Volost Assembly

an agency of local administration of the peasant class in prerevolutionary Russia, created after the reforms of 1861. It was composed of officials and so-called desiatniki (peasant representatives, one for every ten households). The volost (small rural district) assembly convened two or three times a year with the consent of the district’s land captain. The volost assembly elected local officials, such as the volost starshina (administrator), village starosta (elder), and tax collectors; in the early 20th century it also elected peasant representatives for elections to the State Duma. It also decided administrative and economic questions of interest to the volost. The volost assembly, which was in the hands of the rural bourgeoisie, maintained the limitations of the rights of the peasant class and the isolation of the postreform peasantry. The volost assembly was abolished by the bourgeois Provisional Government by a law of May 21, 1917, in connection with the introduction of the volost zemstvo (district self-government).