The Zemstvo in Russia: An Experiment in Local Self-Government

The essays in this 1982 volume result from a conference held at Stanford University in 1978, assembled to assess the overall character and significance of the prerevolutionary Russian experiment with the principle and practice of local self-government, the zemstvo, over half of its existence, 1864–1918. The unifying theme of the collection is the rejection of the liberal myth of the zemstvo as an instrument of social integration. The chapters focus on the substantive elements of conflict an...