290 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
cal government known as the volost® zemstvos and by introducing 
general suffrage. From the position of an organ of local govern- 
ment for the peasant class alone fulfilling merely police functions, 
the volost was now raised to the dignity of an organ of local gov- 
ernment with jurisdiction over a certain area, regardless of class 
listinctions. Thus the zemstvos were placed on a broad foundation, 
and the whole system was at last developed into a harmonious struc- 
ture. Both volost and district zemstvo assemblies were now to be di- 
rectly elected by the population of the respective territories. As 
regards the method of election to the provincial zemstvo assemblies, 
it was left unaltered, the elections remaining indirect and being 
conducted by the district zemstvo assemblies. The fact that the new 
law on the zemstvo institutions had been enacted in the very thick 
of the Revolution and under the pressure of the Soviets could not 
but affect the character of the electoral system adopted, so that its 
democratic features were in some respects carried to the point of 
absurdity. 
General suffrage under a proportional system of representation 
was now granted to all persons, regardless of sex, and was not re- 
stricted by any residential qualification. Any man or woman having 
attained the age of twenty and living in the territory of the volost 
or district at the time when the voting lists were drawn up would be 
entitled to vote in the zemstvo elections. No exceptions were made in 
the case of soldiers stationed in such a district, they also being en- 
titled to vote wherever they happened to be stationed. Owing to this 
provision of the law, soldiers whose connection with the locality was 
purely accidental, obtained the controlling influence in the zemstvo 
elections in the war zone and very often also behind it, in important 
military centers. 
These defects of the electoral law were further aggravated by the 
generally abnormal conditions of revolutionary times, under which 
elections of organs of local government were conducted under the 
slogans of competing political parties, slogans which frequently had 
no relation to the objects for which local government had been in- 
tended. It can easily be understood, therefore, why most of the demo- 
cratic zemstvo assemblies which met in October, 1917, utterly dis- 
appointed the hopes with which their appearance might have been 
2 Rural administrative units including several villages.