ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION 21 In 1908, a zemstvo congress adopted statutes for an association of all zemstvos, for the purpose of combating by common efforts fu- ture public calamities. But this organization was joined by only eighteen of the thirty-four provincial zemstvos. Political Activities. Parallel with the formation of associations of provincial zemstvos for cultural and economic purposes, the political currents that had become more pronounced among the zemstvos at the beginning of the nineteenth century were also beginning to seek some common channel. In 1903 there was formed a secret organization known as the “Zemstvo Constitutionalists,” which the most prominent zem- stvo workers gradually joined. Their congresses undertook to direct the political actions of their members in the assemblies and confer- ences of the zemstvos, which were beginning to meet quite openly, without any government permission, at the close of 1904, taking prompt advantage of the confusion prevailing in the domestic policy, as a result of the defeats suffered in the Far East. The Constitutionalists were able to secure the adoption, in most of the provincial zemstvo assemblies, of resolutions favoring an appeal to the Emperor in which he should be emphatically urged to abandon autocracy for constitutional government. An appeal of this nature was finally voted by the first All-Russian congress of zemstvos, which met at St. Petersburg on November 6, 1904. At the end of May, 1905, Nicholas II received a deputation from the third zem- stvo congress, headed by Prince S. N. Trubetskoy, and listened to their outline of a program of constitutional reforms. It will thus be seen that the political activities of the zemstvos played a prominent part in the revolution of 1905, which ended in the promulgation of the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, and the con- vocation of the State Duma. Effects of the Revolution of 1905. It would be an error, however, to suppose that these political struggles made the zemstvos neglectful of their fundamental tasks. Veselovsky, the historian of the Russian zemstvos,® shows that it was precisely the five years from 1900 to 1905 which proved the most *V. Veselovsky, op. cit., Vol. III.