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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