32 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
productive in their career. Their educational work, in particular,
made great progress. The number of zemstvo schools largely in-
creased (by 34 per cent from 1903 to 1909), plans were pushed
forward to assure a network of schools adequate to provide universal
education, and public libraries and reading rooms were opened in
rapid succession. Agronomic and health measures were introduced
on an increasingly large scale. “At this time,” says Veselovsky, “the
provincial zemstvos began also to render systematic assistance to the
district zemstvos in the construction of school buildings, agronomic
aid, anti-epidemic measures, etc. Collegiate bodies were being or-
ganized, with the active participation of those practically engaged
in these fields (school commissions, economic and medical councils,
and so on), and there were now more frequent conventions of the
presiding officers of district zemstvo boards and of experts.”
The revolution of 1905 radically changed the composition of the
majority of the zemstvo assemblies. Agrarian riots, accompanied by
the burning and looting of the landlords’ estates in the black-soil
sections (in the south and along the Volga), necessarily aroused a
reactionary sentiment in the zemstvos, then largely composed of rep-
resentatives of the landed gentry. At the first zemstvo election to be
held after the events of 1905, the liberals, till then the leading group
in the zemstvos, suffered a crushing defeat, and most of the zemstvos
came under the control of moderately conservative and sometimes
reactionary elements. But even so, after forty years of local gov-
ernment, the very conservatism of these new members was of a dif-
ferent complexion. By this time the older generation, former serf-
owners, had passed away, and even the reactionary elements had
advanced. It is true that in some provinces, for instance Kursk, the
new representatives in the zemstvos made attempts to abolish a
number of educational and philanthropic institutions-left by their
predecessors, but on the whole it may be stated that the work of the
zemstvos continued to develop at about the same rate as before. For
in the twentieth century even an extreme reactionary would hardly
dare suggest that there was harm in education, agronomy, medicine,
and other such things, as reactionaries of the older generation had
done. Today, looking back at the past, we may even say that among
the conservative zemstvo leaders of the last decade there were just
as many enlightened and devoted men as among the liberals of an
earlier period.
