ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION 35
mer being allowed a larger representation in the assemblies. Both
these provisions were adopted in order to keep these zemstvos free
from Polish control, as many of the great landowners in those localities
 were Poles. This relatively democratic structure of the zemstvos
 in the western provinces was not easily carried through the
reactionary upper house (State Council) by the sponsor of the
law, the Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, M. Stolypin.
Thus there were already forty-three provinces in European Russia
 possessing zemstvo institutions when the War began.