CHANGES IN PRINCIPLES 291 
hailed. Thus the democratization of local government, although 
highly important and even necessary, was doomed to failure and 
proved incapable of yielding the beneficial results that had been 
expected. 
It is not possible, however, to pass final judgment upon the new 
zemstvo Institutions merely in the light of what these first zemstvo 
assemblies, meeting under such abnormal conditions, were able to 
achieve. But there is no other criterion at our disposal, for a few 
months later the Bolshevik Government abolished the zemstvo insti- 
tutions in practically every section of the Empire. As for those zem- 
stvos which succeeded in surviving the Bolshevik Revolution in the 
southern and eastern parts of the country occupied by anti-Bolshe- 
vik forces,® we must recollect that their operations were conducted 
while civil war was raging and when the ruble had sunk to a very 
low level, in other words, under exceedingly abnormal conditions, so 
that here, again, it is impossible to pass fair judgment on the merits 
of their work. 
* The zemstvos were finally abolished in the Crimea in 1920, after the 
evacuation of General Wrangel’s army, and they survived in Eastern Siberia 
until 1922, when Vladivostok was captured by the Red Army.