Catherine brings many of the policies of Peter the Great to fruition and sets the foundation for the nineteenth-century empire.

Russia becomes a power capable of competing with its European neighbors on military, political, and diplomatic grounds.

Russia's elite become culturally more like the elites of Central and West European countries.

The organization of society and the government system, from Peter the Great's central institutions to Catherine's provincial administration, will remain basically unchanged until the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and, in some respects, until the fall of the monarchy in 1917.

Catherine's push to the south, including the establishment of Odessa as a Russian port on the Black Sea, provides the basis for Russia's nineteenth-century grain trade.

Despite such accomplishments, the empire that Peter I and Catherine II have built is beset with fundamental problems.

A small Europeanized elite, alienated from the mass of ordinary Russians, raises questions about the very essence of Russia's history, culture, and identity.

Russia has achieved its military preeminence by reliance on coercion and a primitive command economy based on serfdom.

Although Russia's economic development is almost sufficient for its eighteenth-century needs, it is no match for the transformation the Industrial Revolution is causing in Western countries.

Catherine's attempt at organizing society into corporate estates is already being challenged by the French Revolution, which emphasizes individual citizenship.

Russia's territorial expansion and the incorporation of an increasing number of non-Russians into the empire sets the stage for the future nationalities problem.

Finally, the first questioning of serfdom and autocracy on moral grounds foreshadows the conflict between the state and the intelligentsia that is to become dominant in the nineteenth century.