The Zemstvos vs. the Bureaucracy
Readers of newspapers the past month have felt the excitement that spectators at a stage performance feel when the dramatic moment of the play, the turning point or crisis, comes, which some theorists claim always properly occurs in the middle of the third act. The historic tragedy that was enacted at the beginning of the last century in another part of Europe has schooled many persons in this type of performance, and they are ready to detect certain resemblances between the method of development of the two plots. The assembling of the Zemstvo representatives is roughly similar to the convocation of the States General, and the seething revolutionary elements in Russia, to the rising of the Third Estate. In Russia the corruption and impotence of the bureaucracy has been finally published in the unmistakable language of national disaster. The cry of the people long kept back has burst forth at the sudden sharpness of their suffering. In France, misery heaped itself after the glorious reign of the Grand Monarch until it toppled over like a tidal wave upon the rotten social structure. There are differences of detail, but one recognizes the theme which unfolds itself by the familiar steps of oppression, corruption, and explosion.
The petition of the Zemstvos is not, however, as yet the explosion. It looks portentous, but when we consider the character of the institution, the Zemstvos, that has thus become the organ by which the people's voice has with the accents of authority reached the understanding of the rulers, we see that history may repeat itself as often as men choose to commit the same follies: let them learn wisdom from the retribution that has gone with the same crimes in the past, and history will as surely follow their lead and take a new course.
The Zemstvos are not organizations of
theorists. They are provincial and district assemblies empowered by the central government to perform certain administrative and judicial functions.
They are as democratic in their composition as the legislatures of the most professedly republican states of Europe or America. The peasant there is the equal of the noble who not long ago was his proprietor, and their colleagues are merchants and capitalists from the towns. The approximation to republican assemblies with which we are better acquainted is more noticeable in the presence also of professional politicians and speculators, who, because of their greater attentiveness to public business, often direct the proceedings. The delegates of the provincial assemblies are sent by smaller district assemblies, and the members of these are elected by universal suffrage; but peasants, landowners, and towns in choosing their delegates act separately.
u VEREINE Zus The Zemstvos’ duties are administra-' tive and judicial. They extend to public charities, agriculture, commerce and industry. They include all the interests, moral and material, of the provinces. Some things the Zemstvos must do; other things they may do. The things. they must do, of course, are those the central authority is most interested in: raising taxes for the maintenance of post-stations, recruiting-offices, barracks, local administration. The things they prefer to do are those that more imme-' diately benefit the people: establishing schools, and providing for sanitary im-' provement.
The Zemstvos have considered that education and better sanitary conditions are the greatest needs of the Russian people, but the central authorities look upon these ideas with suspicion and discourage them.
The members of these democratic as-