•Domestic reforms
•composed a plan to completely overhaul the legal code. Other measures she instituted promoted education, relaxed the censorship law, and restricted the use of torture.
•Ended Enlightenment ideas after the “Peasant Revolt”
•like Frederick, Catherine’s devotion to Enlightenment ideals only went so far.
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Domestically, Catherine focused a great deal of effort on reforming and improving Russian law and society. Inspired by the ideas of Enlightenment political thinkers like Montesquieu, she composed a plan to completely overhaul the legal code. Other measures she instituted promoted education, relaxed the censorship law, and restricted the use of torture.

In a 1773–1774 uprising, peasants in southwestern Russia revolted and took control of several forts and cities. Although Catherine’s army put down the insurgents before they progressed any further, the revolt had a major effect on any ideas she had on reforming serfdom. Instead, she reorganized local governments so that they would become more efficient and better able to control the serfs. In 1785, she enacted reforms that strengthened the nobility. She granted them absolute control of the serfs, freed them from taxation, confiscated church land and gave it to nobles, opened up new areas to serfdom, and made nobility hereditary. Thus, like Frederick, Catherine’s devotion to Enlightenment ideals only went so far.