In these institutions we had self-government, and participation in public
affairs, and also the idea of cooperation between the various classes and
political tendencies--the idea of coalition. The election law of the Duma
provided for the representation of all group interests of the community,
and representation by an actual member of the group, by a _bona fide_
peasant in the case of the peasantry. The seats in the assembly were
distributed specifically to landlords, manufacturers, the smaller
bourgeoisie, workmen, and peasants. The election law of the local
government bodies made similar provision for group representation. On the
war-industry committees, the workmen had elected representatives,
sitting with the representatives of the manufacturers and owners. In the
cooeperative movement the bourgeois-intellectual element had taken the
initiative, but had always emphasized the direct participation of the
workmen and peasants in the actual management of the societies, as the
theory of the movement demanded.
Thus the broader democratic classes of the country, the workmen and
peasants, were represented in the somewhat popular institutions that had
developed under the old regime. But the actual control was in the hands of
the less democratic elements--the landlords, the manufacturers, men of the
liberal professions, and of the so-called Intelligentsia class.
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