ABSTRACT
The upshot of all of the movements was the establishment of the hybrid General Zemstvo Organization in March 1904 shortly after the outbreak of the war with Japan. Reform was in the state's best interest and the challenges of inflation and food supply could not be solved unless more people were brought into the process and allowed wide latitude for public initiative. Its formation marked a significant advance in the development of a public sphere in late Imperial Russia. The proliferation of independent groups and informal political associations over the last half decade in Russia has reawakened scholarly interest in the late tsarist era. Still, scholarly consensus on the further development of a public sphere before World War I is skeptical and for good reason. Within hours of the outbreak of hostilities between Germany and Russia, the Moscow provincial zemstvo convened in emergency session to pledge its energies to the war effort.
