comments:
Southern plantation slaves had it better than Russian serfs Citation needed. Bigtime. Coming back to this, I finally dug it out from my father's library: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674920988 That is the authoritative comparison of Russian serfdom and American slavery. The upshot is that, while serfs had somewhat more individual freedom (although this varied heavily over several centuries), there was simply less concern for their well-being in the sense of making sure that they had a healthy diet, received medical care, etc. The Russian nobility did not care if a bunch of serfs died, the American slave masters absolutely cared if a bunch of slaves died. Serfs were often killed for sport, slaves almost never. There were, in fact, slaves in Russia in the sense that they were chattel property of others, called kholopy, but they were generally of higher social rank than serfs. Once again, this is not a defense of either situation, but the context in which the modern social problems facing both the United States and Russia originated from, which are also radically different.