ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION 25
ernment authorities became more acute as the Years went by. In an
atmosphere of profound reaction, in which all public initiative was
suppressed and the press was muzzled by the censorship, it was
quite natural that the zemstvo assemblies, where a voice of protest,
however feeble, might still be heard, should develop into organs
of opposition. The meetings of the provincial zemstvo assemblies
used to draw large audiences eager to hear free speech, and they
would enthusiastically applaud the more popular among the liberal
orators. Thus the conflict of self-government and autocracy was
made more and more apparent, and in the meanwhile the reac-
tionary press, to whose influence Alexander IIT himself was sub ject,
clamored for stern measures against the revolutionary peril lurking
in the zemstvos.
The Zemstvo Act of 1890.
In spite of all this, the zemstvos had managed, during the twenty-
five years that they had then been in existence, to organize such far-
reaching undertakings, and to make themselves so indispensable a
part of the general fabric of the nation, that it was absurd to even
think of replacing them by the old bureaucratic machinery. The at-
tempt was therefore made to subject the zemstvos, by partial re-
forms, more directly to the control of the authorities and, at the
same time, to alter the composition of the assemblies by the intro-
duction of reactionary elements. With this ob ject in view, the zem-
stvo law was revised at the close of the eighties, and on June 12,
1890, the Tsar ratified new enactments effecting vital changes in the
structure of these organizations.
To begin with, the electoral laws were radically altered. The no-
bility were made into a separate curia, and the deputies elected by
this curia obtained in nearly every zemstvo assembly a majority of
seats; and this in spite of the fact that the land holdings of the
gentry had already by that time dwindled considerably. On the
other hand, the number of peasant representatives was greatly re-
duced. The peasants lost, moreover, the right to choose directly their
own representatives to the zemstvo assemblies; instead, they were
merely empowered to elect candidates for that office, and from
among these the local officials would make such appointments to the
assemblies as they thought best. The following table affords an idea
