Empress Catherine II began her reign with reforms in the spirit of the policy of "enlightened absolutism", inspired by the works of many European thinkers. As you know, "enlightened absolutism" itself assumed the equality of all inhabitants of the country, regardless of their class, before a single law. So, in 1767 the Stated Commission of Catherine 2 was convened, the purpose of which was to establish a new code of laws protecting the interests of all classes of citizens. The empress believed that her idea, quite free for Russia, would find support among representatives of many ranks and estates, and, therefore, would strengthen her position on the imperial throne.
So, the Stated Commission is a collegial body convened to systematize laws that entered into force in the distant 1649. In total, seven such commissions have been convened in the history of the Russian Empire. The largest was the convocation The laid commission by Catherine II, which differed from the previous ones by a wide representation (now townspeople were allowed to be elected to the deputies - one representative from the city, nobles, peasants, foreigners). Representatives of the ecclesiastical authorities and serfs lost the right to be elected to deputies. The laid down commission of Catherine the Second consisted of 450 deputies, most of whom were representatives of the townspeople (36%), nobles (33%) and villagers (20%).
Deputies of the Stated Commission were granted a lot of privileges. So, they received an additional salary, could not be subjected to corporal punishment, torture and capital punishment, their estates could not be confiscated under any circumstances (except for debts). An insult to a deputy was punishable by a serious fine.
The convening of the Stated Commission of Catherine the Second was marked by another innovation interesting for the inhabitants of Russia. The empress herself drafted the so-called “Punishment” to the deputies, whom they should be guided by when making important decisions. In her “Punishment,” Catherine outlined her views on the main tasks of the Stated Commission. The text of this document consisted of twenty chapters divided into articles. Some of them were written in the spirit of the laws of the French philosopher Charles Montesquieu, and part - in the spirit of the book by Italian C. Beccaria "On crimes and punishments."
The empress was convinced that the only possible form of government in such a vast country as Russia is an absolute monarchy. To protect all citizens from the despotism and self-will of the monarch, the Stated Commission should be created, the deputies of which have the right to express their opinion to the current ruler that, for example, the adoption of this decree is unacceptable in the current situation, that it contradicts the opinion of the Stated Commission, and means cannot be made public. Part of the articles “The Order” was devoted to the economic development of the country, the construction of new cities, the development of industry, agriculture and trade.
The convening of the Stated Commission took place in the summer of 1767. Its opening was marked by a service in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin with the personal presence of Catherine II. All deputies took the oath before the meeting. In the fall of 1768, the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire began, demanding the presence of many deputies in military institutions and on the battlefields. Marshal A. Bibikov announced the termination of their meeting. The convening of the Stated Commission of Catherine the Second was the last such kind of meeting of representatives of different classes of Russia. Despite this, an attempt to create such an estate-representative body elevated the empress in the eyes of the country's population, raised her prestige to unprecedented heights both in Russia itself and far beyond its borders.