136 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
and the price of foodstuffs was fixed for each province at the time 
of the mobilization and on September 1 of each year. 
Dependents of a mobilized man entitled to government allow- 
ances were: his wife and children, his father, mother, grandfather, 
grandmother, and brothers and sisters, if they depended upon his 
support. No provision was made for other relatives even though de- 
pendent upon the soldier, nor for his “civil wife” and children by 
her. In the case of soldiers who belonged to religious denominations 
not enjoying official recognition or who objected to church mar- 
riage, the latter restriction naturally implied serious consequences. 
Moreover, government allowances were strictly uniform and did not 
take into consideration the economic conditions of the persons pro- 
vided for. 
The zemstvos were anxious to supplement the official allowances 
by finding out the actual needs of each individual family. Many 
zemstvos immediately after the declaration of the War took a com- 
prehensive census of such families. After the promulgation of the 
law of August 29, 1914, they were enabled to combine their work 
with that of the official volost relief committees, since the censuses 
which were being taken by the latter were also under the supervision 
of the district zemstvo boards. In the localities where the volost re- 
lief committees had not been established or where they were working 
inefficiently, the zemstvos, as has been stated above, made use of 
their subsidiary organizations and formed a large number of new 
ones. They usually succeeded in enlisting the codperation of local 
leaders and organized the relief work according to local conditions. 
Organization and Scope of Work. 
We have at our disposal data showing how eighty-six district 
zemstvos in twenty-nine provinces (about one-fifth of all zemstvo 
districts) dealt with this question at the outbreak of the War. Only 
sixteen zemstvo provinces failed to make appropriations for the re- 
lief of the families of mobilized men. Of these sixteen provinces, 
eight took no action whatever, while the other eight decided to grant 
8 Under the law of the Russian Empire only church marriages were recog- 
nized. “Civil wife” was the usual term for women who were living openly 
and permanently with men as their wives but had gone through no form of 
marriage.