Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794855874

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-179223

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Polner, Tichon I. http://d-nb.info/gnd/172311195

Title:: Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Place of publication:: New Haven

Publisher:: Yale Univ. Press

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: XXV, 317 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter V. The Zemstvos and the Zemstvo Union

Collection:: Economics Books

B2 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR tions.* With the cooperative societies the zemstvos established very close contact both in Moscow and all over the country, working hand in hand wherever the opportunity presented itself. There was a scarcity of suitable persons to direct local work and this was one of the main obstacles to the development of the under- takings of the zemstvos. Service with the army, both voluntary and compulsory, proved a severe drain on the supply of energetic and intelligent workers, of whom there had always been too few in the Russian villages. This is why the zemstvos were sometimes com- pelled to abandon the very idea of establishing their own organs within the districts. Whenever it was possible, they utilized the serv- ices of the volost committee for the relief of families of mobilized men. But the difficulty was that in many localities relations between the zemstvo and the government officials were not sufficiently cordial to permit proper coSperation. The number of volost and village committees varied greatly in the different sections of the country. Moreover, all these organs were somewhat unstable; they would come into existence only to disap- pear again shortly; and, besides, there had never been anything like a proper enumeration or registration of them. We are, however, able to furnish data obtained by an inquiry made on June 25, 1916, in fifty-two districts. In forty-nine of these there were found volost committees created under the law of June 25, 1912. In fifteen dis- tricts no other organizations of this kind were found and the zem- stvos were compelled to operate with their assistance. In ten dis- tricts there existed, apart from the committees mentioned above, only the parish committees, and it was only in two districts that the zemstvos succeeded in utilizing the cooperation of these agencies. Three districts had nothing but zemstvo institutions. For the twenty-four districts which had both kinds of organizations, the in- quiry furnished complete and detailed figures. There were 576 com- mittees of relief established under the law of June 25, 1912, making an average of twenty-four per district. As long as the work was of a charitable character, it was possible to carry it on with this motley organization. But when it became a matter of stemming the decline of agriculture and fighting the high * See Kayden and Antsiferov, The Cobperative Movement in Russia dur- ing the War (Yale University Press, 1929) in this series of the Economic and Social History of the World War.

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