WORK IN THE ARMY 
233 
reckon with local regulations and ordinances issued by the commis- 
sioners of the Ministry of Agriculture, who were empowered to im- 
pose embargoes. But even when the consignment of goods was not 
prohibited, there was still the difficulty of obtaining without delay 
the necessary rolling stock, a difficulty that was constantly increas- 
ing. 
Under such conditions the supply department of the Union in 
Moscow found it impossible to carry on its operations with the 
promptitude that was essential, and was compelled to overlook the 
independent and chaotic purchasing operations undertaken by indi- 
vidual institutions at the front. It was clearly realized on every hand 
that the anarchy in supply would ruin the country; but the paper 
schemes devised in Petrograd as a remedy were in any case doomed 
to failure, owing to bureaucratic red tape. The purchasing agents 
of the Union simply carried on their operations by ignoring com- 
pletely all the barriers and obstacles that were being put in their 
way by these interminable ordinances, laws, and regulations. The 
following complaints received in November, 1916, from the Union’s 
committee of the southwestern front afford an illustration of the 
nature of these obstacles. 
Every day [reads the report] brings new instances of the endless 
>bstacles that are being placed in the way of the purchasing commis- 
sion in its work of buying goods for the institutions of the Zemstvo 
Union. These obstacles consist principally in the embargoes in the pur- 
chase and conveyance of one or another kind of commodity. Lately, it 
has frequently happened that goods which had been already purchased 
have been requisitioned. Such measures, apart from the direct harm 
that they cause, tend to undermine the confidence of the officers of the 
Union, since they nullify all their work. Frequently a permit issued by 
the commissioners of the Ministry of Agriculture, which could not be 
ased immediately for lack of rolling-stock, is revoked without warning. 
Orders given and dispositions taken in our favor by the commissioners 
of the Ministry are rendered null and void by unexpected orders from 
higher authorities. A large number of purchases already concluded 
have had to be cancelled on account of failure to obtain permits for 
loading and consigning. . . . There are instances when a request sup- 
ported by the military authorities had been rejected by the Special 
Council on Food Supply. . . . To these embargoes and requisitions we 
have to add the obstacles placed in our way by the railways, as, for 
instance, sudden embargoes on consignments in certain directions.