THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
The Legal Problem. 
The question of legalizing the Zemstvo Union did not arise in 
practice for a long time. The Union had come into existence with- 
out anybody’s permission, as a temporary organization in connec- 
tion with the needs of the War. In the opinion of the authorities, 
an opinion which had behind it the weight of historical tradition, the 
zemstvos should have been permitted to provide for the needs of the 
local residents only. All that the law authorized the zemstvos to do 
was to combine among themselves for the purpose of satisfying 
more effectively by joint action these purely local needs (for in- 
stance by the reinsurance union, the union for the purchase of iron, 
and so on). 
The All-Russian Union of Zemstvos constituted for an altogether 
different object of a national character, obviously did not fall within 
these narrow definitions. The Union existed without a statute sanc- 
tioned by the legislative power. An ordinance of the Minister of the 
Interior instructed the provincial governors to place no obstacles in 
the way of a discussion by zemstvo assemblies of problems connected 
with the working of the Zemstvo Union and to refrain from protest- 
ing against the assignment of funds to the treasury of the Union. 
This was well enough. But the trouble was that another ordinance 
from the same Minister might at any moment arbitrarily change this 
situation. Given the mutual relations of the Union and the Ministry 
of the Interior, one might have thought that the Union would have 
taken every possible measure to place itself upon a strictly legal 
basis, and under normal conditions only such a basis could have as- 
sured it safe and unmolested existence, free from any risk of arbi- 
trary action by the Minister. In Russia, however, practice differed 
greatly from such theory, and if the Union was able to win the right 
to exist at all, it was only thanks to its actual performances. Whether 
the bureaucracy liked it or not, it had to reconcile itself to the ex- 
istence of the Union, and not only was it powerless to change the 
situation, but in many instances it was even forced to seek the help 
of the Union and to assign to it hundreds of millions of rubles from 
the Treasury. 
In these circumstances the vague legal status of the Union was 
bound to have some very useful aspects. After all, what was there 
that the Union could possibly gain by legislation? Nothing more 
by 
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