ACTIVITIES BEFORE THE WAR 51
out their economic activities through innumerable agencies, intimately
 connected with the cooperative producers’, consumers’, and
credit associations, and having at their disposal a veritable army of
devoted and capable employees, should have played so important a
part during the years of the War. It must also be borne in mind
that, untrammeled by bureaucratic routine and accustomed to independent
 constructive work, the zemstvos possessed a far greater elasticity
 than the government organizations, and were able to adjust
their machinery to meet the unprecedented demands made by the
War. They could not, however, escape its ruinous consequences.