CHAPTER XIV 
CHANGES IN THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF LOCAL 
GOVERNMENT DURING THE WAR 
Proposed Changes. 
Berore the War the State Duma had devoted not a little attention 
to legislation aiming at the further extension of the rights and 
duties of the institutions of local government, and several such 
measures, although only of secondary importance, were enacted. 
Certain essential reforms, however, which had for a long time past 
become urgently necessary, could not be carried through, some of 
them because a sufficient ma jority could not be obtained for them in 
the Duma, others because bills approved by the Duma were re- 
jected by the Upper House (the State Council), as was the case with 
the bill to introduce a volost zemstvo organization. 
With the outbreak of the War, the chances of introducing certain 
indispensable reforms were at once improved, as the Progressive 
Bloc which was formed in the Duma? included in its legislative pro- 
gram a bill dealing with the reform of local government. It provided 
for an extension of the functions of the zemstvos and lowered the 
qualifications for zemstvo franchise; it also demanded the abolition 
of class divisions in the electoral system and it insisted upon the for- 
mation of volost zemstvos and the introduction of local government 
institutions throughout the Empire, including Siberia. The efforts 
of the Duma tended in this direction throughout the War, until the 
Revolution of February-March, 1917. 
The Provisional Government. 
The Provisional Government which emerged from the Revolution, 
in reorganizing the political life of Russia on principles of liberty 
and democracy, made it one of the fundamental points of its legis- 
lative program to introduce basic reforms in local government. At 
best, several months would have been required to put the new laws 
into effect; the Revolution, however, would not tolerate even this 
' See P. P. Gronsky, The Central Government in the volume The War 
and the Russian Government (Yale University Press, 1929) in this series of 
the Economic and Social History of the World War.