WAR, MONEY, MERCY: ARMY AND UNIONS OF LANDS AND CITIES IN THE YEARS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

WAR, MONEY, MERCY: ARMY AND UNIONS OF LANDS AND CITIES IN THE YEARS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Authors

  • А.Б. Асташов

Keywords:

Russian Army, Council of Ministers, Public Organizations, AllRussian Zemstvo Union, All-Russian Union of Cities, help to the sick and wounded soldiers, sanitary work at the front

Abstract

In the historiography of the February Revolution the politicized approach to the coverage of the activity of public organizations for the help to the sick and wounded continues to dominate, a narrow base is used, and the sources used suffer from one-sidedness. The author proposes to abandon politicization in tackling this problem and to consider this question in the light of the peculiarities of the World War I as a total war, which demanded considerable public participation in the mobilization of the home front. This paper uses new archival materials, which allow a new, most objective examination of a number of issues. The present article is aimed at revealing the reasons of the army's request for help to the All-Russian unions of zemstvos and cities, revealing the main aspects of the evacuation plan, the place of public organizations in it, the issues of cooperation at the front and in the rear of the army and the public. Thework provides data on financing, its structure, scope of assistance, its efficiency on the part of zemstvos and towns unions, their contribution to solving business questions in the field of sanitary provision of the army and population, as well as the questions of violations in the organization of this activity. The author focuses on the necessity for the army to use the work of zemstvo and city unions as the largest proactive helpers in the military mobilization of society. But this also put the army in the position of having to defend the activities of the unions against the attacks of conservative forces in the government, even in spite of the irregularities in the activities of public organizations

Published

2023-05-16
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