ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION
The Zemstvos and the Central Government.
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But neither the inertia of the population nor the reactionary atti-
tude of certain elements within the zemstvos placed as many obsta-
cles in their way as did the Government and its local representatives,
the provincial governors. Friction between the Government and the
zemstvos developed as soon as the latter set to work.
The trouble was that free self-governing institutions possessing
absolute autonomy within the limits of the law were utterly at vari-
ance with those principles of autocracy to which the Russian bu-
reaucracy had been so long accustomed. The natural result was that
neither the local authorities nor the central government could re-
frain from constantly interfering in the affairs of the zemstvos. The
latter were thus forced into opposition to the Government by having
to defend their independence against its encroachments. As early as
1867 this had been the cause of a serious clash between the Govern-
ment and the provincial zemstvo of St. Petersburg, ending in the
suspension of this zemstvo from all its functions by command of the
Emperor for the space of six months, and the banishment of some of
its deputies from the capital by order of the Government.
Minor conflicts between zemstvos and local administration officials
were of constant occurrence. Provincial governors availed themselves
extensively of their authority to stop the execution of what to them
seemed to be unlawful decisions of the zemstvo assemblies. Even
though the Senate would frequently overrule the governors, its deci-
sions often came only after the lapse of two or three years, by which
time the matters in dispute had lost all vital importance.
Especially numerous were the obstacles interposed by the Gov-
ernment in the educational endeavors of the zemstvos. The Ministry
of Education kept a vigilant watch that the public schools taught
nothing but prescribed curricula. But, in spite of their being for-
bidden to interfere with the purely educational side of their own
school system, the zemstvos persisted in their efforts to influence it,
and often hired instructors at their own expense. In 1872, however,
the Ministry of Education issued an ordinance declaring this ac-
tivity contrary to the letter of the law. A similar failure attended
the efforts of the zemstvos to organize special colleges for the train-
ing of elementary school teachers. Some of the zemstvos managed to
