zemstvo [Rus., from zemlya=land], local assembly that functioned as a body of provincial self-government in Russia from 1864 to 1917. The introduction of the zemstvo system was one of the major liberal reforms in the reign of Alexander II. Each district elected representatives, who had control over education, public health, roads, and aid to agriculture and commerce. The district zemstvos elected executive committees and delegates to the provincial assemblies, which in turn elected an executive committee for the province. A similar system was introduced (1870) for town governments. Representation in the zemstvo was proportional to land ownership, and the electorate was divided into three groups—private landowners, urban population, and peasant communes. Although landowners predominated over the peasants and townspeople under the electoral system, the zemstvos accomplished imposing progress in the fields of education and health within the half century of their existence. The zemstvo was the stronghold of the Russian liberals and constitutionalists, who after the February Revolution of 1917 democratized the electoral system and sought to make the zemstvos the basis of the new regime. When the Bolsheviks came to power in Nov., 1917 (Oct., 1917, O.S.), the functions of the zemstvo were taken over by the soviet.

plural zemstvos

Rural elected assembly in the Russian Empire. Established by Tsar Alexander II in 1864 to provide social and economic services, the zemstvos became a liberal influence in imperial Russia. The assemblies, formed at the district and province levels, were composed of delegates representing the landed proprietors and the peasant village communes. They expanded education, improved roads, and provided health care. From the 1890s they agitated for constitutional reform, and they stimulated activity in the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917 (see Russian Revolution of 1905; Russian Revolution of 1917). They were abolished after the Bolsheviks came to power. The term zemstvo also refers to a 16th-century institution for tax collection.

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Zemstvo (Russian: Земство) was a form of local government instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia. The idea of zemstvo was elaborated by Nikolay Milyutin, and the first zemstvo laws were promulgated in 1864. After the October Revolution of 1917, the zemstvo system was shut down.

The system of local self-government 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, 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:

• large landed proprietors (nobles owning 590 acres and over), who sit in person;
• delegates of the small landowners, including the clergy in their capacity of landed proprietors;
• delegates of the wealthier townsmen;
• delegates of the less wealthy urban classes;
• delegates of the peasants, elected by the volosts.

The nobles were given more weight in voting for a zemstvo, as evidenced by the fact that 74% of the zemstvo members were of 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, the intelligentsia, 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 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. 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. It was not till 1905 that the zemstvos regained, at least de facto, some of their independent initiative.

The term Zemstvo is also used in philately to refer to local-issue Russian postage stamps from this period.

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