24 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
open such colleges, but toward the close of the seventies the Govern-
ment intervened, and these efforts were systematically defeated by
the provincial governors.
Anxious to foster education and raise the general cultural level,
the zemstvos took the initiative in organizing educational facilities
outside the schools, by arranging public lectures, opening libraries,
etc., and here, again, the Government put difficulties in their way, by
hostile orders, amendments, and interpretations of the law.
Being thus forced into constant opposition to the central govern-
ment in the defense of the right of local government, the zemstvo
workers became gradually convinced of the hopelessness of the con-
test so long as autocracy prevailed in Russia. When the Govern-
ment, toward the close of the reign of Alexander II, appealed for
public support in its fight against the increasing terrorism of the
revolutionaries, several of the provincial zemstvos (Tver, Kharkov,
Chernigov, and a few others) addressed a declaration to the Tsar
pledging their support, but at the same time calling his attention, in
cautious language, to the need of fundamental political reforms and
the summoning of a representative national assembly. Similar me-
morials were presented by certain zemstvos to Alexander III, but the
only result was increased repression, and prison and exile for some
of the leading zemstvo workers.
The reactionary policy of Alexander III naturally manifested it-
self also in the attitude of the authorities toward the theory of local
government in general and the institution of the zemstvos in par-
ticular, and their work was increasingly hampered. A law passed on
August 19, 1879, obliged the zemstvo boards to submit to the pro-
vincial governor for confirmation, the name of every employee to be
taken into their service, while it authorized the governors to remove
zemstvo workers whom they might think “politically undesirable.”
As this was a very elastic term, susceptible of a wide interpretation,
the law thus gave into the hands of the local officials a powerful and
dangerous weapon for combating the zemstvos. In the reign of Alex-
ander III refusals by the governors of confirmation of appoint-
ments and dismissals of expert workers in the service of the then
greatly expanded zemstvo organization was of everyday occur-
rence. The inevitable result was that the normal development of lo-
cal government was seriously impeded.
Locally, this conflict between zemstvo representatives and the gov-
