241
The Union’s committee of the western front at Minsk had the following
 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 department;
 (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 seventeen
 departments there were several special sections whose business
it was to make timely preparation for a liquidation of the huge organization
 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, likewise,
 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, committees
 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 detachments
 which operated near the front lines on the very outskirts of
the Union’s field of activity. But even these detachments were gradually
 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 directed
 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