THE FORMULA “GOVERNMENT OF TRUST” IN THE PERCEPTIONS OF THE PUBLIC. FROM THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL CONCEPTS ON THE EVE OF 1917

Abstract

The article, based on archival materials, deals with the transformation of the power formula in Russia during World War I from the “government of trust” to the “government responsible to the people”. The evolution of that political strategy is analyzed in relation to the objective requirements for all warring countries to a new type of war, which were the national unity, including the widest strata of the population, and the national economy regulation, limiting market mechanisms and leading to the transition of the economy to the rails of comprehensive regulation right up to planning. The article focuses on the specifics in the formation of representation for public and democratic elements in the public organizations of All-Russian unions of zemstvos ( system of local administration) and cities, which provided support for the change of the formula of power depending on the socio-political processes during the war. The author comes to the conclusion that in the Russia conditions it occurred within the framework of the change of the power formula: from the “trust government”, responsible to the “Progressive bloc” of the census State Duma (1915), to the concept of the government responsible to the bloc of census public elements within the “trust government before the country” (1915–1916) and then under the pressure of a broad bloc of democratic public elements in the city and the countryside involved in the organization of the country for defense and of the national economy to the formula of “government responsible to the people” (1916 – early 1917).