 From Peter's rule set the precedent for succeeding leaders.For the next 150 years, Russian rulers followed "reform conservatism" which consisted of maintaining the state's power, fighting off fundamental change, but also adopting progressive changes that gave the autocracy a feature of liberalism, which was actually conservative in practice.Considered the "only articulate ideologist to rule Russia between Ivan IV and Lenin", Catherine not only wanted to have military and political equality with Western European countries but she also strove to emulate their enlightened rule by supplanting western thought and practices onto the Russian gentry.