THE ZEMSTVOS AND THE UNION 87 
country and supported by the popular representatives,” and that 
“it 1s necessary to resume at once the work of the legislative institu- 
tions.” The zemstvo assembly of the province of Kostroma re- 
affirmed that “the struggle against the enemy can be successful only 
if the Government is headed by a ministry enjoying the confidence 
of the people and responsible to the Duma.” The provincial zemstvo 
assembly of Nizhni-Novgorod insisted on the need of “summoning 
to the Government such persons as enjoy popular confidence.” 
Similar resolutions were passed by the provincial zemstvo assemblies 
of Moscow, Smolensk, Samara, Astrakhan, and a number of other 
localities. 
This political movement on the part of the zemstvo and munici- 
palities, beginning in 1915, was similar to the movement observed 
at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centu- 
ries, in that it expressed the sentiments of the more moderate circles 
of Russian society, who, better organized than the other classes, were 
able to take the initiative in uttering a warning to the authorities. 
But, as on the previous occasions, the authorities utterly ignored 
this warning. Just as in 1905, so in 1917, the struggle against the 
Government was taken up by unorganized popular forces and these 
forces, suppressed in 1905, succeeded in 1917 in ushering in a 
lengthy period of revolution. 
Among other causes of discontent in the zemstvos, we may men- 
tion the general policy of the Government in the matter of food 
supply and the organization of provisioning the army, in which 
institutions of local government were allowed only a secondary part. 
Later on, no doubt, circumstances forced the authorities to abandon 
this work to the zemstvos. At the close of 1915 and all through 
1916, leaders were often invited to attend various government con- 
ferences dealing with the problems of food supply (price regula- 
tion, grain levies, cattle requisitions, and other such matters), but 
these were not always settled in accordance with the wishes of the 
zemstvos. How acute the misunderstandings on this ground had be- 
come, and how keenly some of the zemstvos resented the economic 
measures of the Government, may be seen from the following reso- 
lution passed by the provincial zemstvo assembly of Orenburg a 
month before the outbreak of the Revolution: it declared that “if 
the Government will not announce, on March 1, 1917, that the vote 
of the zemstvo shall be decisive, and not merely advisory, in deter-