Peter the Great

Peter the Great’s state-building project shows that political centralization does not necessarily produce inclusive institutions: between 1682 and 1725, he concentrated power in the monarchy, overcame resistance, and strengthened absolutism in Russia. In the book’s account, his reign exemplifies the possibility that a more capable state can remain extractive when centralization transfers authority to the ruler rather than widening political participation.

Centralizing the Russian State

Between 1682 and his death in 1725, Peter built a new capital at Saint Petersburg and used it to help construct a modern bureaucratic state and army. This project diminished the authority of the old aristocracy, the Boyars. Peter also abolished the Boyar Duma, the institution that had made him tsar, redirecting political authority away from an existing body and toward himself.

The reforms extended beyond government administration. Peter introduced the Table of Ranks, a new social hierarchy organized around service to the tsar, and took control of the Church. The comparison with Henry VIII underscores a broader argument: state-building could consolidate the ruler’s command over institutions that had previously held independent authority. In Peter’s case, administrative modernization and the concentration of political power advanced together.

Opposition and the Outcome of Reform

Centralization challenged groups whose authority depended on older arrangements. Peter’s military reforms prompted the traditional royal guards, the Streltsy, to rebel. Their revolt was followed by further resistance, including uprisings by the Bashkirs in Central Asia and the Bulavin Rebellion. None succeeded.

Peter’s project therefore prevailed, but its success did not make it politically inclusive. The forces opposing centralization were defending power they saw being taken from them; where such resistance prevailed in other parts of the world, the resulting weakness of the state could sustain a different kind of extractive political order. Russia instead experienced successful centralization that redirected power toward the tsar and helped forge absolutism.

Centralization Is Not Inclusion

The account distinguishes the ability to concentrate state power from the creation of inclusive political institutions. Under Peter, a stronger bureaucracy and army did not mean that authority was shared more widely: the reforms stripped power from the Boyars, abolished the Duma, subordinated the Church, and placed social advancement within a hierarchy of service to the tsar. State capacity grew through the concentration of power rather than through pluralism.

This distinction situates Peter’s reign within the book’s wider argument about barriers to industrial development. Absolutism and weak political centralization are different obstacles, yet both can be sustained by fear of creative destruction and by conflicts over who will control political power. Peter’s victory over opponents of centralization demonstrates one possible resolution: the state becomes stronger, but the ruler’s authority expands rather than giving way to broader participation.

Historical Significance

Peter’s reign is used as an example of how institutional change can turn on conflict over power. His reforms altered the balance between the tsar and established authorities, while the rebellions reveal that centralization was contested rather than automatic. Their defeat made the transformation a success for Peter, not a transition to inclusive rule.

The case also qualifies any simple equation of state-building with political progress. A modern bureaucracy and army can accompany absolutism when institutional change channels authority upward. Peter’s rule thus serves as a contrast to histories in which centralization helped generate demands for representation: the decisive issue is not centralization alone, but who gains power through it.