The global trade by Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. The horse myth also allowed her enemies to tarnish her legacy and claims to greatness. [71] Pugachev had made stories about himself acting as a real tsar should, helping the common people, listening to their problems, praying for them, and generally acting saintly, and this helped rally the peasants and serfs, with their very conservative values, to his cause. In 1768, she formally became the protector of political rights of dissidents and peasants of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which provoked an anti-Russian uprising in Poland, the Confederation of Bar (1768–72), supported by France. Poland ceased to exist as an independent nation.[132]. They told the Czarina that they had just seen her in the throne room. A further 2.8 million belonged to the Russian state.[58]. An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and the economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and of private landowners intensified the exploitation of serf labour. [76] In 1779, she hired the British architect Charles Cameron to build the Chinese Village at Tsarskoe Selo (modern Pushkin, Russia). [CDATA[// >