The Duma, however, was only one of several legal institutions that had developed under the old regime, and represented the first stages of parliamentary, popular government. There were the local provincial and municipal councils, and also the officially recognized war-industry committees, which had come to have semi-governmental functions. Finally one could bring under this category, with a little forcing, the cooperative societies, which had assumed enormous importance during the two and a half years of war. In these institutions we had self-government, and participation in public affairs, and also the idea of cooperation between the various classes and political tendencies--the idea of coalition. The election law of the Duma provided for the representation of all group interests of the community, and representation by an actual member of the group, by a _bona fide_ peasant in the case of the peasantry. The seats in the assembly were distributed specifically to landlords, manufacturers, the smaller bourgeoisie, workmen, and peasants. The election law of the local government bodies made similar provision for group representation. On the war-industry committees, the workmen had elected representatives, sitting with the representatives of the manufacturers and owners. In the cooeperative movement the bourgeois-intellectual element had taken the initiative, but had always emphasized the direct participation of the workmen and peasants in the actual management of the societies, as the theory of the movement demanded.