some of them giving more emphasis to the Charter of the Nobilityof 1785, but most of them would accept that the 1762 manifestowas an important milestone along the road to the acquisition offull property rights by the Russian nobility as a class, if not so muchas individuals.3 Regarding the peasantry, passages from Pugachev’sedict of 1774 may be taken as indicative of popular attitudestowards property as well as other matters:With this personal decree we bestow our monarchical andpaternal generosity upon all those formerly in thepeasantry and subject to the landlords, be true slaves toour crown...and you may be Cossacks for ever, withoutdemands for recruit levies, poll and other money dues,possession of lands, woods and meadows and fishingrights, and salt lakes without tax and payment and wefree all from the evils caused by nobles and bribe-takingtown judges of the peasants, and taxes and burdens placedon all the people.Here, even more clearly than in the case of the nobility, we maysee that property rights are attributed to a class rather than toindividuals, emphasis thus being given to age-old communalcustoms and beliefs. Up to the Revolution of 1917 and beyond, thecommunal outlook remained strong, as did the belief that the landbelonged to those who cultivated it. Just before that Revolution,even the intellectuals of the liberal Kadet Party refused to defendland ownership as a private right; although most of them believedin such ownership in general, Western legal norms in this area metwith far from broad acceptance.4As is already apparent, no doubt, Western norms as a wholewere not universally recognised in pre-revolutionary Russia.Undoubtedly, some progress towards such recognition had beenmade from the later eighteenth century onwards, especially duringthe reign of Catherine II, or Catherine the Great. On the other hand,the Empress had come to power via the assassination of herhusband, Tsar Peter III, and had connived at this monstrous act ofillegality even if she did not actually instigate it. Having gainedthe supreme power, she was determined not to lose it. The ‘legal