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 to-day may see in the Kremlin a wonderful tower, 270 feet high, which was erected in honor of Ivan the Great by the usurper Boris; but the monument which keeps his memory alive is the more stupendous one of—­Serfdom.

The expected increase in prosperity from the new system did not immediately come.  The revenues were less than before.  Bands of fugitive serfs were fleeing from their masters and joining the community of free Cossacks on the Don.  Lands were untilled, there was misery, and at last there was famine, and then discontent and demoralization extending to the upper classes, and a diminished income which finally bore upon the Tsar himself.

Suddenly there came a rumor that Dmitri, the infant son of Ivan the Terrible, was not dead!  He was living in Poland, and with incontestable proofs of his identity was coming to claim his own.  In 1604 he crossed the frontier, and thousands of discontented people flocked to his standard with wild enthusiasm.  Boris had died just before Dmitri reached Moscow.  He entered the city, and the infatuated people placed in his hand and upon his head the scepter and the crown of Ivan IV.; and after making sure that the wife and the son of Boris Godunof were strangled, this amazing Pretender commenced his reign.