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Ivan was a man who did not take risks or challengecustom unwarily, but when he struck he struck hard,as the men of Novgorod, amongst others, had good causeto know. When they asked for terms (1477) he replied ;"Our grand-princely dominion is of this wise: there isto be no assembly and no bell in our own land Novgorod,and no lieutenant; our rule is to be exercised by ourselves.'' And so it was. When the landowners andmerchants of Novgorod conspired against him he didnot hesitate to crush them by wholesale arrests and' removal' to central Muscovy, and he applied the samepolicy of forced 'removal' elsewhere.This method of dealing with dangerous elements, ofwhatever classes, became a regular feature of tsarism.As practised by Ivan the Terrible with peculiar savageryon the Muscovites themselves and not merely on conqueredlands, during seven years of deliberate terror(1565-72), it contributed to a major crisis. Compulsory' removal' involved confiscation of property but wasusually accompanied by the new grant of lands or tradingrights in whatever places those who had been expelledwere resettled. Thus it was not the same as the laterpractice of deportation, e.g. to Siberia, with loss of civicrights and frequently with hard labour. It was of muchimportance both as a means of breaking down local resistanceand of intermingling the heterogeneous elementsof the rapidly expanding Muscovite empire.In close connexion with compulsory 'removals'another practice became regular from about the time ofIvan the Great, that of ' selection,' i.e. voluntary ornominally voluntary recruitment of so many persons orfamilies for all sorts of purposes or forms of service,some temporary, some permanent. In addition, compulsorylevies became more and more frequent fortemporary labour or defence duties, reaching theirhighest pitch perhaps with Peter the Great's buildingof his new capital and his other gigantic demands onlabour.'Selection' might involve a northern commune producingso many men or families for temporary orpermanent enrolment as couriers or transport men on96