Alexander Palace in 1914–1917 In the last peaceful summer of 1914, the Alexander and Ekaterininsky palaces were supposed to become a “stage platform” for a large political action, since the visit of the French President R. Poincaré to Russia was planned for May 1914.

Food Crisis In mid-1976, Brezhnev suffered a severe heart attack. His state of health has given cause for concern since at least 1971. At the Helsinki Conference in 1975, both its direct participants and outsiders

In the tsarist army (1914–1917) At the end of October 1914, on the agenda of the military commander, we, the tongues, appeared in Ufa and were assigned to the 144th reserve battalion, which trained and sent marching companies to the Russian-German front. We were immediately separated - Vasily

Requisites

The First World War proved to be unprecedented in scale and financial costs for the countries that participated in it. As is known, their combat readiness and ability to adapt to new economic conditions depended on the financial situation and policies of these countries. None of the warring states had experience in managing finances in this kind of conditions, and each accumulated it independently. The article is devoted to the study of some aspects of such experience in Russia.

BUDGET CRISIS

In February 1904, at the beginning of the war with Japan, VN Kokovtsov was appointed Minister of Finance. He had to ensure the stability of the Russian economy and finances in extreme conditions, save the gold ruble, which at that time was on the verge of falling. The main point of the financial program for the conduct of the war, Kokovtsov considered external loans, which supported the gold reserves of Russia, and internal loans, with the help of which excess paper money was withdrawn from internal circulation. To cover the costs of the war, loans were issued for 2,125 million rubles, including about 1 billion rubles. amounted to external borrowing.

A deficit-free budget has become a political necessity for the government. Therefore, Kokovtsov strove in the future to cover not only ordinary, but also partly extraordinary expenses with ordinary income, without resorting to loans.

Taxes were the main items of income and tended to increase. The most significant in the framework of direct taxation of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. was a system of tax collections from commercial and industrial enterprises. Receipts from the state trade tax in 1903-1912. intensively grew: from 67.59 million rubles. in 1903 to 132.31 million rubles. in 1912, that is, by 95.7%. True, part of this growth is explained by the increase in certain tax rates under the law of January 2, 1906, which gave approximately 31-33 million rubles. additional income.

In the structure of tax revenues of the Russian budget, up to 80% were indirect taxes, including excises and duties. At the same time, it should be noted that the revenues of the treasury from excise and customs taxation in the pre-war decade steadily increased.

A very special type of indirect taxation was the state wine monopoly. Among the many questions in the history of Russian financial policy, the “question of income from the sale of drinks” occupies a special place. These revenues provided significant funds to the budget for a long time. The wine monopoly brought the treasury over ten years (1904-1914) 805.7 million rubles, or about 80 million rubles. in year.

In the autumn of 1913, when the 1914 budget was drawn up, Kokovtsov and his staff calculated the possible income from the taxation of alcoholic beverages and the state monopoly on the sale of vodka (§ 4 and § 21 of the revenue part of the state list) in the amount of 991 thousand rubles.

In 1914, in the rescript of Nicholas II addressed to the new Minister of Finance P. L. Bark, it was proposed to radically change the direction of the government's financial policy. The rescript intended to urgently carry out fundamental changes in the management of state finances and the economic tasks of the country. The Treasury Department, which had been working for almost two decades to improve the state sale of liquor and increase the income from this sale, had to start the reverse work, which received the peculiar name "sobriety approval". Excise supervision was called upon to take immediate and active part in the fight against the immoderate consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Bark himself and his closest associates did not think about fundamental reforms of the budget. The current budget of 1914 and future budgets were mainly to be based on revenues from the state wine monopoly. But the government was faced with the task of somehow replacing the income from the sale of alcohol in the budget. All this led to a peculiar duality of Barca's policy.

As before, it was expected that the population would regularly drink all the projected number of buckets of vodka, and the revenues of the state wine monopoly would give another increase. Procurement of alcohol for 1914 was carried out in the usual sizes.

At the same time, countless commissions were formed in the Ministry of Finance, which were tasked with instilling sobriety without breaking the well-established monopoly. Bark issued Circular No. 2293 dated March 11, 1914, on the restriction of the trade in liquor. Each new month brought an increase in the number of verdicts to close liquor stores that the Office of Tax and Public Drinks had to enforce.

In the budget calculations in the Ministry of Finance before the war, it was assumed that next year one could expect from 70 to 80 million rubles. increase in revenues of the state wine monopoly. So it was in 1912, so it was in 1913, when an additional 80 million rubles were received, but the first half of 1914 did not bring the expected income from the state wine monopoly - with a general increase in the well-being of the population, the expected 40 million rubles did not enter the treasury . Even with a slight reduction in the places where vodka is sold, the usual increase in income from the state wine monopoly has stopped.

The First World War required an adjustment of the chosen course. The call of recruits, spares, militia was always accompanied by great fun, but, as a rule, during the mobilization, the wine trade was stopped, which caused a violent protest of the recruits. In turn, budget revenues decreased. The Ministry of Finance protested. A resolution of Nicholas II followed, stating that "the immoderate closing of wine shops does more harm than good."

Another significant shortcoming was revealed in the organization of the sale of alcoholic beverages during the mobilization. The policy of the governors in this matter was not the same: in some provinces the sale of vodka was stopped, in others the trade went on without stopping. Military trains either passed through “drunk” provinces, or drove into “sober” territories. In the middle of the war, it was decided to give the right to stop the wine trade along the railway lines to the local responsible for the advancement of troops.

During the development in 1907 of the Guidelines for the drafting of the lower ranks of the reserve of the army and navy for active service, the issue of suspending the sale of alcoholic beverages was again revised. Local authorities - governors, police chiefs, city governors, police officers - were given the right to continue the suspension of the sale of alcoholic beverages in accordance with local specific conditions (§§ 51-52 of the Guide).

When the rescript to P. L. Barku appeared, the former commander-in-chief, General Kuropatkin, in his newspaper article, demanded that the sale of alcoholic beverages be stopped from the moment mobilization began. On May 5, 1914, at the insistence of the military department, the General Directorate of Non-Salary Duties sent circular No. 2304 to the managers of excise duties with an extract of §§ 49-52 from the Guidelines for conscripting the lower ranks of the army and navy for service.

A few days before the start of the war, Minister of War Sukhomlinov sent a secret letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs N.A. Maklakov with a request to take measures to stop all trade in alcoholic beverages in all regions where mobilization would take place.

On July 18, 1914, a decree on general mobilization was published. The next day, the General Directorate of Immovable Duties sent telegrams to all excise duty managers confirming the obligatory observance of the rules on the cessation of the sale of alcoholic beverages.

The sale of alcoholic beverages has been suspended throughout the country. The Ministry of Finance, in order to avoid the defeat of vodka transport, had to ban the transport of vodka and alcohol during the mobilization period.

The Ministry of Finance was firmly convinced that these were only temporary losses of the Treasury in connection with the mobilization. P. L. Bark, giving explanations in the State Duma on the bill presented on July 27, 1914, which was called the Law on Financial Mobilization, stated that the costs of the war were less covered from tax sources, and suggested increasing the price of wine.

The Duma has established the following upper limits of the sale price: for rectified alcohol - 32 kopecks. per degree instead of 21 kopecks before the war, for refined wine with a strength of 40 degrees - 12 rubles. 80 kop. per bucket instead of the pre-war 8 rubles. 40 kop. and for wine of the highest purity (table) and vodka products - 16 rubles. 80 kop. per bucket instead of the previous price of 12 rubles. These prices were put into effect on July 27, 1914. From the increase in sales prices for alcoholic beverages, tobacco products and the increase in the excise tax on beer, Bark expected 200 million rubles annually. On July 28, 1914, the Ministry of Finance submitted to the Council of Ministers a draft resolution on changing prices for wine and tobacco products, and it was proposed to set prices in the maximum amounts allowed by law on July 27, 1914. The Council of Ministers determined that the new prices would come into force from 7 August in European Russia and from August 16 in Siberia and the Asian parts of the empire.

After the end of the mobilization, everything had to go along the old course. The Ministry of Finance was actively preparing to levy higher rates on alcoholic beverages. It also developed new rules about the time of trade in strong drinks. On August 12, a circular was signed by Bark and published on the start and end times of the strong liquor trade in weekdays.

But at the end of August 1914, in the form of a personal order of Nicholas II, a ban was issued on the sale of alcohol, wine and vodka products for local consumption throughout the country until the end of wartime. And on September 25, 1914, the regulation of the Council of Ministers approved by Nicholas II was published, according to which rural and volost societies, zemstvo assemblies and city dumas were given the right to petition for a complete cessation of the trade in strong drinks.

The Ministry of Finance, when compiling the state list of income and expenditure for 1915, calculated that the budget losses from the suspension of state-owned wine sales amounted to 792 million rubles.

Simultaneously with a large reduction in revenues from the state wine monopoly, there was a similar decrease in customs revenues, which on average gave 10-11% of all budget revenues. The war radically changed the borders and the number of ports through which foreign goods were imported into Russia. The volume and nature of imported goods has sharply decreased. All this led to the virtual disappearance of customs revenues as a budgetary source. The closure of European borders and ports led to a loss of almost 300 million rubles. customs income. Thus, there was a shortfall in the amount of about a billion rubles from only two budget sources. It should be noted that a number of other important sources of income began to provide less revenue. This is, above all, income from state-owned railways. Commercial traffic on the roads serving the theater of operations has decreased by two thirds compared to 1913, and on the remaining roads - by a quarter.

Direct taxes have also been reduced. The peasantry, having sent their breadwinners to the front, could no longer remain a regular payer of direct taxes. The Ministry of Finance had to instruct the local tax inspectorate that households in which workers are drafted into the active army should not be subjected to unbearable demands, but that benefits should be provided to them.

At the beginning of the war, tax breaks had to be given to a quarter of peasant households. In the Kingdom of Poland, compulsory measures to levy direct taxes were generally suspended. All this prepared the budget crisis in Russia.

Stock market depression 1913-1914 Stock exchange speculation, stock market gambling - these are the topics that filled the pages of the general and special press of that time.

Sharp falls in rates that have taken place on the stock exchange more than once in recent months

1913, produced a panic. And the fact that this fall was made despite interventions, that is, the purchase of securities by private and state banks, testified to a real exchange depression. It could turn into an exchange crisis, which, in turn, would become the forerunner of a commercial and industrial crisis, which is clearly manifested in Western Europe.

We are best convinced of this by the movement of the rates of various securities over a longer period than the first months of 1912-1913, during which this process in Russia only intensified. If we take the average monthly quotations of the Berlin Stock Exchange for hard-interest securities, then the movement of their rates in 1912 and 1913. expressed by the following marks (Table 4).

This shows that the rates of hard-interest securities fell until June 1912, then rose slightly in August, fell again in October-December and began to fall sharply in the first half of 1913, having experienced some rise by November of the same year. But the general result of the movement is a fall from 93 1/2 to 88 7/8 rubles.

As for the average monthly rates of dividend securities, their movement over the same time was expressed by the following marks (Table 5).

The money market recovered by January 1914 and money fell again. In spite of this, in 1913 securities experienced, as is known, a further and, moreover, a very strong decline. For example, 26 shares of metallurgical enterprises fell in March 1914 compared to March 1913 by 25%, and 6 shares of cement plants and building materials plants even by 40%. In April, a new sharp decline in the rates of many securities followed.

As for the state rent, on March 1, 1913, it was quoted at 93%, and on March 1, 1914, its rate was equal to 92%. The above data testify that the depressed state of the stock exchange in the pre-war year is not an accidental phenomenon, but only a continuation of an earlier emerging trend. The connection of the fall in the value of Russian securities with the securities of other countries suggests that the stock market depression in Russia preceded the commercial and industrial depression.

MONEY CRISIS

One of the first legislative acts, hastily adopted by the government after the declaration of war, was the law of July 27 (August 9, New Style), 1914, on changes in the field of monetary circulation. The law affected three different areas of monetary circulation.

First, the exchange of credit notes for gold was suspended. The official reason for this was the need to protect the country's gold reserves from leakage abroad in the event of unavoidable turmoil in the monetary system under war conditions. However, the real reason for the ban on exchange was revealed by two other changes in the system of monetary circulation, proclaimed by law.

The fact is that already in the first days of the war, the government was forced to suspend the Law on the Issuance of Credit Notes by the State Bank of Russia, according to which the bank, having 1.2 billion rubles. gold reserve, had the right to issue only 300 million credit rubles not backed by gold. The July 27 law granted him the right to additionally issue unsecured gold banknotes for another 1.2 billion rubles. The amount of paper money not backed by gold thus reached one and a half billion rubles.

Having embarked on this path of financing the war, Russia could not abandon it even after it ended, since the war turned into a revolution, which also required extraordinary expenses from the state. The printing press thus began to serve the revolution. Since Russia's entry into world war and until the moment of the complete elimination of the Russian ruble, three periods of issuance of paper money can be distinguished, coinciding with the change of political regimes.

The old government, following the Law of July 27, 1914, took the following legislative steps in this regard (all dates are given in the old style): Regulation of the Council of Ministers of March 17, 1915 on increasing the right to issue banknotes to 2.5 billion rubles; Law of August 22, 1915, which expanded this right to 3.5 billion rubles; Decree of August 29, 1916, which increased the right to issue up to 5.5 billion rubles; Regulations of the Council of Ministers of December 27, 1916, which expanded the right to issue up to 6.5 billion rubles.

By February 1917, the volume of actually unsecured credit cards reached approximately 8.4 billion rubles.

The Provisional Government managed to issue five legislative acts on expanding the right of the State Bank to issue:

Decree of March 4, 1917 - for 2 billion rubles, which brought the official amount of unsecured credit cards to 8.5 billion rubles;

In addition to the suspension of the exchange of credit cards for gold and the expansion of the issuing rights of the State Bank, the law also provided for a third deviation from the principles of the active policy of the Russian government in the field of monetary circulation. The State Treasury was given the right to record (sell minus bank or discount interest) in the State Bank its short-term liabilities for amounts determined by wartime needs.

Such were the deviations from the laws that regulated money circulation before 1914, which resulted in a change in the entire structure of money circulation in Russia.

On the eve of the war, Russian money consisted of banknotes, gold, small change, and copper coins. Certain coin substitutes - "series" (a kind of treasury bills or government bonds, on which regular interest was paid upon presentation of coupons cut off from them) and their coupons were in circulation in large cities, mainly in the wholesale trade and were of little importance for money circulation. countries.

By that time, there were series or "tickets of the State Treasury" in circulation in the amount of 150.5 million rubles. The total amount of money in circulation was approximately 2 billion rubles.

Immediately after the declaration of war, metallic money began to disappear from circulation. Their disappearance happened in stages. The first, following the cessation of the exchange of credit cards for gold, gold coins disappeared from circulation, which the population hid until better times. A few months later, silver rubles, fifty dollars and quarters began to disappear. In the summer of 1915, there was already a shortage of silver and copper coins.

To compensate for this shortage, the government resorted to issuing paper treasury stamps, which were in circulation on a par with small change silver and copper coins. Their appearance quickly brought to an end the process of the disappearance of the metal coin from circulation. At the same time, the issue of credit notes began to increase. Since the beginning of the war, they have been issued in the amount of 1,317 million rubles. in 1914 and 16,403 million rubles. - in 1917

Simultaneously with the growth of the issue of paper money, the gold fund of the country decreased. On July 16, 1914, in the old State Bank, the article "gold in Russia" listed gold coins and bullion in the amount of 1,604 million rubles. At this point, the credit notes were backed by 98.2% gold. As of March 1, 1917, the bank had 1,476 million rubles. gold, and credit notes were secured by 14.8%. By October 23, 1917, only 1,292 million rubles remained in the bank. gold, and credit cards were backed by 6.8%.

Both in active and passive accounts of the State Bank during the war and revolution there were changes that radically affected the nature of its activities. On the asset side, these changes affected the accounting for bills of exchange, and also resulted in the appearance of a new item for accounting for state short-term obligations (short-term bills of the State Treasury).

From August 1914, the State Bank began accounting (purchase minus bank or discount interest) short-term bills of the State Treasury. The development of this operation progressed at an extremely rapid pace. Soon it became the main article of all active operations of the state bank. This accounting for short-term government obligations served as a cover for the entire system of financing the war through the issuance of paper money.

By the end of the first year of the war, on July 1, 1915, the bank's assets contained 1,589 million rubles. in short-term treasury bills. By the end of the second year - 3,824 million rubles. By the time the old regime fell (March 1, 1917), the volume of state short-term liabilities in the bank's assets reached 7,882 million rubles, and by October 23, 1917 - 15,507 million rubles.

It is not difficult to understand how this changed the position of the State Bank in the country's monetary circulation system. Before the war, the funds of the State Bank were invested (invested by issuing interest-bearing loans) in private trade and industry.

By the end of the first year of the war, the situation had changed. As before, 800-900 million rubles. invested in private enterprises. In addition to them, the State Bank had a new debtor - the State Treasury, which, by the end of July 1915, had borrowed from the bank an amount twice as large as all the other clients combined owed it. By the middle of 1917, the debt of the State Treasury to the bank was many times greater than the sum of the debts of all its other clients.

The transition to paper money also had a major impact on the change in the nature of the bank's passive operations. The increase in the issue of paper money and the overflow of circulation channels caused an ever-increasing influx of money for deposits. By the beginning of the war, the State Bank had 27 million rubles. on deposits and 260 million rubles. - on current accounts of its clients. On October 23, 1917, there were 31 million rubles on deposits in the State Bank, and 2,492 million rubles on current accounts.

The more military spending and, accordingly, deductions from military funds grew, the larger became the current accounts of the relevant government and public organizations at the State Bank.

In addition to the main instrument of inflation - issued by the State Bank in huge quantities of credit notes, as well as overgrown bank deposits, government short-term obligations or short-term bills of the State Treasury played a significant role in the inflationary process.

Initially, these bills were issued only for the purpose of securing the debt of the State Treasury to the State Bank, as a guarantee of loans that the Treasury took from the bank with credit notes. Later, however, government short-term bonds entered the private money market and were imposed as a means of payment on suppliers of military products. Private banks began to take them into account on a par with all other short-term bills and GKOs. Thus, in Russia, as in other countries, they have become a special kind of money. In total, as of January 1, 1916, GKOs were circulating on the private market in the amount of 705 million rubles, and by the end of the same year - already in the amount of 2,609 million rubles.

As already noted, the issue of paper money was caused by a lack of funds at the disposal of the state. The printing press had to raise funds that could not be obtained from the population either through taxation or through the issuance of government bonds.

In the first years of the war, emission lagged behind the deficit. This was because during this period the deficit was covered to a large extent by long-term loans and government short-term obligations. However, in subsequent years, the amount of emission almost completely coincides with the amount of the budget deficit.

Such a turning point, after which the depreciation of paper money begins to inexorably outstrip the pace of their issue, was 1916. Prior to this, in 1914-1915, prices rose more slowly than the number of credit cards in circulation.

By March 1915, the government fully used the right to issue 1.5 billion rubles. credit money. After that, the right of the State Bank to issue credit notes was expanded several times. By December 27, 1916, this right was increased to 6.5 billion rubles. Thus, during the two years of the war, the number of paper money not covered with gold increased 21 times. After the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government used the paper machine even more than its predecessor. In accordance with the expansion of the right to issue, the amount of credit money in circulation and the rate of their release increased. If before the start of the war credit notes were issued for 1,633 million rubles, by April 1, 1917 the amount of credit notes in circulation reached 10,868 million rubles, that is, it increased by 66.6%. From March 1, 1917 to October 1 of the same year, credit notes were issued for 7,340 million rubles, while for the same months of the previous year - only 1,688 million rubles. Thus, the Provisional Government used the paper machine more intensively than the tsarist government in Last year his existence. According to the calculations of the Minister of Finance Bernatsky, in September 1917, about 1.9 billion rubles were issued in credit notes, and for the last three months of the existence of the Provisional Government - at least 6 billion rubles, including about 2 billion rubles in October.

Simultaneously with the depreciation of the paper ruble against commodities, it also depreciated against gold and foreign currencies. From 1915-1916 the government to a certain extent took them under its control. It provided foreign currency to importers fulfilling military orders at a reduced rate and required exporters to hand over part of the foreign currency they received to the State Treasury.

OTHER FACTORS OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN RUSSIA DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

1. Strengthening fuel hunger, the decline of industrial production. As is known, since January 15, 1888, all oil products were subject to excise duty. The excise was 40 kopecks. from a pood of kerosene and 30 kopecks. with a pood of heavy oils. For the oil owners, the profitability of converting crude oil not so much into kerosene as into fuel oil becomes obvious.

As a result, the growth rate of domestic demand for kerosene lagged behind the growth rate of oil production. This led to the fact that the supply of the entire Russian industry with fuel oil turned out to be dependent on the expansion of exports of kerosene abroad, and not on its use within Russia. Thus, an energy-wasting trend in the consumption of oil reserves began to form in the Russian energy sector.

But at the beginning of the XX century. and up to the revolution of 1917, the price of coal and oil began to rise. The existing objective conditions for the shortage of oil in Russia were supplemented by a monopolistic pricing factor. A similar situation developed with coal. Fuel hunger (primarily coal) began to gradually increase.

With the outbreak of war in 1914, drilling and export of oil were reduced, and with the capture of the Polish provinces, Russia lost about 500 million pounds of coal from the Dombrowski basin. The Donets Basin remained the only major source. The situation in the coal industry was aggravated by the fact that the loss of workers in the Donbass was greater than in the whole country (about 27%).

The transfer of wagons for military transport created difficulties with the export of the extracted fuel. Because of the lack of coke, blast furnaces at some South Russian metallurgical plants had to be extinguished. The State Bank was forced to open loans for coal and coke. Coal mining in the Donbass decreased from 912.6 million poods in January 1914 to 790.3 million poods in January 1915. In turn, the difficult situation in the railway transport prevented the export of Donetsk coal from the deposits, and therefore the share of hard coal in the fuel balance was systematically reduced.

Oil production during the war years was on average higher than in 1913, but this could not alleviate the fuel crisis due to the large shortage of oil products.

Fuel shortage affected the work of ferrous metallurgy. Due to the lack of fuel and iron ore, at the beginning of 1916, 17 domains were extinguished in the Donbass. Iron smelting decreased from 283 million poods in 1913 to 231.9 million poods. Steel production fell even more - from 300.2 million poods to 205.4 million poods. To cover the acute shortage in ferrous metals, steel imports were sharply increased - up to 14.7 million pounds in 1916, that is, 7 times more than in 1913. At the same time, orders were placed abroad for rolled products, metal products and other materials. .

In order to meet the needs of the military industry (80% of Russian factories were transferred to military production), metal was deprived of all sectors of the national economy that were not related to the implementation of military orders.

In the metallurgical industry, the production of pig iron in 1917 fell to 190.5 million poods against 282.9 million poods in 1913. In 1917, 155.5 million poods of finished iron and steel were produced, compared with 246.5 million poods in 1913 The coal industry reduced its production in 1917 to 1.74 billion rubles. against 2.2 billion rubles. in 1913 oil production dropped to 422 million poods (in 1913 - 563 million poods).

The government was unable to provide its industry with raw materials. Industry failed to meet the needs of the civilian population. There was a huge shortage of manufactured goods.

The shortage of raw materials was also caused by its priority export to cover part of the external debt. The war showed the country's economic dependence on foreign suppliers.

All this undermined the economic base of the war.

2. Food crisis. The peasantry lost about a third of their savings due to inflation. This compelled him to hold back his products, since in exchange for paper money, which was losing more and more real value, it could not receive industrial goods. As a result, the prices of agricultural products have risen as rapidly as those of manufactured goods.

In August 1915, a Special Conference on Food was established. From that time on, the business of procuring food for the population passed to the government and, in part, to local bodies. Government procurement completely destroyed the free grain market. In December 1916, a forced grain allocation was launched, which also did not produce successful results. As a result, the rate of distribution of bread to workers decreased by 50%. From July 1917, a food rationing system was introduced in Petrograd.

3. In industry as a whole, labor productivity began to consistently decline both due to a shortage of fuel and materials, and due to the deteriorating living and nutritional conditions of workers.

4. Devastation in railway transport. Orders of the Ministry of Railways for rails were not systematically fulfilled. Failures in the work of the railway were explained by the lack of fuel, but in turn, the lack of fuel led to the shortage of wagons. It turned out a vicious circle. In view of the catastrophic situation with the production of railway equipment at Russian factories, the government, already at the beginning of 1915, decided to transfer a large order abroad.

The arrival of wagons and steam locomotives began only in 1917, when transport in Russia was already in a catastrophic state. Since there was no general state transportation plan, a huge amount of cargo was transported randomly, for bribes, while other cargo lay at the stations, rotted, and plundered. Already at the beginning of 1916, the cargo deposits on the railways reached 150 thousand wagons. Therefore, when the catastrophe of transport was discovered, the inevitability of a general military catastrophe became clear.

5. Huge external debts and the export of gold reserves. To cover military spending and the budget deficit during the war years until September 1917, external loans were made in the amount of 8.5 billion rubles. Foreign loans were used both to purchase armaments, raw materials and materials, and to pay interest on previous government loans, thereby increasing Russia's dependence on its allies. Loans were given mainly for the purchase of military equipment and materials for the continuation of the war, and had to be paid for in gold, which reduced Russia's gold reserves.

In a note by M. V. Rodzianko, presented to Nicholas II in February 1917, the collapse of the economy and the food crisis were pointed out.

As we can see, a number of objective and subjective factors contributed to the deterioration of the country's financial situation, and Russia was unable to avoid the economic crisis, the consequences of which affected the country in 1917.

Bibliography:
1. Ganelin, R.Sh., Kulikov, S.V. The main sources on the history of Russia in the late XIX - early XX century. - St. Petersburg, 2000.
2. Dyakonova, I.A. Oil and coal in the energy sector of tsarist Russia in international comparisons. - M.: Rosspen, 1999. - S. 293.
3. Katsenelenbaum, Z.S. War and the Russian ruble. - M. - 1915.
4. Draft state list of income and expenses for 1914 with an explanatory note from the Minister of Finance. Part I.: St. Petersburg. - 1913.
5. Draft state list of income and expenditure with an explanatory note from the Minister of Finance. 4.I. - Pg. - 1916.
6. Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire during the First World War (records of the meeting and correspondence).: St. Petersburg. - 1999.
7. Sidorov, A. L. The financial situation of Russia during the First World War (1914-1917).: M. - 1960. - S. 578.

Index of government orders for the Ministry of Finance for 1914 - No. 33. - S. 609-610.

Money circulation and credit. T 1. - M .: ed. Institute of Economic Research Narkomfin, 1922. - S. 12.

The fact of food shortages during the First World War is widely known even to non-specialist historians. It was the lack of food, along with a number of other factors, that caused the revolutionary uprisings in Petrograd in 1917. In the Soviet years, this topic was very popular among researchers, as this example revealed the "failure of the anti-people policy of tsarism." In this article, we will try to understand the causes of the severe food crisis that hit the Russian Empire in the years great war, and compare the tsarist economic policy with the policies of other warring countries.

There is an opinion that the cause of the crisis was a crop failure. However, this is not true. An interesting book is the Socialist-Revolutionary N.D. Kondratiev "The Market for Bread and Its Regulation during the War and Revolution", a well-known economist, in whose honor certain economic cycles are called "Kondratiev's long waves". Republished only in 1991, it is an excellent source illustrating the situation with agriculture in Russia. Devastating for the Russian army in 1915 was the most fruitful for a fairly long period of time. Yields began to decline only from 1917. Let us recall that Russia was, along with the United States, the main exporter of grain in the world.

Thus, we cannot attribute the food crisis to a decrease in agricultural production. The same book provides data from a population survey conducted in September 1915, during which 75.8% of the urban population reported a lack of food and supply disruptions. This happened against the backdrop of even an excess amount of bread in the country. Based on the totality of data, we can conclude that the crisis began in Russia since 1914. There is no reason to assume that the February crisis with bread in Petrograd was an isolated phenomenon, and not the result of a developing process.

The correlation between the emergence of need in cities and harvests is unclear or absent. This may indicate not a lack of grain, but a breakdown in the food distribution system - in this case, the grain market.

One of the real causes of the crisis in agriculture was the mass mobilization that took place in the country in August, at the height of the harvesting season. The village lost 7.5 million workers in the first year of the war, all railways were filled with trains with soldiers and weapons, which created serious obstacles to food supplies to the cities. It was the shortage of workers that became the first and main cause of the food crisis and shortages during the war years. This inevitably led to a reduction in sowing and grain harvesting. By the end of the war, up to a third of farms experienced a shortage of workers.

Sending Russian soldiers to the front. 1914

However, readers should understand that in Russia at that time there were two types of farms - peasant and privately owned. The first were focused on feeding only themselves, and the second - on the sale of products. During the war, peasant farms increased their sown areas in order to somehow survive, while the landlord and kulak farms were not adapted to difficult conditions and, on the contrary, reduced crops, since there was much less money. It was precisely the reduction in production in the landowners' latifundia that became one of the reasons for the crisis in food supplies, because in 1913 they provided 75% of the country's bread. There is no market - there is no point in growing.

What other factors contributed to the worsening of the situation? Among them is the low capacity of railways in the country. In military conditions, priority was almost always given to trains with weapons, while trains with food intended for the same army were forced to stand idle at the stations for a long time. Most of the trains that went to the front never returned, which led to even more serious consequences.

The first two years of the war were still bearable. The margin of safety of the empire's economy was gradually drying up, and since the autumn of 1915 stronger manifestations of the crisis have been traced.

1916 is considered the beginning of a full-blown food crisis. The previous year, marked by a major retreat of the Russian army, the loss of a number of regions in the west of the country, and additional mobilization could not but have a detrimental effect on the already deplorable state of the economy. The transport problem reaches its peak, interruptions in the movement of trains begin even in areas remote from the theater of operations. For example, in January and February, communication between Moscow and Petrograd was interrupted for a week each month, which is explained by the transfer of most of the trains to the front line.

The situation is clearly illustrated by the statistical data presented by the Moscow city government on March 1 of the named year. From December 1915 to February 1916, the supply of rye and wheat is reduced by a factor of three, with meat, things were also extremely difficult. These conditions prompted the establishment of fixed prices for meat and livestock in the summer of that year.

At the end of 1916, in a catastrophic situation with food supplies, the tsarist government was forced to take unusual measures - the introduction of a surplus appraisal. This term refers to the development, that is, the distribution throughout the country of the standards for the delivery of bread and other agricultural products. In addition, in this case, the state introduces fixed prices for bread, which is contrary to the interests of producers, who, naturally, wanted to sell grain at a higher price.

In the public mind, the term "surplus appropriation" is associated primarily with the Bolshevik policy during the period of "war communism".

Prodrazverstka at the end of 1916

Obviously impossible obligations were imposed on the provinces. So, the Voronezh province had to hand over in eight months from the beginning of the surplus appraisal (from December 2, 1916) about 50 million poods of grain, while in peacetime the province produced a maximum of 30 million poods a year. Attempts to deprive the peasants of their last stocks ran into cases of mass disobedience and concealment of stocks. Even the black earth province could not afford this, not to mention the less fertile regions.

A policy of more rigorous food collection, which lasted only a few months, failed completely. Chairman of the State Duma M.V. Rodzianko wrote to the emperor just before the revolution:

“The apportionment undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture definitely failed. Here are the figures characterizing the course of the latter. It was supposed to deploy 772 million pounds. Of these, by January 23, it was theoretically distributed: 1) by the provincial zemstvos 643 million pounds, i.e., 129 million pounds less than expected, 2) by the county zemstvos 228 million pounds. and, finally, 3) volosts only 4 million pounds. These figures testify to the complete collapse of the apportionment…”

The results of the food crisis in the winter of 1916/17. well known. A terrible shortage of food engulfed not only Petrograd, but the whole country. Evidence suggests that in many areas, even black bread was not available in stores. At the beginning of 1917, the Mayor of Saransk asked for rye flour to be sent from Petrograd. On the telegram, another official left a postscript “This is in the Penza province!”. This refers to the high productivity in the province before the war.

But let us turn directly to the catastrophic situation that occurred in Petrograd in January-February and led to radical change. On January 9, on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a strike of 112 Petrograd enterprises began, caused by unbearable working conditions. On February 14, more than 80 thousand workers of the capital went on strike. Since then, strikes and demonstrations have not stopped for a day. Petrograd suffered from immoderate speculation on products. So at the end of February, a bag of rye flour cost 120 rubles at a New Year's price of 25 rubles. The average time spent in a queue has increased to 3-4 hours. The reward for idle time in the cold was often very low quality bread with the addition of various dubious ingredients.

The Kopeyka newspaper of February 5 writes that “it was decided on Shrovetide Week on the 1st, 4th and 7th weeks of Lent to completely stop selling meat to the population and release it only to hospitals. Fish is put on the market to feed the population.” The same newspaper reports on February 10 that "the crisis has eased a little." This implies that in the central districts of the city there was more bread, but beyond the Neva it came to fights between buyers and sellers over food. The situation was inevitably approaching its denouement.

Bread queue in Petrograd in 1917

Attempts to solve the problem of supply were continued by the Provisional Government, which introduced a grain monopoly on March 25, which meant the complete withdrawal of all stocks of grain that remained in the hands of the peasants. These forced necessary measures inevitably led to an aggravation of the already difficult social situation in the country, in the letters of the peasants to Petrograd one can clearly see the strongest discontent and the realization of the fact that other sections of the population bear much less difficult duties, especially after February. Many villagers feared that this would lead to a split and civil war in a country where they were not far from the truth.

It is necessary to turn to the experience of other belligerent countries, both allied and hostile to Russia. There is an established opinion about the great similarity of the development of the crisis in Germany and Russia. Despite a stronger economy and industrial development, the country that started the world war experienced enormous difficulties in terms of food supply.

The rupture of foreign economic relations and the actual presence in a hostile environment on all sides led already in 1915 to a sharp decrease in the consumption of basic products: a resident of Germany then received 250 g of bread a day. This is even less than in Russia, where such a severe deficit will come in more than a year. Otherwise, Russia and Germany experienced the same difficulties: up to 10% of the population was mobilized; a severe agrarian crisis was superimposed on the food crisis; the hungriest winter was 1916/1917, it was called "rutabaga" because of the diet exclusively of vegetables; the war led to revolution and the overthrow of the regime. An agrarian country that fed the whole of Europe with grain and an industrial Germany that bought agricultural products abroad found themselves in the same position.

England is interesting in that the crisis there differed from the Russian and German ones due to a different type of economy and insular position. A lot of money was spent on escorting ships with food. The government issued a colossal amount of banknotes, which, naturally, led to terrible inflation and a difficult situation in the country for the next 10 years.

Thus, the experience of Russia was not unique, almost all the warring parties faced a similar problem. And we can identify the main causes of the agrarian and food crisis in Russia:

1. Mass mobilization of peasants into the army;
2. A sharp reduction in the supply of bread from privately owned farms;
3. Transport chaos
4. Speculation, ill-conceived organization of supply.

A product that gives a high energy potential cannot but be present in the diet of a warrior. War is an energy-consuming phenomenon associated with incredible physical and psychological stresses in peacetime - in war every moment can be the last: "An attack without a portion of meat is a bad attack"1. Therefore, in the Russian army at the beginning of the 20th century. meat ration was a significant amount. For a country where the peasant population rarely saw meat on their table, this circumstance played a huge role in the diet of a soldier. Before the First World War, meat consumption, according to slaughterhouse data, was 95.5 million poods, or 22 pounds per person per year2. At the same time, the average peasant consumed no more than 1.3 poods (21–22 kg) of meat per year, while in the army the norm was about 4 poods (64 kg) per year. In addition, according to statistics
surveys of recruits, it turns out that 40% of them almost the first time upon admission to military service ate meat..."
Since the beginning of the First World War, meat rations in the army were the main supplier of calories for a soldier. Therefore, the military department went for its unjustified increase: if before the war the meat ration was 1 pound (410 g), then with its beginning it was already 1.5 pounds (615 g); every day the army needed more than 17 thousand heads of cattle. In total, during the war, the number of portioned cattle consumed by the Russian army reached 32 million heads4. But only the first three months of the war, the army could use the trophies. Since November 1914, the supply of food and fodder to the front has been entirely dependent on the delivery from the rear (only in the summer of 1915 did the troops use cattle evacuated from the territory they were leaving)5.
The quality of the meat, according to the standards adopted by the commissariat, was the highest. "Regulations on Wartime Grocery Stores" dated September 30, 1912 established the following criteria: "Meat must be of good quality, fresh, from healthy, well-fed livestock of local or imported breeds, without fat removal, both from the outer and inner parts of the carcass. Failure to accept is allowed, but only from those carcasses that are accepted into the warehouse ; according to the calculation - 2.5 poods of failure instead of 1 pood of meat. The finger attached to the meat is not moistened; the reaction of the meat is sour, the hole from pressing the finger will soon level out; good meat should be elastic to the touch, in contrast to bad meat, which is presented Wet and flabby Color neither pale scarlet nor deep red, similar to the color of ripe raspberries Smell pleasant meaty, slightly fragrant, the musty smell of meat is most easily detected if the end of a slightly heated knife is stuck in until it touches the bones and, removing it, sniff "Frozen meat is also allowed to be taken, but only once frozen. It should have a flat, smooth surface and covered with frost, as it were. Its color is pale gray, and from the touch of a finger or a hot knife it appears there is a bright red spot. The meat is so dense that it is difficult to cut with a knife; meat fibers are separated by crystals of frozen water in a pure, uncolored form. Frozen meat carcasses with red smudges on the tendons and fat in some places are recognized as carcasses frozen for the second time.
In view of the absence of a special food agency, the Ministry of Agriculture was responsible for supplying the front with food, the head of which in August 1915 headed the Special Meeting (OSOPp) on food. With regard to the supply of troops with meat, in February 1915, "To alleviate the meat crisis in the Army in the Field, the Council of Ministers adopted the following decisions: 1) Strengthen the purchase of cattle in areas closest to the theater ... 2) Strive to replace beef meat with pork and mutton... 3) Reduce meat dacha The 1.5-pound meat dacha existing at the front does not at all correspond to the usual diet of the vast majority of the country's population and is somewhat exaggerated... 4) 5) Expand the production of canned meat... 6) Taking into account the possibility of a shortage of meat, despite all measures to increase its procurement, use salted, dried and dried fish to feed the troops, as well as some other products, for example , eggs, which, due to the lack of export abroad, can be harvested in large quantities"6.
As early as the autumn of 1914, due to transport difficulties, part of the meat ration began to be issued as corned beef, since its transportation was easier and more convenient. The evolution of the meat ration shows its gradual decline. The order for the armies of the North-Western Front of October 7, 1914 established rations of 3/4 pound of meat and 1/4 pound of corned beef. In March 1915, when the Headquarters beckoned with victory in the Carpathians - a pound of meat on the Southwestern Front. Order dated May 17, 1915 on the North-Western Front: 1/2 pound of meat, 1/4 pound of corned beef, and also "the cost of 1/4 pound of meat should be used to improve the food of the lower ranks, acquiring those products that it will be possible to purchase in places". This is already below the peacetime norm. In January 1916, an improvement is seen: ... 3/4 pound of meat (307 g) for the military area and 1/2 pound (204 g) for the rear area. From April 7, 1916, until the end of the war, the meat ration was 1/2 pound of meat, "moreover, it was allowed to count fish as well as meat waste"7.
The last norm is the objectively possible limit for the country to issue meat in the army in the course of a protracted war. First of all, because the gigantic growth in the size of the Armed Forces threatened to undermine the possibilities of domestic animal husbandry. Already in 1915, the annual consumption of meat by the army amounted to 60% of the pre-war consumption of the entire population of Russia. In absolute terms, these were relatively small numbers, but they could destroy the domestic herd of cattle. In addition, the Minister of Agriculture A. N. Naumov noted that the meat allowance of the village increased to 150% compared with the pre-war period. After his resignation, on July 1, 1916, in the "Russian Word" he published some data on the state of the food business in Russia; in particular, that "one should expect a shortage in the supply of meat to the population. But even here there can be no question of the specter of hunger, and in the worst case, the population will have to come to terms with the need to endure some hardships. This has already been recognized by the army, where the meat portion has been reduced. the state can demand more from the population, because the meat capital, in the name of the interests of the whole country, must be protected. Thus, in the first year and a half of the war, the fragile pre-war balance between the production and consumption of meat, based on the low consumption of meat products by the Russian countryside, was disturbed. That is, even with the ideal formulation of the food business, the crisis of the existing system was inevitable; the only way out to cover the formed and continuously deepening shortage of meat could only be a reduction in its consumption.
They saved money, first of all, at the front, where the issuance of meat was centralized in the form of rations. For example, at the end of July 1916 on the Western Front, "in order to preserve the stock of live cattle, the commander-in-chief of the front ordered food to be cooked 2 times a week from canned food and 1 time a week from fish. a pound of meat, that is, put 1 serving for two people"8. Savings on each serving - 35 g of meat (rations of 410 g - the weight of canned food is 375 g), and for 1.5 million people - 52.5 tons per day. The average weight of cattle in military herds is 15 pounds (240 kg). In total, the daily savings amounted to 220 cows - rations for approximately 4 infantry divisions.
At the end of 1915, some calculations were made. According to the OSOpp, 10 million heads of cattle were slaughtered during the 18 months of the war. This figure was 20% of livestock suitable for slaughter throughout Russia, and 30% in European Russia. At the same time, the annual increase amounted to 7 million heads. According to calculations, in 1913 there were 52.4 million heads of cattle in Russia. The annual increase is 9 million head, which was the peacetime consumption. In the first year of the war, the army received 5 million heads and another 4 million were lost during the Great Retreat. Thus, by October 1915, the number of cattle had dropped to about 43 million heads.
At the same time, the home front also increased the consumption of products previously inaccessible to it: meat, sugar, butter, white bread. The reason is "rations" payments from the state to the families of soldiers. If before the war the surplus money was spent on taxes (taxation in the Russian Empire was the maximum possible for the half-impoverished masses of the country's peasant population), now rations were issued in cash in the equivalent of the minimum consumer basket, and therefore the village was able to increase its consumption: "In the face of the army and the sober village ... an almost new consumer appeared. Millions of people who before the war did not eat meat at all or very rarely began to receive it now as an essential product of daily nutrition "9. Meat consumption in Russia increased from 0.3 (4.8 kg) to 4 - 5 (64 - 80 kg) pounds per year. At the same time, meat consumption compared to the pre-war level in England amounted to 62%, in Germany - 12%. Even if we take into account all the errors, then in Russia the population as a whole began to eat more meat than in Germany, which before the war was the leader in meat consumption (54 kg per year)10.
Therefore, in the second year of the war, the main task of the authorities was to preserve the meat fund. The military-political leadership of the state realized that if there is an existing trend, the number of livestock in the country will decrease, and the further, the faster, in increasing progression. The armed forces increased, the consumption of the rear also, but meanwhile the number of reproductive livestock decreased, since it was they who went for meat. There was only one way out - reducing the consumption of meat in the rear and at the front, until the current situation with livestock was strengthened.
On March 1, 1915, it was decided to carry out a complete census of all types of livestock, and first of all in those provinces in which their delivery to the army was already scheduled. The rate at that moment demanded from the rear 15 thousand heads of cattle daily. The Council of Ministers recognized the possibility of filing no more than 5,000 heads, suggesting that Headquarters make purchases in the areas closest to the theater of operations. The purchase of cattle was carried out under the threat of requisition in the event of refusal to sell it at prices reduced in comparison with commodity prices. Therefore, the matter of supplying livestock and meat for the needs of the army was taken over by the zemstvos, "... in order to prevent, in the words of the Ministry of Agriculture, the requisition of livestock by other organizations that are little aware of local conditions, in view of the unplanned unplannedness that is inevitable during such requisitions, leading to a breakdown in the economic life" 11.
In the same 1915, in order to save domestic cattle breeding from depletion, on the basis of a decree of the Council of Ministers, several Special Expeditions were organized to the outskirts of the empire and neutral countries of the East. Siberia, Turkestan, Semirechie, Persia, Mongolia, Manchuria and even Australia were involved in the supply of the warring empire. The largest of them was the Special Expedition of the scientist, Colonel P.K. Kozlov for the purchase of livestock in Mongolia and some regions of Siberia. This event was conceived to replenish the meat stock of the army with Mongolian cattle and, thereby, to save domestic cattle breeding from threatened depletion, due to the sharply increased needs of the army. Even before that, the expedition of Colonel Kartsov bought 90 thousand heads of cattle in Mongolia. From July 1915 to January 1, 1916, the expedition prepared up to 600 thousand pounds of beef and lamb; in 1916 - over 1 million pounds. But even this figure was only 1/19 of the country's total need for meat in 1917, in which it was planned to receive up to 4 million poods of meat from Asia12.
Along with centralized purchases, OSOpp acted as the initiator of joining the zemstvo authorities in the procurement of products. At a meeting on February 6, 1916, it was decided to take preliminary actions related to the regulation of meat supply: to apply to the provincial zemstvos with a request to develop fixed prices for livestock and meat in accordance with local conditions; ask the zemstvos to indicate the approximate number of adult cattle that can be taken in the province without serious damage to the local economy; to involve the population of all provinces in the obligatory supply of livestock for the needs of the army and, accordingly, develop a plan for the obligatory purchase of livestock by zemstvos or bodies replacing them; grant the zemstvos the exclusive right to prohibit, regulate and permit the export of livestock and meat from the province. Thus, already at the beginning of 1916, it was believed that a plan for mandatory purchases should be developed, since the population of all provinces and regions of the empire was involved in the supply of meat13. This was one of the first steps on the way to the distribution of livestock.
On February 16, 1916, Minzem reported that the front was demanding more than 100,000 poods of meat a day. Consequently, taking into account stocks, by January 1, 1917, about 3.5 million heads of cattle will be required. Since it is no longer possible to get livestock by free purchase, compulsory deliveries are necessary, the fulfillment of which, in turn, requires the introduction of fixed prices for meat and livestock. It was decided that fixed prices for livestock and meat were worked out by the provincial zemstvos, and then approved by the OSOpp. The Ministry of Agriculture determines the amount of livestock for the army to be distributed for each province, then the provincial bodies distribute it by counties, and those - by volosts. The alienation of livestock should take place at fixed prices, which are set "both per pound of live weight and per pound of broken meat." The apportionment should be made according to the parameters of cattle, but its replacement with sheep and pigs is welcome, about a pound for a pound of slaughter weight. Requirement - not less than 15 pounds of weight, not younger than 1.5 years.
Also in February 1916, when the lack of meat was already becoming a daily factor in urban life, proposals were poured into the Ministry of Internal Affairs to deprive prisoners of war of meat, due to the fact that Russian prisoners in Germany and Austria-Hungary did not receive meat at all. In Russia, prisoners receive meat every day, including during fasting14. However, "savings" on prisoners could give no more than 2% of the total amount (1,461,500 poods of meat were allocated for the food of prisoners in 1917)15.
Fixed prices for livestock and meat were introduced on May 19, 1916. In mid-June, the basic prices for meat of 15-pound animals were approved at a rate of 7 rubles. per pood, and at the beginning of 1917 they reached 8.60 - 8.80 rubles16. For Siberian cattle from September 12 to December 31, 1916, a fixed price was set at 4.40 - 4.80 rubles. with a live weight of 10 to 15 pounds. Already on July 16, a "permit system for slaughtering and transporting livestock" was introduced, which prohibited the slaughter of livestock from Monday to Thursday inclusive. From Tuesday to Thursday, the sale of meat products and meat was prohibited. Meat-free days in the army saved 1.6 kg per person per week. The army saved 984 thousand tons of meat per year, which was "about 75% of the country's previous total meat consumption"17. True, control over the meat-fare days, in essence, was possible only in the Armed Forces, where people received government rations. The regulation of consumption in the rear lagged behind the requirements that were put forward by the authorities at all levels. So, in the cities, people stocked up on meat for a week in advance, in fact ignoring the norms of the ban on slaughter and the sale of meat products that were adopted in July 1916. Control over the countryside was completely impossible, especially since the army and the countryside accounted for 4/5 of all consumers.
The government tried to solve the problem in its area of ​​responsibility. The most effective measure could be to reduce meat consumption to pre-war levels. Minister of Agriculture Naumov acted by organizing joint activities of central and local authorities. The wide involvement of zemstvo bodies provided not only grassroots support for government activities, but also control over the implementation of decisions of the OSOpp. Only for the needs of the army in 1916, the annual plan allotted an outfit of 40.8 million poods18. The outfits were distributed according to the degree of provision of the population (per 100 souls and per 1000 acres of land) and the nature of cattle breeding.
One of these structures was the congresses of representatives of local authorities of the regions of the Russian Empire, involved in the procurement of livestock for the army, and authorized by the Ministry of Agriculture. For example, on May 6, 1916, a congress of the central region was held under the chairmanship of the head of the Oryol provincial zemstvo council, S. N. Maslov. Kaluga, Moscow, Oryol, Penza, Ryazan, Tambov, Tula provinces were represented. In the conclusion of the congress commission, it was noted: "... since the amount of meat currently required for the army significantly exceeds the normal selling capacity of those areas from which meat can be taken, then ... [it is necessary] to take all measures to bring it down to perhaps the lowest limits of its consumption among those groups or classes of the population that have no closest relationship to national defense. The congress proposed to reconsider the reduction of meat allowances for rear servicemen, servicemen of military echelons en route, and prisoners of war19. Separately, there was a reduction in meat consumption by the population. Moreover, proposals to reduce meat consumption did not affect the front.
In order not to depend entirely on the supply of food trains, the military authorities forbade the movement of any products from the areas subordinate to the front. Thus, the resolution on the Minsk Military District of May 23, 1916, informed the population: “It is forbidden to export outside the district and each county of all provinces included in the Minsk Military District, large and small livestock and slaughter meat from this livestock”20. From the beginning of 1916, the practice of requisitioning livestock became widespread in the provinces of the front-line region, which, compared with 1914, moved far to the east. At the request of the governors and administrations to cancel the requisitioning measures "in order to avoid the deprivation of the population," the military department responded with references to the state of transport. According to the Minister of War, the issue of requisitions directly depended on the supply of meat to the front, that is, on the capabilities of the railways: insufficient supply of meat to the front from the depths of the empire automatically led to requisitions in the front-line provinces.
The monopolization of the state on meat products extended to animal fats. On August 14, 1914, the Military Council authorized an increased supply of fat to soldiers "for the entire duration of the war" in the amount of 17 gold pieces (71.4 g) for the rear units of the army and 25 gold pieces (107.5 g) for advanced units. The peacetime norm is 21 g of fat. By April 1915, the rate was reduced to 16 gold in the military area and 10 gold in the rear21. In 1916, the daily fat intake was 42 grams. Now the requisitioning right began to extend to fats, as well as to meat: by a circular of August 3, the Minister of Agriculture ordered, in case of impossibility of purchase, to requisition lard at fixed prices22. However, at the end of 1916, the Ministry of Railways announced the impossibility of "systematically letting through from Siberia not a single wagon with cattle or meat," although the troops' need for fat was met primarily with Siberian butter and lard. The reduced carrying capacity of the Siberian line made it necessary to turn to a partial replacement of animal fats at the front for the supply of vegetable oils23. In addition, at the beginning of 1917, the military authorities planned measures to spread the experimental dacha of fish oil, purified by a foreign method24.
Thus, in 1916, by reducing rations and introducing fasting days, it was possible to reduce the need for meat in the Armed Forces and to establish a relatively prosperous allowance for the troops. The daily demand of the army for meat in 1914 was 187.5 thousand poods (3073.7 tons) or 17 thousand head of cattle. In 1915 - 150 thousand pounds (2459 tons) or 14 thousand heads. In 1916 - 120 thousand pounds (1967 tons) or 10,900 heads. In 1917 - 112.5 thousand pounds or 10,300 heads25. The number of livestock supplied to the front was constantly decreasing. But if the army increased in number, then the meat ration for the soldiers decreased, hence the overall decrease in consumption figures.
At the same time, prohibitive measures in the rear were also supposed to help preserve the country's livestock fund. The data of the agricultural census of 1916 showed the readiness of the state to continue the struggle. Not counting young animals, the census noted the presence in Russia of 17,294,942 horses, 29,937,141 head of cattle, 1,433,709 goats, 49,877,701 sheep, 12,166,883 pigs. This meant that "our meat economy, in general, did not experience that close to a catastrophe critical state, which could be assumed on the basis of the data of the "Special Conference". In particular, it is incorrect to indicate that the increased consumption of meat affected our meat capital. .."26. As you can see, the measures taken in a timely manner have borne fruit. Even with a slight increase in meat consumption, the available stock of cattle was enough to provide for the troops, and the young animals assumed the prospect of development.
However, the assumption by the state of obligations for the food supply of the country's population in the winter of 1916-1917. only made things worse. In December, Minzem received a certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which acknowledged the need for allotment of cattle. The apportionment was supposed to take into account the fact that the data of the last All-Russian Agricultural Census would be taken into account, and the appraisal itself would be put "in line with the general agricultural conditions and the nature of cattle breeding in individual regions"27. The Special Meeting supported the idea of ​​apportionment. It was decided to establish the total volume of procurement of livestock and meat, and then it was supposed to distribute the total number by territorial units from provinces to individual farms.
From the end of 1916, orders were given to the local commissioners by the Minzem on the basis of a plan developed at the Meetings on the supply of food and fodder to the army and on the regulation of transportation, carried out at Headquarters and not subject to change without instructions from the Chief Field Quartermaster28. In accordance with the requirements of the Special Meeting and the Chief Plenipotentiary of the OSOpp N. A. Melnikov, the manager of the Ministry of Agriculture, A. A. Rittikh, on January 18, 1917, appointed preparations for January-February. 45 provinces and regions of Central Russia were to supply 9,530,284 poods of meat and 780,610 poods of lard29. The lion's share of supplies in Central Russia fell on the shoulders of the black earth provinces, where cattle, unlike industrial provinces, were not predominantly dairy.
Commissioners for the preparation of meat for the army faced a number of difficulties in carrying out their tasks. Procurers faced such obstacles as: the export of meat and the transfer of livestock from the provinces of the front-line region to neighboring areas, where the meat could either be resold to the city at "free" prices, or saved from direct requisition; a sharp reduction in the number of livestock that can be requisitioned without violating the interests of the owners, according to the law, since cattle (beef) in single-cow farms, breeding, improved and dairy cattle, as well as young animals were not subject to requisition30. The authorities were concerned about the prospect of preserving the domestic herd, but on the other hand, the procurement organizations stumbled upon insurmountable obstacles here, since the requirements of the Center did not coincide with the capabilities of the regions. A number of provinces of European Russia stubbornly refused to supply livestock, in accordance with the requirements of the Special Conference. Especially the local authorities asked for an exemption from front-line deliveries, pointing out that, otherwise, the provinces would be completely deprived of livestock. For example, the Tula provincial zemstvo Administration determined the maximum number of livestock that could be requisitioned in 1917 at 10,000 heads. Melnikov demanded 51,993 heads31. There is an obvious discrepancy between the needs of the army and the population, and, accordingly, the ensuing requests of the state and the country's ability to meet these needs.
But even the OSOpp could not lower the requirements. Determining the total supply of pork meat for 1917 at 80 million poods, the Special Meeting established the need for 76,499,600 poods, including: the army - 43 million (56.2%); rear troops - 6.6 million (8.6%); internal districts - 3.9 million (5.1%); fleet - 0.9 million (1.2%); total troops - 54.4 million (71.1%)32. Available cattle, known from the 1916 agricultural census and updated lists of commissioners, were declared requisitioned, after which they could not be sold or moved anywhere. Of course, the population opposed this practice, trying to sell the cattle to the side at high prices, rightly accepting the requisitioning policy as contrary to local economic interests. As a result, "difficulties immediately began in fulfilling the orders for the supply of livestock for the armies." And the governors already asked Minzem to issue a "mandatory decree on the prohibition of the export of all kinds of live and dead cattle and pigs, and similarly to prohibit the transfer" of livestock from the province to neighboring ones33. In order to form a stock of meat for the winter, in early December, a number of governors filed a petition with the Ministry of Internal Affairs to allow the pre-holiday meat trade during the Christmas week, starting from December 19th. The Special Meeting allowed the slaughter of livestock and the sale of meat products from 20 to 31 December inclusive34.
In turn, the military authorities, not wanting to delve into the problems of the rear, insisted on increasing the volume of food supplies while maintaining the same number of echelons with human reinforcements, threatening in case of refusal with new requisitions in the front-line provinces. The requisitions meant that "cattle and meat of the local military units should be released free of charge against receipts "35. The OSOpp did not have the authority to cancel military requisitions in the military area, responding to complaints from the field that the abolition of requisitions "depends solely on the military authorities, to whom you deign to apply with a petition" 36. The Headquarters and the Special Conference should have agree.
At the Conference on December 16 at Headquarters, General V.I. Gurko declared that the front, apart from the Caucasus, needed 146,000 poods of meat products per day. In response, the Chief Plenipotentiary of the Ministry of Agriculture, N.A. Melnikov, said that "without damage to agriculture, only 100 thousand pounds of meat can be given per day, since the delivery of livestock from Siberia due to natural factors is not yet possible. The shortage can be made up by fish. From this meat at least a quarter will be served live." Further, Melnikov noted that there were up to 13,000 heads of cattle at the fattening stations of the Ministry of Agriculture, "and for pigs, a special premium has been established for each extra pood in excess of 3 poods up to 11"37.
A third of the needs requested by the military could not be provided until the restoration of normal railway communication with Western Siberia (areas of the Ural and Altai animal husbandry), Eastern Siberia (cattle of Buryatia, Mongolia and Transbaikalia), Far East(cargo from America). It was impossible to withdraw the required amount of cattle from the agriculture of European Russia, so as not to tear it, and transport from beyond the Urals did not allow transport. Trains with Siberian meat began to approach the front-line areas only in February. Nevertheless, the population was agitated by rumors about millions of poods of meat rotting on the railways of Siberia, which had a harmful effect on army procurement in the European part of the country. Rumors about meat rotting beyond the Urals did not disappear even after Melnikov's refutation in Novoye Vremya on February 2, 1917. It is likely that these rumors were inspired primarily by opposition circles. For example, in a letter from I. M. Ivanov from Irkutsk to Petrograd to N. V. Nekrasov dated January 6, it is said that meat "is not exported", "two million pounds are doomed to rot", and the result was the strengthening of speculation about supposedly being prepared in the court corridors separate world.
Consequently, the meat ration of the soldiers of the front (205 g), at least a third, was replaced by fish, or prolonged by the introduction of meatless days. In fact, the reduction in rations was even greater. The decline in the carrying capacity of the railways, unable to carry out the simultaneous delivery of food and military echelons, prompted the commanders-in-chief of the fronts to independently influence the task of supplying their armies. For example, on February 10, 1917, General N.V. Ruzsky, the commander-in-chief, in a telegram to the Council of Ministers, the Minzem and the Ministry of Railways, indicated that "the allowance of the army can be considered ensured only if there are two conditions: the presence of a stock of products of a certain norm on site and the correct delivery." The commander-in-chief defined this rate as 15 days, pointing out that the allowance of the armies was put "in a threatening position", and "the shortage of meat forced me to appoint a requisition of livestock in the front-line provinces." At the same time, Ruzsky defended his right to requisitions, arguing that the apportionment "takes away my last reserve of cattle for springtime", and therefore food should be brought from the depths of the country38. Of course, this accusation was clearly unfair.
In the rear, it was easier. Here, in order not to leave the personnel of reserve infantry regiments, garrisons, workers of defense factories and others without food, direct purchases of food from the population were possible. Independent purchases by the military authorities were forbidden by the OSOpp, but the commissioners had to turn a blind eye to self-supply, because it was impossible to allow starvation. On the contrary, sometimes the commissioners allocated some share of the prepared products to the rear units in order to prevent a supply crisis. For example, the order for the Tula garrison dated February 9, 1917 said: “In view of the meat crisis experienced by the garrison, due to the insufficient amount of cattle transferred by the Zemstvo, the district quartermaster is allowed to make purchases, where it turns out to be possible, minimum quantity pork, mutton and corned beef at existing market prices "39. That is, the minimum purchases were allowed by the commissariat of the Moscow Military District. These purchases, it seemed, should not disrupt the general course of the food preparations of the Ministry of Agriculture, but they saved the soldiers from starvation.
Supply problems did not disappear even after the February coup. Thus, at a meeting at Headquarters on May 16-17, 1917, the question of the insufficiency of food supplies to the front was again raised. V. N. Breslavets, assistant to the Commissioner-in-Chief for the purchase of meat products, pointed out that if we take 326 carloads of meat necessary for the army in European Russia, then this will be done only by requisitions "to the detriment of agriculture." The Ministry of Agriculture was able to promise flour and cereals in excess of the norm, but the meat was still half the amount required by the military department40. Now the following measures were proposed to ease the further decline in the country's meat reserves: "a) replacing part of the beef with pork; b) the same replacement of beef with mutton; c) introducing grains of leguminous plants rich in protein into the consumption of the population; d) increased breeding of poultry; e ) the adoption of emergency measures to facilitate the rearing of young cattle"41. However, nothing could save the power that was dying under the blows of war, revolution and internal contradictions. Although the meat ration in the Armed Forces remained quite sufficient throughout the war, the measures taken for this gradually led to the depletion of cattle breeding, which became the key to the food crisis that hit the revolutionary authorities after February, and even more strongly after October 1917.

Notes:
1. SVECHIN A. A. The art of driving a regiment based on the experience of the war of 1914 - 1918, M. 2005, p. 56.
2. Liskun E. F. Meat issue in the current economic situation, Pg. 1917, p. 4.
3. Invasion of the Ministry of War on the Ministry of Communications. SPb. 1911, p. 26.
4. The history of the rear and supply of the Russian army. Kalinin. 1955, p. 311.
5. See for example: VEVERN B.V. 6th battery 1914 - 1917. Paris. 1938, v. 2, p. 100, 103, 106.
6. POPOV V. I. Satisfaction with the meat of the Russian army in the First World War 1914 - 1918. (on archival materials). M. 1942, p. fourteen.
7. OSTROVSKY A. V. State-capitalist and cooperative trends in the Russian economy: 1914 - 1917. - Russia and the First World War (materials of the international scientific colloquium). SPb. 1999, p. 487.
8. Smarzhevskaya I. I. Grenadiers. M. 2002, p. 88.
9. POLONSKY G. Regulatory measures of government and public authorities in economic life during the war. Pg. 1917, p. 27.
10. Dix A. War and the national economy according to the experience of Germany in the World War 1914 - 1919. M. 1926, p. 68.
11. Materials on the organization of the food business. M. 1917, no. 7, p. 5.
12. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), f. 1779, op. 1, d. 1527, l. one.
13. GARF, f. 6831, op. 1, d. 144, l. 6 - 7rev.
14. Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA), f. 369, op. 1, d. 57, l. fourteen.
15. GARF, f. 6831, op. 1, d. 131, l. 11rev.
16. Ibid., d. 44, l. 27, 41; d. 68, l. 33rev.
17. BUKSHPAN Ya. M. Military economic policy. M.-L. 1929, p. 162.
18. For more details, see: BRESLAVETS VN Supply of army and population with meat. 1914 - 1918. M. 1918, p. 13 - 15, 43 - 45.
19. GARF, f. 1797, op. 1, d. 417, l. 46 - 48.
20. Ibid., d. 430, l. 85.
21. Military sanitary collection of the Southwestern Front. Berdichev. 1915. N 1, p. 29, 30.
22. State Archive of the Tula Region (GATO), f. 1122, op. 1, d. 7, l. 93.
23. Journal of the Meeting at the Headquarters on the supply of the army on December 15 - 16, 1916. B. m. 1917, p. 7; GARF, f. 1797, op. 1, d. 387, l. 25.
24. GARF, f. 1797, op. 1, d. 386, l. fifteen.
25. POPOV V. I. Satisfaction with the meat of the Russian army in the First World War 1914 - 1918. (based on archival materials). M. 1942, p. 4.
26. POLONSKY G. Regulatory measures of government and public authorities in economic life during the war. Pg. 1917, p. 28.
27. GARF, f. 6831, op. 1, d. 27, l. 11 - 13.
28. Ibid., f. 1797, op. 1, d. 386, l. 12rev. -fourteen.
29. Ibid., f. 6809, op. 1, d. 68, l. 65 - 67.
30. GATO, f. 2260, op. 1, d. 33, l. 209rev. -210.
31. Ibid., l. 210rev. -212, f. 1122, op. 1, d. 9, l. 8 - 8rev.
32. GARF, f. 6831, op. 1, d. 131, l. Pob.
33. Ibid., d. 38, l. one.
34. Ibid., d. 44, l. 226, 238.
35. Ibid., f. 1797, op. 1, d. 430, l. 249.
36. Ibid., l. 53.
37. Ibid., d. 386, l. 15 - 16.
38. Ibid., l. 166, 191, 195 - 197.
39. GATO, f. 97, op. 2, d. 1904, l. 353.
40. GARF, f. 1778, op. 1, d. 312, l. 184rev.
41. Liskun E. F. Meat issue in the current economic situation. Pg. 1917, p. eleven.

We know about the food crisis that broke out during the First World War in Russia mainly as interruptions in the supply of bread in large cities, mainly in the capital, in February 1917. Have there been similar problems before and have they persisted later? If little attention is paid to the further efforts of the Provisional Government to supply cities with essential products, then the works devoted to the emergence and development of the food crisis in Tsarist Russia can be counted on the fingers.

The logical result of such an unsystematic approach is the idea of ​​sudden interruptions in February 1917 and the complete collapse of supply and devastation after the October Revolution as different, unrelated phenomena. Which, of course, leaves a wide space for the most extreme, sometimes completely conspiracy interpretations. The author happened to read a number of works, which proved that the "bread riot" in Petrograd in the winter of 1917 was the result of a conspiracy, the deliberate creation of a deficit in order to cause popular unrest.

In fact, the food crisis, caused by a number of both objective and subjective reasons, manifested itself in the Russian Empire already in the first year of the war. A fundamental study of the food market of this period was left to us by N.D. Kondratyev, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, who dealt with food supply in the Provisional Government. His work "The market for grain and its regulation during the war and revolution" was published in 1922 in an edition of 2 thousand copies and quickly became a bibliographic rarity. It was republished only in 1991, and today, thanks to the array of data provided by Kondratiev, we can get an impression of the processes that took place in the empire in the period from 1914 to 1917.

The materials of the questioning, which was conducted by the "Special Meeting" on food, give a picture of the origin and development of the supply crisis. So, according to the results of a survey of local authorities of 659 cities of the empire, conducted on October 1, 1915, 500 cities (75.8%) announced a lack of food products in general, 348 (52.8%) - a lack of rye and rye flour, and a lack of wheat and wheat flour - 334 (50.7%), about the lack of cereals - 322 (48.8%).

The survey materials indicate the total number of cities in the country - 784. Thus, the data of the "Special Meeting" can be considered the most complete cut of the problem in the Russian Empire in 1915. They show that at least three-quarters of the cities are in need of food products for the second year of the war.

A more extensive study, also referring to October 1915, gives us data for 435 counties of the country. Of these, 361 or 82% of counties report a shortage of wheat and wheat flour, 209 or 48% of counties report a shortage of rye or rye flour.

Thus, we have before us the features of the impending food crisis of 1915-1916, which is all the more dangerous because the survey data fall on the month of autumn - October. From the simplest considerations, it is clear that the maximum amount of grain falls on the time immediately after the harvest - August-September, and the minimum - in the spring and summer of the next year.

Let us consider the process of the emergence of a crisis in dynamics - we will determine the moment of its occurrence and the stages of development. Another survey gives us the results of a survey of cities by the time of the onset of food need.

As for rye flour, a basic food product in the Russian Empire, out of 200 cities surveyed, 45 or 22.5% say that the shortage occurred at the beginning of the war.
14 cities, or 7%, attribute this moment to the end of 1914.
The beginning of 1915 was indicated by 20 cities, or 10% of the total. Then we observe consistently high rates - in the spring of 1915, problems arose in 41 cities (20.2%), in the summer in 34 (17%), in the fall of 1915 - in 46, or 23% of the cities.

Polls on the lack of wheat flour give us similar dynamics - 19.8% at the beginning of the war, 8.3% at the end of 1914, 7.9% at the beginning of 1915, 15.8% in spring, 27.7% in summer, 22 .5% in autumn 1915.

Polls for cereals, oats and barley show similar proportions - the outbreak of war leads to a lack of food in about 20 percent of the cities surveyed, as the first hysterical reactions to the outbreak of war subside, the development of the food crisis dies down by winter, but by the spring of 1915 year there is a sharp surge, steadily growing further. It is characteristic that we do not see a decrease in dynamics (or we see an extremely slight decrease) by the autumn of 1915 - the time of harvest and the maximum amount of grain in the country.

What do these numbers mean? First of all, they testify that the food crisis originated in Russia with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and developed in subsequent years. Surveys of cities and counties in October 1915 testify to the spillover of the crisis into 1916 and beyond. There are no grounds for assuming that the February grain crisis in Petrograd was an isolated phenomenon and not the result of an ever-developing process.

An interesting fuzzy correlation of the emergence of need in cities with crops, or lack thereof. This may indicate not a shortage of grain, but a breakdown in the food distribution system - in this case, the grain market.

Indeed, N.D. Kondratiev notes that the grain in the period 1914-1915. there were many in the country. Stocks of grain, based on the balance of production and consumption (excluding exports, which practically ceased with the outbreak of war), he estimates as follows (in thousand pounds):

1914-1915: + 444 867.0
1915-1916: + 723 669.7
1916-1917: - 30,358.4
1917-1918: - 167,749.9

Thus, there was bread in Russia, there was even more of it than required, based on the usual consumption norms for the country. 1915 turned out to be a very fruitful year. The deficit occurs only from 1916 and develops in the 17th and 18th. Of course, the mobilized army consumed a significant part of the bread, but obviously not all of it.

To get more information about the dynamics of the food crisis, let's take a look at the rise in bread prices over this period. If the average autumn prices for grain in European Russia for 1909-1913 are taken as 100 percent, in 1914 we get an increase of 113% for rye and 114% for wheat (data for the Non-Black Earth region). In 1915, the growth was already 182% for rye and 180% for wheat, in 1916 - 282 and 240 percent, respectively. In 1917 - 1661% and 1826% of the prices of 1909-1913.

Prices rose exponentially despite the redundancy of 1914 and 1915. We have clear evidence of either a speculative rise in prices with an excess of product, or a rise in prices under pressure from demand with low supply. This again may indicate the collapse of the usual methods of distribution of goods on the market - for one reason or another. Which we will look at in more detail in the next chapter.

Notes:
N.D. Kondratiev, "The market for bread and its regulation during the war and revolution." M .: "Nauka", 1991. Pp. 161.
ibid., p. 162.
ibid., p. 161.
ibid., p. 141
ibid., p. 147

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Chapter 10

The food crisis was made up of a number of factors affecting the country's economy, both individually and collectively.

First of all, with the outbreak of the First World War in Russia, a series of mobilizations took place, withdrawing many millions of workers from the economy. This was especially painful for the countryside - the peasants, unlike factory and factory workers, did not have "armor" from being sent to the front.

The scale of this process can be estimated based on the growth in the number Russian army. If the peacetime army consisted of 1,370,000 people, then in 1914 its number increased to 6,485,000 people, in 1915 - up to 11,695,000 people, in 1916 - 14,440,000 people, in 1917 - 15,070,000 people

To supply such big army huge resources were required. But at the same time and naturally, the withdrawal of such a large number workers from the economy could not but affect its productivity.

Secondly, in Russia, the reduction of sown areas began. At least at the first stage, it was not directly related to the mobilization of the male population into the army, as we will see below, and should be considered as a separate factor.

The reduction in sown areas occurred both due to the occupation of a number of territories, and under the influence of internal factors. They need to be divided. So, N.D. Kondratiev notes that "the occupation was determined in a more or less complete form by 1916," which makes it possible to assess the lands that were no longer in circulation. The figures are as follows: the total sown area on average for 1909-1913. - 98 454 049.7 dec. The total sown area of ​​the provinces occupied by 1916 is 8,588,467.2 dess. Thus, 8.7% of the total sown area of ​​the empire fell under occupation. The figure is large, but not fatal.

Another process took place under the influence of internal political and economic factors. If we take the total sown area (minus the occupied territories) in 1909-1913 as 100%, the dynamics of the sown area in subsequent years will appear before us in the following form:

1914 – 106,0%
1915 – 101,9%
1916 – 93,7%
1917 – 93,3%

"The total reduction in the sown area under the influence of political and economic factors is insignificant and gives only 6.7% by 1917," the author of the study states.

Thus, the reduction in sown areas in itself could not yet cause a food crisis. What was the reason for the shortage of foodstuffs that arose from 1914 and then rapidly developed?

The question is slightly clarified by a look at the reduction in sown areas depending on the type of farms - peasant and privately owned. The difference between them is that the former were aimed primarily at feeding themselves (within the economy and the community), sending only unclaimed surpluses to the market. Their closest analogue is a simple family running their own household. The latter were built on the principles of a capitalist enterprise, which, using hired labor, is aimed at making a profit from the sale of the crop. It does not have to look like a modern American farm - it can be a landowner's latifundia, using peasant labor, and a prosperous peasant household, who bought additional land and cultivates it with the help of hired workers. In any case, the harvest from this "surplus" land is intended exclusively for sale - it is simply excessive for the economy, and it is impossible to cultivate these lands themselves with the help of the economy alone.

In general, in Russia, without taking into account the occupied territories and Turkestan, the dynamics of sown areas by type of farms will look like this: for 1914, peasant farms provide 107.1% of the average for 1909-13, and privately owned farms - 103.3%. By 1915, peasant farms show an increase in sown area - 121.2 percent, and privately owned - a decrease to 50.3%.

A similar picture remains for almost every part of the country, taken separately - for the black earth zone, for the Non-Black Earth region, for the Caucasus. And only in Siberia, privately owned farms do not reduce the area under crops.

“It is extremely important to further emphasize,” writes Kondratiev, “that the reduction in the sown area is especially rapid in privately owned farms. And the above-mentioned relative stability of the sown area during the first two years of the war is attributed exclusively to the peasant farms.

That is, the peasants, having lost their hands, but having a good idea of ​​what war is, tighten their belts and expand crops - through the efforts of the whole family, women, children and the elderly. And the capitalist farms, having also lost their workers (mobilization also affected the labor market), are reducing them. In these farms there is no one to tighten their belts, they are simply not adapted to work in such conditions.

But the main problem was (and therefore Kondratiev especially draws attention to the situation that has arisen) that the marketability of grain of privately owned farms was incommensurably higher than that of the peasants. By 1913, landowners and prosperous farms provided up to 75% of all marketable (going to the market) grain in the country.

The reduction of sown areas by these farms resulted in a significant reduction in the supply of grain to the market. Peasant farms to a very large extent fed only themselves.

By the way, interesting topic for reflection could be the question of what would happen to Russia if Stolypin's agrarian reform before the war.

Finally, the third factor that had a serious impact on the formation of the food crisis was the transport problem.

In Russia, there has historically been a division of regions into producing and consuming, or, in other terminology, into regions of surpluses and regions of shortages. So, the Tauride province, the Kuban region, the Kherson province, the Don region, the Samara, Ekaterinoslav provinces, the Terek region, the Stavropol province and others were redundant in terms of bread.

Petrograd, Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Vladimir, Tver provinces, Eastern Siberia, Kostroma, Astrakhan, Kaluga, Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl provinces and others were insufficient.

Thus, roughly speaking, the most important areas of surpluses lay in the southeast of European Russia, the areas of shortages - in the northwest. Accordingly to this geography, markets were formed in the country - productive and consumer, as well as trade routes were built, distributing the flows of grain cargo.

The main means of transport serving the food market in Russia was the railway. Water transport, playing only a supporting role, could not compete with the railway either due to development or geographic localization.

With the outbreak of the First World War, it was the railway transport that accounted for the vast majority of transportation - both huge masses of people for mobilization, and titanic volumes of food, ammunition, uniforms for their supply. Water transport could not help in any way in the western direction due to natural geographical reasons - the water arteries connecting the east and west of Russia simply do not exist.

With the beginning of mobilization, the railways western region- almost 33% of the entire railway network - were allocated to the Military Field Directorate almost exclusively for military needs. For the same needs, a significant part of the rolling stock was transferred to the western region. The administration of the railways was thus divided between military and civil authorities.

Never and nowhere has multi-authority brought good. Not only that, the entire burden of supplying the western mobilized area fell on the eastern region. Rolling stock stopped returning from the western region. Perhaps he was much more needed in the front line - even for sure. But such questions required a single decision-making center, with a sober assessment of all the pros and cons. In our case, by the summer of 1915, the debt of the western region to the eastern region reached 34,900 wagons.

One of the most important causes of the food crisis is opening up before us - railroads, providing huge military supplies and experiencing an acute shortage of rolling stock, could not cope with the needs of civilian traffic.

In reality, due to confusion, the lack of a unified leadership, changes in the entire traffic schedule and the mobilization of part of the rolling stock, transportation in the country fell as a whole. If we take the average number of shipments for 1911-1913 as 100 percent, then already in the second half of 1914 their volume amounted to 88.5% of the pre-war level, and special grain shipments - only 60.5%

“Such significant demands of the war on the railways,” states Kondratiev, “led to the fact that the main railway arteries of the country, connecting the main areas of surplus food products with consuming centers within the country, were already by the end of the first year of the war or completely inaccessible to private commercial cargo. .., or this access was extremely difficult.

The food market in Russia collapsed. This is where the cause of the shortage of foodstuffs from the first year of the war with the surplus of grain lies, this is the reason for the avalanche-like rise in prices. Here lies one of the reasons for the reduction in sown areas - if there is no market, there is no point in growing.

Similar problems arose in industry - the private, and by and large, the general supply of raw materials and fuel fell apart. If the defense factories in this situation had a chance to stay afloat (it disappeared in 1916, as discussed below), then for the rest of the enterprises without a general militarization of the economy, the prospects looked extremely bleak.

At the same time, behind one big problem, there was a no less, if not greater, problem. Trying to somehow compensate for the shortage of wagons and locomotives, as well as all the falling freight traffic, the railway workers significantly, in excess of the standards, increased the use of available rolling stock.

As is often the case in the operation of complex systems, in critical circumstances there is a great temptation to bring them to excess operating modes, squeeze them to the maximum, overclock them to the limit, having achieved temporary compensation for the losses that have occurred. But the system, having reached a certain threshold of possibilities, inevitably and irrevocably goes haywire.

Something similar happened to the railway transport in the Russian Empire. “The average daily mileage of a cash freight car and a steam locomotive is increasing ... The number of loaded and accepted cars and their total mileage are increasing ...,” writes Kondratiev. a turn for the worse."

Notes:
N.D. Kondratiev, "The market for bread and its regulation during the war and revolution." M .: "Nauka", 1991. Pp. 158
ibid., p. 121
ibid., p. 121
ibid., p. 122
TSB, article " Agriculture"
N.D. Kondratiev, "The market for bread and its regulation during the war and revolution." M .: "Nauka", 1991. Pp. 96
ibid., p. 136
ibid., p. 137
ibid., p. 136
ibid., p. 137
ibid., p. 138

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