The Silent Sejm that was held in the aftermath of the hostilities gained notoriety in Polish history and politics. While some beneficial reforms were passed (such as the establishment of standing taxes for the military), the Sejm is regarded negatively by modern historians. Reduction of the army's size and establishment of Russia's position as the settlement guarantor reinforced Commonwealth military inferiority compared to its neighbors, and unofficially, put it in the position of a Russian protectorate. The Russian tsar as the guarantor had now a convenient excuse to intervene in Polish politics in the future at will. With a reduced army, removal of Saxon troops and the right to form confederations, the nobility and the king had less power to fight one another – or, not incidentally, to resist the outside forces. Russian Army troops would stay in the Commonwealth for two years, supporting opposition to Augustus; and Russia soon reached an agreement with other powers about stopping further attempts to reform and strengthen the Commonwealth. Thus the Silent Sejm is regarded as one of the first precedences that the Russian Empire dictated Polish internal policy, and also as a precursor to the partitions of Poland, which erased the Commonwealth from world maps by 1795. Historian Norman Davies wrote that this Sejm "effectively terminated the independence of Poland and Lithuania".