THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
Participation in the Provisioning of the Army. 
By an order of the Council of Ministers issued on July 30, 1914, 
the purchase of foodstuffs, which had been one of the functions of 
the Ministry of Agriculture, was locally entrusted to regional and 
provincial commissioners, who were subject to the authority of the 
Minister of Agriculture and appointed by him. This order of the 
Council of Ministers provided that “in case the zemstvo institutions 
and other bodies should take part in the purchasing operations, they 
may appoint in each province their representatives, who shall be- 
come members of the receiving commissions which shall also include 
members of the provincial zemstvo boards.” 
The intention of this order was to dispense with the zemstvos in 
the purchasing operations and to allow their collaboration only in 
case of absolute necessity. In practice, however, most of the com- 
missioners were appointed by the Minister of Agriculture from 
among the chairmen of the zemstvo boards. In those instances where 
the commissioners in the zemstvo provinces did not belong to the 
zemstvos they invariably had representatives of the local govern- 
ment among the members of their councils. Consequently, in a ma- 
jority of zemstvo provinces where purchasing operations were being 
conducted, a very considerable share of the work was done under the 
direction of the member of the zemstvos, while the purchasing or- 
ganizations were being formed by the zemstvo board. Furthermore, 
the Government made a practice of inviting zemstvo representatives 
to conferences devoted to the problems of provisioning the army and 
the cities and the fixation of prices. 
The law of November 29, 1916, which established the compulsory 
levy of the grain required by the army,’ provided that in zemstvo 
provinces such levies could be apportioned among the districts by 
the provincial zemstvo boards, if they consented to undertake this 
work, while the district zemstvo boards were to apportion the quan- 
tity of grain for which the district was liable among individual 
landowners and peasant communities. The levy was to operate in 
thirty-four zemstvo provinces. The question whether they should 
take part in the carrying out of this scheme, which in most cases 
met with a hostile reception by the farmers, provoked heated debates 
od 
” For a detailed treatment see Struve, op. cit.