RUSSIA 



37 



the merchant class and the wealthier trading 

 peasants ; while the Bezpopovtsy and the Spirit- 

 ualists reckon their adherents by the million 

 among the masses of the peasants. Mutual aid is 

 the rule among all dissenters, and the peasants 

 who belong to some dissenting sect are, as a rule, 

 wealthier than those who belong to the Orthodox 

 Church. Several sects practise partial comm unism ; 

 and in all of them, especially among the Bez- 

 popovtsy and Spiritualists, women occupy a higher 

 position. The 'seeking of truth ' being limited to 

 the interpretation of the Bible, many absurd prac- 

 tices prevail ('love-feasts,' flagellation, and so 

 forth), but free-thought also finds its way among 

 them. Besides, most of the niskolniks are imbued 

 with a Mennonite spirit of opposition to the 

 authority of the state, its military service, taxa- 

 tion, and similar institutions. In the colonisation 

 of the wildernesses of the Urals and, later on, of 

 Siberia, the dissenters were the most numerous 

 and most successful pioneers. 



Government. The political organisation of Russia 

 is a very heterogeneous structure. It has at bottom 

 a very great deal of self-government, based upon 

 quite democratic principles. But above this stands 

 the imperial authority, represented by an army of 

 officials, whose powers, down to those of the very 

 humblest rural policeman, are extremely vague 

 and very extensive; and these officials are con- 

 stantly Interfering with the local self-government, 

 and paralysing it, without, however, being able 

 either to destroy it or to reduce it entirely into 

 submission to the central authority. The entire 

 legislation has this double character. The empire 

 is an absolute and hereditary monarchy. The final 

 decision in all legislative, executive, and judicial 

 questions rests with the emperor, whose will is law. 

 He nominates the ministers, and they practically 

 enjoy wide latitude in interpreting trie laws. A 

 state council, composed of about sixty members, 

 nominated by the emperor, discusses the legislative 

 measures elaborated and proposed by the separate 

 ministries, but the final decision is always given by 

 the head of the state. The senate promulgates the 

 laws ; and the Holy Synod, composed of bishops 

 nominated by the emperor, has the superintendence 

 in religions affairs. 



For administrative purposes the empire is divided 

 into governments and territories, the names of 

 which are given in the table on pp. 31-32. Each is 

 ruled by a governor, whose rights are very exten- 

 sive and ill defined, and who has direct control of 

 the police in the eight to twelve districts into which 

 each government is divided. Poland, Finland, Mos- 

 cow, Kieff, and Vilna in Russia in Europe, and 

 iisia, Turkestan, the Kirghiz Steppes, East 

 Siberia, and the Amur region in Asia have 

 governors-general, who are at the same time the 

 <-'>iriiiiaiiders of the local troops. For military 

 purposes the empire is divided into districts ; so 

 al-o for judicial and educational purposes. 



Finland (q. v. ) is a separate state, having its own 

 money, finance, and representative institutions; 

 but its autonomy has been much curtailed, 

 especially since the summer of 1890. 



f.ix-'it. Government. The population of Russia 

 still remains divided into social orders or classes, 

 each of which enjoys separate and distinctive 

 rights. The bulk of the population (over four- 

 fiftliM) Ix'lnii^ to the 'peasants.' Next come the 

 bnrgfaen and the 'merchants' (9 per cent, in 

 European Russia), the clergy (less than 1 per 

 cent.), the nobility (1-3 per cent.), the military 

 (6'1), foreigners (0'3), and lastly, the 'various.' 

 Tin-, peasants, including those who are settled upon 

 the state domains and the liberated serfs, have 

 from time immemorial had institutions of their 

 own, recently recognised by law. They are grouped 



in village communes (107,943 in European Russia 

 and Poland) ; and the assembly of all the house- 

 holders of the commune, the mir, enjoys a certain 

 degree of self-government. The land being held 

 in common throughout Great Russia and Siberia, 

 it is the mir that periodically distributes the land 

 into allotments and then assigns them to the 

 several households according to their respective 

 working capacities. The mir can also open schools, 

 support a midwife or a doctor, and undertake 

 all kinds of works of public utility. It always 

 elects its own executive, the starosta (elder), the 

 tax-collector, and so on. This institution of 

 the mir forms the basis of village life among all 

 Great Russians, and traces of it are found among 

 the Little Russians as well. All investigators of 

 the mir are unanimous in recognising that, though 

 the growing difference of fortune tends to under- 

 mine the institution, nevertheless it shows a won- 

 derful elasticity in accommodating itself to new 

 conditions. Some village communities buy in 

 common modern agricultural machinery, others (in 

 the industrial regions) form productive associa- 

 tions, while others again cultivate part of the land 

 in common to supply the village stores, or under- 

 take the boring of Artesian wells, and similar 

 matters. The mir, they conclude, is not a super- 

 annuated institution ; it can adapt itself to further 

 economical progress. Several communes make a 

 canton ; and the cantonal assembly, composed of 

 one delegate for every ten households, enjoys 

 similar prerogatives. It also elects an elder, and 

 a peasants' tribunal, composed of ten to twelve 

 judges, who settle disputes amongst the peasants 

 in accordance with the local common law. Special 

 boards ' for peasants' affairs ' are maintained in each 

 province by the ministry of the Interior. Minor 

 criminal charges, as well as civil causes up to the 

 value of 30, are adjudicated upon by the justices 

 of peace, in central Russia elected and elsewhere 

 nominated. Appeal against their decisions can be 

 made to the session of all the judges of the district, 

 and from them to the senate. The justices of the 

 peace, who materially contributed to the eradica- 

 tion of the old practices in vogue in the days of 

 serfdom, are a most popular institution. But they 

 were abolished in 1889 nearly all over Russia, and 

 in their place were substituted ' chiefs of the dis- 

 trict,' who combine in their hands judicial and 

 administrative powers and are nominated by the 

 governor from among candidates selected by the 

 nobility, who have their own institutions viz. 

 district and provincial assemblies, each presided 

 over by a marshal of the nobility. 



The Zemstvos. The administration of the eco- 

 nomic affairs of the district and the province 

 was in 1866 committed to the district and pro- 

 vincial assemblies, or zemstvos. Their members 

 are elected by the peasantry, the householders in 

 the towns, the clergy, and the landed proprietors 

 the census being so adjusted as to always give to 

 the nobles and the householders the same number 

 of representatives, or even more than the number 

 sent by the peasantry. The zemstvos, both in the 

 district and the province, elect their own executive. 

 Although very much hampered by their limited 

 powers of taxation, and still more by the heavy 

 drain upon them for imperial purposes (justice, 

 police, prisons, barracks, conscription expenses, 

 roads, &c. ), the zemstvos, which have been intro- 

 duced in thirty-four governments of European 

 Russia, have rendered great services to the country. 

 They have opened numbers of schools, general 

 and special, elementary and technical, created 

 hospitals, and organised sanitary stations regu- 

 larly visited once a week by a doctor ; they 

 have introduced mutual insurance against fire, and 

 created the village postal institutions. Certain of 



