"All the people consider themselves to be kholops, that is, slaves of their Prince." -Sigismund Herberstien, 1571

Political

Power was maintained through careful and tight control over the nobility, as well as through wars with the remaining Mongol leaders of Kazan and Astrakhan (1552-1556), which added vast amounts of land to Russia.

Ivan developed the service nobility, a group of people he personally rewarded for faithful service, which replaced the old system of an established nobility.
Initiated the system of secret police Russia is so famous for, called the "Oprichniki", and used it to control the Muscovite boyar princes.
Executed all whom, no matter what their class, rebelled against him.
He bound all lower class people to the land in a system of serfdom and, except for the Cossacks, who fled to the wilderness, all serfs served their lord and, ultimately, the Tsar. Virtually no middle class existed.
He was motivated by war and developed a military group called "streltsey", who were armed with the latest muskets and weaponry. They were based off the French model of the Musketeers.

Economic

The Tsar was the absolute ruler, and therefore had complete control over the economy.

Ivan owned all trade and industry, as well as all of the land, and a system of royal monopolization did not allow for independent and overall economic growth.
While the rest of Europe moved towards a system of growing middle class and capitalism, all wealth and power was being centralized in the persona of the Tsar.
The plight of the entrepreneur was a sad one, resulting in the further funding of the Tsar.
In 1550 Ivan issued a new Code of Law called "Sudebnik" which looked like it created more freedom under an allowance for a council of advisors, but was ultimately useless due to his insatiable desire for power.

Religion

Ivan IV made it clear that he was not only the Tsar, heir of Caesar, but also the heir of Orthodox Christianity.

During the reign of Ivan IV, the idea of divine right monarchy was further asserted. He was the head of both church and state, and therefore had an unlimited source of power.
All people were members of the Eastern Orthodox Church; there was no permitted dissention. (Eastern Orthodoxy saw themselves as being keepers of the true faith, unpolluted like the other European nations were, free from liberals and religious minorities.)
Through the "Stoglav" councils of 1551, the Tsar directly interfered in the lives of the people, strictly reforming their morality.
Ivan IV, however, considered himself exempt from the morals that he instituted within the church.

Social

The social system within Russia was clearly defined with specific roles for each individual group of people, yet they all shared a common sense of oppression from the Tsar.

Nobility:

The Iron-Fist of the Tsar weighed heavily on the old nobility, the Muscovite Princes. They suffered terribly beneath the rule of Ivan IV due, somewhat, to emotional trauma that he suffered at their hands as a child. After the death of Anastasia he began periodic purges, with the aid of his "Oprichniki", of those nobles that dared to oppose him, which resulted in mass killings, regardless of station. Boyar estates were taken over by the Tsar and distributed to those loyal to Ivan IV, the service nobility.

In contrast, the service nobility formed by the Tsar rewarded those who were loyal to the throne and created a new class of people, more powerful than the old nobility.

Clergy:

The Tsar, who they held to be divinely chosen as the leader of their country, headed the clergy.

Any church leaders who dissented against the will of the Tsar faced the same consequences as those of the boyars. They were often subjected to unspeakable torture and unimaginably sadistic executions.

Ironically a devout leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Ivan the Terrible offered prayers for the souls of each church member he executed.

Middle Class:

The small middle class had an incredibly difficult existence. These valiant entrepreneurs developed new successful businesses only to see them confiscated by the government.

All were dependents on the Tsar, and all work and property was ultimately the possession of the Tsar, so the growth of the middle class that most of Europe was experiencing was unknown in Russia.

Cottage Industry Workers:

This group of people experienced a system of oppression that led them to consider themselves slaves, and since they gained almost no wages, had no job security, and were subjects of the Tsar, they were right.

Peasants:

Slaves would also be a better term for this group of unfortunate individuals. The depopulated land, a result of the insane purges of Ivan the Terrible and the incessant wars, CENTER the nobility barely able to scrape an existence out of the land, and called for a system which bound the lower class peasants as serfs to the indefinitely.

Ivan IV instituted a type of serfdom unheard of before his time, in which conditions were so oppressive that many fled the estates of the nobles, hoping for a better life scrounging in the wilderness for food. These scroungers were known as "Cossacks" and formed rebel communities and armies in opposition of the Tsar.

Minorities:

Minority groups faced oppression and discrimination, which often resulted in executions and forced fleeing from the country.

Women depended upon their status as upper class or lower, experienced inequality relative to their station, respectively. No one had rights, however, except for the Tsar, so they were only marginally more oppressed than their male counterparts.

Intellectual and Artistic

Within Russia under Ivan IV, no provision was made for science, as religion was seen as the supreme authority.
With the exception of a few works of religious art of the medieval style, not much was developed in the way of art during his reign. People were so entirely consumed with the peasant serfdom and oppression of the Tsar that the free time necessary for a Renaissance did not occur.
An intellectual experiment, developed by the Tsar himself, occurred beginning in 1564. This movement, an attempt to gain more power by Ivan IV, divided Russia into theoretically two sections, though in reality one, alone, existed. The concept involved a sector called Oprichniki (which had the secret army of the same name) run by the Tsar alone (devoid of councils or interference of any kind), and the other called Zemshchina, run by a boyar and councils in the traditional manner.
The system and experiment ultimately failed since the Tsar ran both regions. Oprichniki had several goals, which echoed the absolute ruler ideals: extermination of treason and end of the political influence of the nobility.