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 XI. Work in the army

Collection:: Economics Books

227 According to data furnished up to April, 1917, eighty-one such institutions were in existence at that time on the western front alone.?° WORK IN THE ARMY Zemstvo Retail Stores. At the beginning of the summer of 1915 the Warsaw committee of the Zemstvo Union suggested that retail stores should be opened at the front to supply the soldiers with all that they required. Prices charged in the area adjoining the front were exorbitant and often the most important articles were lacking. The field detachments, acting on their own initiative, succeeded in opening small retail stores in’ connection with bathhouses, and can- teens. These first experiments showed, on the one hand, the vastness of the demand and the importance of satisfying it; on the other hand it also revealed the fact that it would be impossible to develop the network of retail stores unless the whole organization was put on a sound foundation, with a regular purchasing machinery and suffi- cient funds behind it. The Zemstvo Union, however, conducted fur- ther experiments; thus, in the area between the Vistula and the Niemen fifteen retail stores were gradually opened, at some of which provisions were sold to the local population, whilst others supplied the wants of the troops. The retail stores of the latter kind were at first opened at distances of five to seven miles behind the front lines, but later on they were moved closer up. The first retail stores were immensely popular and successful, but were able to work only with interruptions. The Warsaw depots of the Zemstvo Union were not in a position to satisfy the demands of the retail stores scattered over vast distances, whilst the organ- izers themselves lacked sufficient funds to make independent pur- chases in the neighboring markets. Sometimes the stores would have to close down entirely. In the late autumn of 1915 the Union’s com- mittee of the western front decided to reorganize the business on a more solid basis. The military authorities, whose opinion was asked, showed themselves very favorably disposed toward the new scheme and 1,000,000 rubles were appropriated for this purpose from army funds. It was decided to open two hundred retail stores and to enlist the services of the employees of the Moscow consumers’ coGperative societies. 8 Ibid., Nos. 58-60, p. 100.

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