241 
The Union’s committee of the western front at Minsk had the fol- 
lowing departments: (1) medical bureau; (2) department for the 
supply of materials; (3) technical board; (4) department of field 
detachments; (5) department of retail stores; (6) department of 
transport; (7) department of relief of children; (8) leather depart- 
ment; (9) automobile department; (10) audit department; (11) 
department of general management; (12) liaison department; (13) 
department of statistics; (14) legal department; (15) accounting 
department; (16) department of providing food and clothing for 
the employees; and (17) labor bureau. In addition to these seven- 
teen departments there were several special sections whose business 
it was to make timely preparation for a liquidation of the huge or- 
ganization of the Union. The number of men and women employed 
was very large; for instance the committee of the front employed 
more than five hundred bookkeepers. 
Such was the organization at the center. Outside this center, like- 
wise, the institutions of the Union had assumed in 1916 certain 
well-defined forms, and toward the end of 1916 a scheme had been 
worked out on the western front for a regional organization. 
[n each region, whether at the front or behind the lines, commit- 
tees were formed and commissioners of the Zemstvo Union were 
placed in charge. The membership of these committees included a 
commissioner appointed by the Union’s Committee of the western 
front at Minsk, together with his deputy and the regional doctor. 
These regional committees represented, on a smaller scale, a type of 
organization similar to that of the central body at Minsk, and each 
of them had direct charge of the zemstvo institutions located within 
the region occupied by the unit of the army to which it was attached. 
A greater amount of independence was enjoyed by the field detach- 
ments which operated near the front lines on the very outskirts of 
the Union’s field of activity. But even these detachments were gradu- 
ally being placed in a subordinate position to the committee of the 
front, which resulted in a better coordination of their work. 
Toward the close of 1916 the organization above described di- 
rected on the western front the work of 1,484 zemstvo institutions 
and more than 15,000 employees, excluding the lower ranks. 
1 Izvestia (Bulletin), No. 48, pp. 146-150. 
WORK IN THE ARMY