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

282 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR have to note in this connection that the requirements had become so large by the middle of 1916 that the monthly budget for food and fodder supplies alone reached the sum of 5,000,000 rubles. In recasting its central administration to meet the requirements of a vast supply organization, the Central Committee made every effort to afford the representatives from the front an opportunity of taking part in the work of the central supply department in Mos- cow, as well as in the purchasing commissions set up at Astrakhan, Rostov-on-Don, Odessa, Petrograd, and Vladivostok. In theory the concentration of the purchasing operations seemed highly desirable, but in practice almost insuperable obstacles had to be overcome. By the middle of 1916 the entire machinery of the Russian food supply had completely broken down. Extraordinary efforts were required to provision the army, and the Government was compelled to resort to a system of strict centralization for this purpose. During the second half of 1916 a conference was held at General Headquarters, in which representatives of the two unions took part. Notwith- standing some very strenuous objections raised at this conference, the Government decided to prohibit altogether private purchases of certain foodstuffs (wheat and rye flour, grits of all kinds, oats, bar- ley, hay, and salt). It was suggested that the institutions of the two unions at the front should obtain these commodities from the nearest depots of the Army Supply Department according to estimates to be submitted beforehand. This system, which may perhaps be correct in theory, gave rise to serious difficulties in practice. The bureaucratic machinery of the Army Supply Department, in the first place, was working very slowly and irregularly. In the second place, the authorities in charge of the army depots refused to acknowledge their obliga- tions toward the unions. Another difficulty was that the budgetary system, by making it necessary for each institution to apply exclu- sively to a specified depot of the Army Supply Department, gave occasion for endless misunderstandings, for the zemstvo institutions had frequently to change their quarters, with the shifting of the front. The Army Supply Department declined to supply large quantities of goods to the central depots of the Zemstvo Union at the front, often giving as an excuse that it had not sufficient stock. Meanwhile the Central Committee likewise met with increasing diffi- culties in buying sufficient supplies of provisions, for it had tc

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