CHAPTER X 
PARTICIPATION OF THE ZEMSTVOS IN THE 
WORK OF SUPPLY! 
Rise in Prices. 
During the first year of the War the problem of food supply in 
Russia presented no serious difficulties. Toward the end of 1915, 
however, prices of all food products began to rise rapidly? and con- 
tinued uninterruptedly. The campaign against the high cost of 
foodstuffs was left largely to the municipalities. The history of this 
campaign will be found in another volume of this series.® For the 
* For the work of the Union of Zemstvos in supplying the army with arti- 
cles of military equipment, see below, Chapter XIII. 
2 The Special Council on Food Supply, which undertook an investigation 
of prices in sixty-two markets of the Empire and completed the tabulation 
for the months of October, November, and December, 1915, found that the 
rise in prices for the most important foodstuffs was exhibited by the fol- 
lowing figures: 
Foodstuffs 
Index Numbers of Prices. 
December, 1914 December, 1915 
(Prices in December, 1913 = 100) 
107.9 
107.2 
133.6 
127.0 
148.6 
145.1 
94.8 
106.0 
140.3 
116.6 
107.4 
Wheat 
Wheat flour 
Rye 
Rye flour 
Buckwheat grits 
Millet 
Meat 
Butter 
Salt 
Lump sugar 
Granulated sugar 
162.2 
150.9 
178.6 
180.9 
222.7 
200.8 
126.7 
195.4 
242.8 
155.6 
124.90 
Average 
Izvestia (Bulletin), No. 83, p. 175. 
® Astrov, The Effects of the War upon Russian Municipal Government 
and the AUl-Russian Union of Towns in the volume The War and the Russian 
Government (Yale University Press, 1929); also Struve, Food Supply in 
Russia during the War (Yale University Press, 1930), in this series of the 
Economic and Social History of the World War. 
121 92 
179 92