ms brought by emancipation with the Revolution came" (Massie 290).
At almost every turn, the freeing of the serfs brought at least as many new problems as it solved old problems:
Assuming supervision of the land redemption operation greatly expanded . . . government fiscal concerns.
. . . The commissions created a new network of peasant self-administration, which, although intended as a vehicle for civil order and progress, was burdened with police and fiscal obligations and which . . . saddled the state with an echelon of peasant officialdom (Cracraft 316).
Massie points out that the emancipation of the serfs was made more complex by the many divisions in both serf and noble classes (Massie 288). In other words, the very question of who was a member of the serf or noble class was difficult to answer. Ultimately, all classes of serfs were freed, but their status in liberation was uncertain, as was the status of the nobility: "According to the 1858 census, only 18,500 nobles would live independently on their estates" (Massie 289).
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