Zemstvo (Russian: Земство)[1] was a form of local government that was instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia. The idea of the zemstvo was elaborated by Nikolay Milyutin, and the first zemstvo laws were put into effect in 1864. After the October Revolution of 1917, the zemstvo system was shut down in most of Russia, only remaining where the Bolsheviks failed to take power.
The system of local self-government in the Russian Empire was presented at the lowest level by mir and volosts and was continued, so far as the 34 Guberniyas of old Russia are concerned,[2] in the elective district and provincial assemblies (zemstvos).
These bodies, one for each district and another for each province or government, were created by Alexander II in 1864. They consisted of a representative council (zemskoye sobranye) and of an executive board (zemskaya uprava) nominated by the former. The board consists of five classes of members:
The nobles were given more weight in voting for a zemstvo, as evidenced by the fact that 74% of the zemstvo members were nobles, even though nobles were 1.3% of the population. Even so, the zemstvo did allow the greater population more say in the ways they wanted a small part of their lives to be run.
The rules governing elections to the zemstvos were taken as a model for the electoral law of 1906 and are sufficiently indicated by the account of this given below. The zemstvos were originally given large powers in relation to the incidence of taxation, and such questions as education, medical relief, public welfare, food supply, and road maintenance in their localities, but were met with hostility by radicals, such as the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the nihilists who wanted more reform. These powers were, however, severely restricted by the emperor Alexander III (law of 12/25 June 1890), the zemstvos being subordinated to the governors, whose consent was necessary to the validity of all their decisions, and who received drastic powers of discipline over the members.
During the fifty years of their existence, zemstvo institutions succeeded in solving in the proper way many problems of general education, public medical service, ways of transportation and agronomy.
Zemstvo expenditure grew from 89,100,000 Rubles in 1900 to 290,500,000 Rubles in 1913. Of the latter sum 90,100,000 Rubles were spent on education, 71,400,000 on medical assistance, 22,200,000 on improvements in agriculture and 8,000,000 on veterinary measures. The chief source of zemstvo revenue were rates on lands, forests, country dwellings, factories, mines and other real estate.[4]
The term Zemstvo stamp is also used in philately to refer to local-issue Russian postage stamps from this period.