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To obviate any misconception on this point, the Government published, simultaneously with the ukaz, an official communication in which it condemned the agitation and excitement, and warned the Zemstvos, municipalities, and other corporate bodies that in discussing political questions they were overstepping the limits of their legally-defined functions and exposing themselves to the rigours of the law.
More than once, the Philistines called our attention to the fact that the new dumas and zemstvos elected on the basis of universal suffrage, were incomparably more democratic than the Soviets and were more suited to represent the population. However, this formal democratic criterion is devoid of serious content in a revolutionary epoch.
Individual members were exiled for utterances which Von Plehve regarded as dangerous. The power of the zemstvos themselves was lessened by taking from them such important functions as the provisioning of famine-stricken districts and by limiting in the most arbitrary manner the amount of the budget permitted to each zemstvo.
All these societies were much restricted by the police, but they gained enough headway to play an important part in the economic life of the nation after the outbreak of hostilities and to become a big element in the final revolutionary movement. Closely akin to the cooperatives, and of much older origin, were the Zemstvos.
When Leo Tolstoy challenged these infamies, and called upon the civilized world on behalf of the victims, the Holy Synod denounced Tolstoy and his followers as a sect "especially dangerous for the Orthodox Church and the state." Later, in 1900, the Holy Synod excommunicated Tolstoy from the Orthodox Church. The fatal logic of fanatical fury led to attacks upon the zemstvos.
The people had confidence in the Socialists, in the Revolutionary Socialist party, which then held sway everywhere, in the municipalities, the zemstvos, and in the Soviets; they had confidence in the Constituent Assembly which would restore order and work out the laws.
The result of all this was to drive the zemstvos toward the revolutionary movements of the peasants and the city workers. That the zemstvos were not naturally inclined to radicalism and revolution needs no demonstration. Economic interest, tradition, and environment all conspired to keep these popular bodies conservative.
While he maintained Von Plehve's methods of suppressing the radical organizations and their press, and using provocative agents to entrap revolutionary leaders, he granted a certain degree of freedom to the moderate press and adopted a relatively liberal attitude toward the zemstvos. By this means he hoped to avert the impending revolution.
"The Czar's Hangman," Stolypin, lectured the members as though they were naughty children, forbidding them to invite experts to aid them in framing measures, or to communicate with any of the zemstvos or municipal councils upon any questions whatsoever. "The Duma was not granted the right to express disapproval, reproach, or mistrust of the government," he thundered.
It's not a year since he left the University and came to live in the district, but he already talks of himself as 'we active members of the Zemstvo. But in another year he will be bored like so many others and go off to Petersburg, and to justify running away, will tell every one that the Zemstvos are good-for-nothing, and that he has been deceived in them.
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