GOVERNING RUSSIA'S PROVINCES 265local affairs.^1 A District Treasury Administration and a District Court
completed the picture. In the more remote, socially less complex dis-
tricts, all functions were exercised by a Land Deputy (zemskii zasedatel')
so that the burden of a numerous and complicated bureaucracy would
not weigh too heavily on the inhabitants. Completely underpopulated
districts were managed by a Land Captain, directly responsible to the
District Council, and who worked usually in close relation with the
tribal administrations of the local natives. 2 The district was only a
bureaucratic link between the province and the lowest administrative
unit, the township. None of the district bodies had any autonomy or
initiative of action.
The township (vo[ost') was the lowest administrative unit with which
Speransky concerned himself. As in his later plans of local government
for European Russia, he did not make any provisions for the village.
This was a curious omission, for after all the village was the basic
social unit of the Russian peasant.
The township administration consisted of a township head ("mayor:'
volostnoi golova), one elder (starosta), and one clerk (pisar'), elected by
indirect suffrage by property owning household heads (one elector for
every 100 souls). The elections had to be confirmed by the Governor. S
The functions and responsibilities of the township administration were
generally left as they had been before. There was no township assembly,
and the functions of the organization were more limited than those
which Speransky later suggested for European Russia. It again showed
that he was by far not convinced that the Siberian peasantry had
reached nearly as high a spiritual level as the European peasant. The
Siberian township administration was exclusively an executive one. It
had general police; it administered the repartition of dues, cared for
the village supply stores, and executed sentences of the courts as they
applied to its villages. It had autonomy only in respect to the trial of
a few petty and insignificant misdemeanors (rowciness, drunkenness). 4,
It therefore possessed only subordinate functions and was nothing but
the passive and obedient tool of the higher bureaucratic authorities.
Speransky and his assistants tried to keep the three major functions
of government ...... executive, economy, justice - separate. But not with
complete success. They did not carry out their intention - if such it was
- very consistently and effectively. In particular, the judiciary was not
freed from pressure by the executive, for the procedural aspects of jus-
1 PSZ 29.125, pars. 75-79.
2 PSZ 29,125, pars. 99-102, also intra.
g PSZ 29,125, pars. 135-141.
4 PSZ 29,125, par. 142.