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Земские учреждения как социальные лифты: вертикальная мобильность из земств в высшие представительные органы законодательной власти в поздней Российской империи
At the beginning of the 20th century, zemstvos had the opportunity to take part in the discussion about the fate of the state through election 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, in historiography there was no strict criterion that would allow assessing the representation of deputies from the zemstvo environment and studying their activities in parliament. We found out that more than half of the members of the State Council were associated with the zemstvo. However, they represented the support of imperial power in making political decisions. At the same time, the total number of zemstvo deputies in the State Duma gradually increased. In the 3rd and 4th convocations, the State Duma became a state body with a clearly expressed “zemstvo face”. The most typical channel of mobility was elections to the State Duma with the status of a glasnyj provincial zemstvo. Most of the deputies were from those zemstvo provinces where the process of land management, modernization, and movement towards the rule of law was actively underway. Mobility between the zemstvo and parliament showed good results only in the 1st and 2nd convocations of parliament. As parliament evolved, zemstvo representatives became less actively involved in the political decision-making process. By the 4th convocation, the parliamentary sub-elite had advanced to leading positions in the State Duma.
As a result of the study, we proposed a solution to the question about continuity and the possibility of an evolutionary path of development of society in the Russian Empire. This paper gives an answer to the question: could zemstvos become “parliamentary courses” and the basis for all-Russian representation? Neither parliament nor zemstvos had the necessary fullness of state power. The existing system of relationships between different branches of government did not provide the necessary level of public administration and led to a crisis of power. Zemstvo and parliamentary reforms opened up opportunities for an evolutionary path of sociocultural transformation and political modernization, but they were lost.