Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794855874

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-179223

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Polner, Tichon I. http://d-nb.info/gnd/172311195

Title:: Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Place of publication:: New Haven

Publisher:: Yale Univ. Press

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: XXV, 317 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR seem that the bureaucracy and the zemstvos were both working for the same cause, and that they merely performed separate parts of the same job. As a matter of fact, however, they were divided by a gulf, a gulf which separated the conception of autocracy from that of local government. The government employees were brought up in the old tradition ; they were, often unwillingly, the supporters of the bureaucratic centralized system of government, which appeared to them to be the source of progress. Living in the seclusion of their offices and responsible only to their chiefs, they knew nothing but the régime they were serving and on which their personal welfare de- pended. The zemstvo workers were a complete antithesis to the govern- ment employees. They were creating real life, they gave themselves entirely to the idea they served, they were willing to make any sacri- fice, and many of them were real martyrs and devoted themselves to the welfare of the people, working often under conditions of great hardship. Doctors, engineers, teachers, statisticians, agronomists, veterinary surgeons, all the educated men and women who worked in the zemstvos, not as elected representatives of the population, but as hired employees, were considered by the bureaucrats as a particu- larly dangerous element, because they preferred to follow their con- victions and to serve the people in the often unattractive conditions of the Russian countryside rather than to take their ease in the rela- tive comfort and security of a government department. The elected members of the zemstvo assemblies, an office which required prop- erty qualifications, were usually referred to by the bureaucrats as the “second element”; while the hired members of the zemstvo staff were described as the “third element” and were considered by the Government as a well-organized, united revolutionary force. There is no doubt that the “third element” consisted of representatives of the educated classes who were opposed to the Government, but it 1s also true that it was one of the most active and constructive ele- ments in the zemstvos, that it was brought up in the work of local government, acquired business experience, worked out under the forays of the bureaucracy a definite ideology, and developed re- markable energy. In a relatively short time the zemstvos achieved excellent results. They concentrated on the important aspects of their work instead of the secondary feature which the Government tried to force upon them. They built up a powerful organization. }

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