THE ZEMGOR 
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Engineering works. These werks were equipped with macuinery 
of the Dvinsk professional school which had been evacuated to Mos- 
cow. Special departments were established for lathe work, carpentry, 
ironwork, and a blacksmith shop. They produced gauges for ma- 
chine guns, gun rifling machines, machines for the making of nails, 
and other articles. In addition to the regular work, these works 
finished about two hundred shell cases a day. 
The gauge factory. This factory supplied with its products the 
factories and works engaged in the production of munitions and 
shells. 
We may also mention the works organized by the Zemgor for the 
production of pyrometers, sulphuric and nitric acid, benzol, barbed 
wire, horseshoes, screws, and many other articles. 
The list given above is far from being complete. 
The Work of the Zemgor at the Front. 
In the preceding pages, we have had occasion more than once to 
speak of the trench workers. The retreat of the Russian troops made 
it necessary to construct a complete network of trenches and other 
earthworks in the rear of the new front line. The army authorities 
had failed to obtain a sufficient number of volunteer workers and 
had therefore to requisition for this work the local population, men 
as well as women. Their efficiency was very low. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of men were digging lazily and leisurely, complaining of 
hunger and cold and lack of proper shelter, and cursing the authori- 
ties who had dragged them away from their personal affairs. 
An attempt was made to enlist the services of the Zemstvo Union 
in organizing the food supply of these vast armies of labor, and very 
soon the Union was providing food for about 300,000 men scattered 
along the front. This, however, made only slight improvement in the 
situation. As soon as the cold weather set in, the trench workers, who 
often lacked warm clothing and proper shelter, began to desert, even 
at the risk of severe punishment. At times the army engineers in 
charge of the work themselves thought it necessary to give permis- 
sion to groups of trench workers to return to their homes, seeing 
that it was impossible to make the conditions of their existence 
tolerable. 
As always happened in hopeless situations, the authorities at the 
front now conceived the idea of appealing for help to the Unions of