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.