148 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
This endeavor by the zemstvos to encourage initiative among the 
masses met with the loyal support of the codperative and agricul- 
tural societies, and the community at large. When the spring work 
in 1915 was about to begin in a large number of provinces, volost 
and village assemblies were held at which resolutions were passed to 
support the families of mobilized men. In the province of Ekateri- 
noslav alone more than a thousand resolutions to this effect are 
known to have been adopted, and a similar attitude was noted in the 
provinces of Samara, Kiev, Kherson, and many others. In many 
rural communities in the district of Kherson the village meetings 
pledged themselves to render every assistance to the families of 
mobilized men in connection with threshing and the sowing of win- 
ter crops. In the province of Nizhni-Novgorod the village meetings 
everywhere resolved to apportion among the villagers the labor of 
cultivating the land of mobilized men, at the rate of two or three 
laborers for every ten residents. In eighteen volosts of the district 
of Gomel in the province of Mogilev the peasants decided to plow 
the fields of mobilized men for the sowing of winter crops without 
remuneration. In the district of Ananev in the province of Kherson 
village meetings in some instances appointed special “guardians” 
for each soldier’s family, who were expected to help them both by 
personal labor and by lending them whatever implements they 
might be in need of. In the district of Uman in the province of Kiev 
the peasants assessed themselves at the rate of twenty to forty co- 
pecks a deciatine and out of the funds thus collected money was 
given to the families of the soldiers to enable them to buy seed and 
hire labor. As a rule, such relief was granted to families in actual 
need, and only rarely to all families of soldiers. The period of 1914- 
1915 abounds in resolutions of peasant meetings pledging them- 
selves to render assistance in the form of personal service. Families 
possessing horses were requested to combine with their relatives or 
nearest neighbors for work in common, while families having none 
were given assistance by the community. Some of these resolutions 
specified the number of deciatines of land belonging to soldiers’ 
wives which was to be cared for by the community; in other cases, 
again, special labor gangs would be appointed to look after land of 
this class. 
At first the efforts of the zemstvos, codperative societies, and 
peasant organizations yielded favorable results, so that the year