THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
almost inevitably end in the destruction of large groups of build- 
ings, and very often the whole village would burn to the ground. 
Villages which were prosperous and flourishing one day would thus 
on the next be reduced to desolation. 
At that period the peasants had not yet come to realize the neces- 
sity of insuring against loss by fire. It was necessary, therefore, to 
pass a special law making the fire insurance of the peasants’ build- 
ings compulsory. The management of this compulsory insurance 
was left to the provincial zemstvos. It was they who drew up the 
scales and the rates to be applied in appraising the buildings to be 
insured, and they also determined the premiums which were col- 
lected by the same method as local taxes. These premiums were cred- 
ited to a special insurance fund out of which compensation was paid 
for fire losses. The zemstvos were also empowered to devote these 
funds to other measures designed to combat the fire peril. 
The compensation paid on the fire insurance policies under the 
compulsory insurance scheme was considerably below the actual cost 
of the buildings, and the zemstvos left it to the discretion of the 
peasants to pay additional premiums if they desired fuller compen- 
sation for fire losses. Moreover, the law left it to the initiative of the 
provincial zemstvos to organize a voluntary fire insurance for mov- 
able as well as immovable property on the same basis as that of the 
private insurance companies. By 1914 the zemstvo insurance or- 
ganization, which had originally confined itself to the narrow limits 
of compulsory insurance, had greatly expanded. With the rising of 
the educational level of the population, and thanks to the efforts of 
the zemstvos, the compulsory system was gradually becoming a vol- 
antary one, so that the advisability of abandoning the compulsory 
insurance plan was already being seriously considered. 
In 1912, the insurance premiums collected in the forty-three zem- 
stvo provinces reached the sum of 34,090,497 rubles and was com- 
posed as follows: compulsory insurance, 14,045,990 rubles; supple- 
mentary, 12,412,058 rubles; voluntary, 7,632,449. 
When we bear in mind that the premiums paid to all private 
insurance companies in Russia during the same year amounted to 
42,954,000 rubles, we gain a fair idea of the importance of the zem- 
stvos in the insurance business. 
In 1904 and subsequently, some of the zemstvos combined into a 
anion for the reinsurance of heavy risks. By 1914, nineteen pro- 
18