about like another; and as for their homes, their wooden huts were
burned down so often there were no memories attached to them.

The result of this was that the peasantry--that immense force upon
which the state at last depended--was not stable and permanent, but
fluid. At the slightest invitation of better wages, or better soil or
conditions, whole communities might desert a locality--would gather up
their goods and walk off. Boris, while Regent, conceived the idea of
correcting this evil, in a way which would at the same time make him a
very popular ruler with the class whose support he most needed, the
Princes and the landowners. He would chain the peasant to the soil. A
decree was issued that henceforth the peasant must not go from one
estate to another. He belonged to the land he was tilling, as the
trees that grew on it belonged to it, and the master of that land was
his master for evermore!

Such, in brief outline, was the system of serfdom which prevailed until
1861. It was in theory, though not practically, unlike the institution
of American slavery. The people, still living in their communes, still
clung to the figment of their freedom, not really understanding that
they were slaves, but feeling rather that they were freemen whose
sacred rights had been cruelly invaded. That they were giving to hard
masters the fruit of their toil on their own lands.

Now that Russia was becoming a modern state, it required more money to
govern her. Civilization is costly, and the revenues must not be
fluctuating. Boris saw they could only be made sure by attaching to
the soil the peasant, whose labor was at the foundation of the
prosperity of the state. It was the peasant who bore the weight of an
expanded civilization which he did not share! The visitor at Moscow