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 I. Origin and organization of zemstvo institutions

Collection:: Economics Books

28 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR ized to veto zemstvo appropriations that were in excess of the limits prescribed for their budgets. But the demands of practical life proved stronger than all written laws. The desirability of the zemstvo appropriations was so obvious that it was found impossible to confine the budgets to the narrow limits allowed under the new law. And thus the budgets, in spite of all attempts to pare them, continued to increase after 1900 in prac- tically the same proportion as before: during the five years before 1900, the budgets of all the zemstvos had increased by 40 per cent, and during the following five-year period the rate of increase was 39 per cent. But while the new law failed to attain its immediate object, it gave the authorities an additional weapon against the zemstvos. This weapon was utilized by the Government at the end of the nineties, in its struggle with the zemstvos over the school question. This arose out of the attempt of the Government to substitute parish schools for the secular primary schools maintained by the zemstvos. In the end the zemstvos were victorious, for, notwithstanding very sub- stantial appropriations by the Holy Synod, the parish schools did not prosper and were unable to compete with the schools of the zem- stvos. So manifest was the superiority of the latter that the peas- ants themselves began to clamor for zemstvo rather than parish schools, and the Government was obliged to yield. Need of a Reform. As the work of the zemstvos developed and expanded, at the be- ginning of the twentieth century, the need of a comprehensive zem- stvo reform made itself increasingly felt. The area of land held by the nobility continued to shrink rapidly, and the number of land- owners of this class had in many districts dwindled so far that a deputy elected to the zemstvos by the nobles sometimes represented only two or three voters. In some places the voters of this class who attended the zemstvo assemblies were even fewer than the deputies whom they were entitled to choose, and those present then simply elected themselves deputies. In these circumstances it was only natu- ral that the control in a number of zemstvos should finally be con- centrated in the hands of two or three aristocratic families, upon whose will now depended very largely the zemstvo activity of entire districts. Of course, such a state of affairs was bound to undermine

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