A zemstvo (Russian: земство, IPA: [ˈzʲɛmstvə], pl. земства, zemstva)[a] was an institution of local government set up during the emancipation reform of 1861 carried out in Imperial Russia by Emperor Alexander II of Russia. Nikolay Milyutin elaborated the idea of the zemstvo, and the first zemstvo laws went into effect in 1864. After the October Revolution the zemstvo system was shut down by the Bolsheviks and replaced with a multilevel system of workers' and peasants' councils ("soviets").
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