[eng888888]

Hope I don't get downvoted to hell, but I guess it's remarkable that Russia had serfdom until mid 19th century because by then it was well established that white people shouldn't enslave, or attach to land, other white people.

[wongarsu]

> because by then it was well established that white people shouldn't enslave, or attach to land, other white people

That's not how Europe works. Virtually everyone around here is "white". That doesn't prevent racism, it's just racism against Gypsies, or Albanians, or Itelmens, or Jews, or now (often white) muslims.

And of course in Europe we had a big thing for using class differences instead of using race differences as our justification for such things as serfdom.

[coldtea]

>because by then it was well established that white people shouldn't enslave, or attach to land, other white people.

Well, you'd be surprised. A large part of Europe (Germany, Austria, etc) halted serfdom only a few decades before Russia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom#Dates_of_emancipation_...

[notyourday]

Not only that but one's net worth was largely a derivative of the number of serfs one owned. I highly recommend reading "Dead Souls" -- it is a fantastic novel about that period.

[hamilyon2]

Dead souls is a gem.