ORIGIN AND ORGANIZATION 35 
mer being allowed a larger representation in the assemblies. Both 
these provisions were adopted in order to keep these zemstvos free 
from Polish control, as many of the great landowners in those lo- 
calities were Poles. This relatively democratic structure of the zem- 
stvos in the western provinces was not easily carried through the 
reactionary upper house (State Council) by the sponsor of the 
law, the Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, M. Stolypin. 
Thus there were already forty-three provinces in European Rus- 
sia possessing zemstvo institutions when the War began.