usually including the command of the troops within the limits of their jurisdiction. In 1906 there were governors-general in Finland, Warsaw, Vilna, Kiev, Moscow and Riga. The larger cities (St Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Sevastopol, Kertch-Yenikala, Nikolayev, Rostov) have an administrative system of their own, independent of the governments; in these the Police. chief of police acts as governor. As organs of the central government there are further, the ispravniki, chiefs of police in the districts into which the governments are divided. These are nominated by the governors,[1] and have under their orders in the principal localities commissaries (stanovoï pristav). Ispravniki and stanovoï alike are armed with large and ill-defined powers; and, since they are for the most part illiterate and wholly ignorant of the law, they have proved exasperating engines of oppression. Towards the end of the reign of Alexander II., the government, in order to preserve order in the country districts, also created a special class of mounted rural policemen (uryadniki, from uriad, order), who, armed with power to arrest all suspects on the spot, rapidly became the terror of the countryside.[2] Finally, in the towns every house is provided with a detective policeman in the person of the porter (dvornik), who is charged with the duty of reporting to the police the presence of any suspicious characters or anything else that may interest them.[3]
In addition to the above there is also a police organization, in direct subordination to the ministry of the interior, of which the principal function is the discovery, prevention and extirpation of political sedition. A secret police, armed with inquisitorial and arbitrary Secret police. powers, has always existed in autocratic Russia. Its most famous development was the so-called “Third Section” (of the imperial chancery) instituted by the emperor Nicholas I. in 1826. This was entirely independent of the ordinary police, but was associated with the previously existing corps of gendarmes (Korpus Zhandarmov), whose chief was placed at its head. Its object had originally been to keep the emperor in close touch with all the branches of the administration and to bring to his notice any abuses and irregularities (see Nicholas I.), and for this purpose its chief was in constant personal intercourse with the sovereign. Actually, however, its activity, directed mainly to the discovery of political offences, degenerated into a hideous reign of terror. Its organization was spread all over Russia; its procedure was secret and summary (transportation by administrative order); and, its instruments being for the most part ignorant and largely corrupt, its victims were counted by thousands.
The “Third Section” was suppressed by Alexander II. in 1880, but only in name. In fact it was transformed into a separate department of the ministry of the interior, and, provided with an enormous secret service fund, soon dominated the whole ministry. The corps of gendarmes was also incorporated in this department, the under-secretary of the interior being placed at its head and at that of the police generally, with practically unlimited jurisdiction in all cases which, in the judgment of the minister of the interior, required to be dealt with by processes outside the ordinary law. In 1896 the powers of the minister were extended at the expense of those of the under-secretary, who remained only at the head of the corps of gendarmes; but by a law of the 24th of September 1904 this was again reversed, and the under-secretary was again placed at the head of all the police with the title of under-secretary for the administration of the police.
Local Elected Administrative Bodies.—Alongside the local organs of the central government in Russia there are three classes of local elected bodies charged with administrative functions: (1) the peasant assemblies in the mir and the volost, (2) the zemstvos in the 34 governments of Russia proper, (3) the municipal dumas. Of these the peasant assemblies are the most interesting and in some respects the most important, since the peasants (i.e. three-quarters of the population of The mir. Russia) form a class apart,[4] largely excepted from the incidence of the ordinary law, and governed in accordance with their local customs. The mir itself, with its customs, is of immemorial antiquity (see Village Communities); it was not, however, till the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 that the village community was withdrawn from the patrimonial jurisdiction of the landowning nobility and endowed with self-government. The assembly of the mir consists of all the peasant householders of the village.[5] These elect a head-man (starosta) and a collector of taxes, who was responsible, at least until the ukaz of October 1906, which abolished communal responsibility for the payment of taxes, for the repartition among individuals of the taxes imposed on the The volost. commune. A number of mirs are united into a volost, or canton, which has an assembly consisting of elected delegates from the mirs. These elect an elder (starshina) and, , hitherto, a court of justice (volostnye sud). See Judicial System, below. The self-government of the mirs and volosts is, however, tempered by the authority of the police commissaries (stanovoï) and by the power of general oversight given to the nominated “district committees for the affairs of the peasants.”
The system of local self-government is continued, so far as the 34 governments of old Russia are concerned,[6] 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. The zemstvos. in 1864. They consist 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: (1) large landed proprietors (nobles owning 590 acres and over), who sit in person; (2) delegates of the small landowners, including the clergy in their capacity of landed proprietors; (3) delegates of the wealthier townsmen; (4) delegates of the less wealthy urban classes; (5) delegates of the peasants, elected by the volosts.[7] 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, public health, roads and the like. These powers were, however, severely restricted by the emperor Alexander III. (law of 12/25 June 1890), the zemstvos being absolutely 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.[8] It was not till 1905 that the zemstvos regained, at least de facto, some of their independent initiative. The part played by the congress of zemstvos in the earlier stages of the Russian revolution is outlined below (see History: § 2. Development of the Russian Constitution).
- ↑ From Catherine II.’s time to that of Alexander II. they were elected by the nobles. This was changed in consequence of the emancipation of the serfs.
- ↑ They were soon nicknamed Kuryadniki, chicken-stealers (from Kura, hen). See Leroy-Beaulieu, L’Empire des tsars, ii. 134.
- ↑ The dvornik is on duty for sixteen hours at a stretch, during which he is not allowed to sleep or even to shelter in the porch.
- ↑ Until the ukaz of October 18, 1906, the peasant class was stereotyped under the electoral law. No peasant, however rich, could qualify for a vote in any but the peasants' electoral colleges. The ukaz allowed peasants with the requisite qualifications to vote as landowners. At the same time the Senate interpreted the law so as to exclude all but heads of families actually engaged in farming from the vote for the Duma.
- ↑ None but peasants—not even the noble-landowner—has a voice in the assembly of the mir.
- ↑ Sixteen provinces have no zemstvos, i.e. the three Baltic provinces, the nine western governments annexed from Poland by Catherine II., and the Cossack provinces of the Don, Astrakhan, Orenburg and Stavropol.
- ↑ By the law of the 12th (25th) of June 1890 the peasant members of the zemstvos were to be nominated by the governor of the government or province from a list elected by the volosts.
- ↑ In spite of these restrictions and of an electoral system which tended to make these assemblies as strait-laced and reactionary as any government bureau, the zemstvos did good work, notably educational, in those provinces where the proprietors were inspired with a more liberal spirit. Many zemstvos also made extensive and valuable inquiries into the condition of agriculture, industry and the like.
