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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XIV. Changes in the basic principles of local government during the war

Collection:: Economics Books

290 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR cal government known as the volost® zemstvos and by introducing general suffrage. From the position of an organ of local govern- ment for the peasant class alone fulfilling merely police functions, the volost was now raised to the dignity of an organ of local gov- ernment with jurisdiction over a certain area, regardless of class listinctions. Thus the zemstvos were placed on a broad foundation, and the whole system was at last developed into a harmonious struc- ture. Both volost and district zemstvo assemblies were now to be di- rectly elected by the population of the respective territories. As regards the method of election to the provincial zemstvo assemblies, it was left unaltered, the elections remaining indirect and being conducted by the district zemstvo assemblies. The fact that the new law on the zemstvo institutions had been enacted in the very thick of the Revolution and under the pressure of the Soviets could not but affect the character of the electoral system adopted, so that its democratic features were in some respects carried to the point of absurdity. General suffrage under a proportional system of representation was now granted to all persons, regardless of sex, and was not re- stricted by any residential qualification. Any man or woman having attained the age of twenty and living in the territory of the volost or district at the time when the voting lists were drawn up would be entitled to vote in the zemstvo elections. No exceptions were made in the case of soldiers stationed in such a district, they also being en- titled to vote wherever they happened to be stationed. Owing to this provision of the law, soldiers whose connection with the locality was purely accidental, obtained the controlling influence in the zemstvo elections in the war zone and very often also behind it, in important military centers. These defects of the electoral law were further aggravated by the generally abnormal conditions of revolutionary times, under which elections of organs of local government were conducted under the slogans of competing political parties, slogans which frequently had no relation to the objects for which local government had been in- tended. It can easily be understood, therefore, why most of the demo- cratic zemstvo assemblies which met in October, 1917, utterly dis- appointed the hopes with which their appearance might have been 2 Rural administrative units including several villages.

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