ЗЕМСКИЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЯ КАК СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ЛИФТЫ: ВЕРТИКАЛЬНАЯ МОБИЛЬНОСТЬ ИЗ ЗЕМСТВ В ВЫСШИЕ ПРЕДСТАВИТЕЛЬНЫЕ ОРГАНЫ ЗАКОНОДАТЕЛЬНОЙ ВЛАСТИ В ПОЗДНЕЙ РОССИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ

Abstract

In the early 20th century, zemstvos had the opportunity to take part in the discussion about the fate of the state through elections to the State Duma and the State Council. The connection between the system of representation at the state and local levels was already noted by contemporaries of the political reforms of the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. Zemstvo institutions can be considered as social elevators for the transition to the highest level of government. Previously, there was no strict criterion in historiography for assessing the representation of deputies from the zemstvo environment and studying their activities in parliament. The authors discovered that more than half of the members of the State Council were associated with the zemstvos, but they supported imperial power in making political decisions. However, the number of zemstvo deputies in the State Duma gradually increased, leading to a clear “zemstvo face” in the 3rd and 4th convocations. The most common channel of mobility was through elections to the State Duma with the status of a glasnyj of provincial zemstvo. Most deputies were elected from provinces where land management, modernization, and movement towards the rule of law was actively being pursued. While there was successful mobility between the zemstvo and parliament in the 1st and 2nd convocations, zemstvo representatives became less actively involved in the political decision-making process as the parliament evolved. By the 4th convoca-tion, the parliamentary sub-elite had risen to leading positions in the State Duma. The authors propose a solution to the question of the continuity and the possibility of an evolutionary path of development in Russian society of the imperial period. The paper addresses the possibility of turning zemstvos into “parliamentary courses” and the basis for all-Russian representation. The authors state that neither parliament nor zemstvos had the necessary fullness of state power. The existing system of relationships between various branches of government did not provide the neces-sary level of public administration and led to a crisis of power. Although zemstvo and parliamentary reforms opened up opportunities for the evolutionary path of sociocultural transformation and political modernization, they were ul-timately lost.