WORK OF THE UNION
cluding an automobile department, department for the purchase of
horses, financial, statistical, audit, anti-gas, disabled soldiers, Rus-
sian prisoners of war, refugees.
71]
Relations with the Army.
Undismayed by this steadily increasing complexity, the zemstvo
authorities at the front were expanding their work continuously and
with undiminished enthusiasm. With the army, the Zemstvo Union
had succeeded in establishing relations based on absolute mutual
confidence. Whenever some unforeseen need arose, the military au-
thorities appealed to the representatives of the Zemstvo Union, and
in no instance did they fail to comply with the request. A plan would
immediately be drafted, together with a tentative estimate, after
which the army leader whom it might concern would carefully dis-
cuss it at his headquarters and, if approved, affix his signature; the
statement would then be forwarded to Moscow for further action.
Moscow would send it on to the competent authorities at Petrograd,
but these very frequently caused long delays, pared down the
estimates and, generally speaking, appeared inclined to haggle; still,
they very seldom refused to make appropriations for such requests
from the front. Meantime, while these tedious negotiations were in
progress at the capital, the work was already proceeding actively at
the front, where it would be started without delay immediately upon
receipt of the request from the military authorities, the money for
this purpose being advanced by the Central Committee to the front
committees.
Growth of Expenditure.
The activity of nearly 8,000 institutions employing hundreds of
thousands of agents in one capacity or another naturally demanded
an ever Increasing expenditure. We saw that at the beginning of
the War the combined resources of the Zemstvo Union did not ex-
ceed 12,000,000 rubles. During the first year of its work, however,
the Union received from the Government 72,241,050 rubles (up to
June 26, 1915), to reimburse it for sums already expended.® Six
months later, that is, by J anuary 1, 1916, the total sum appro-
priated by the Government for the needs of the Zemstvo Union had
* Izvestia (Bulletin) of the Central Committee, No. 20, pp. 25-34.
