Особое совещание как институт чрезвычайного управления российской империей в годы Первой Мировой войны

Abstract

The article examines the issue of the effectiveness of the work of the Special meeting for combining measures to provide the active army with items of combat and material supplies, headed by the Minister of War. It is noted that the Special Meeting, which appeared on May 13, 1915, received extraordinary powers to carry out the economic mobilization of the entire national economy of the Russian Empire. These powers were legally formalized on August 17, 1915. From that moment in 1915, a Special meeting for the discussion and unification of measures for the defense of the state, for the provision of fuel for communication lines, state and public institutions and enterprises working for the purposes of state defense, for the food business and transportation of fuel and food and military cargo. This body, created in wartime conditions, was entrusted with extraordinary powers to manage state, public institutions and enterprises. The chairman of this meeting was the Minister of War, appointed directly by the emperor. It was he who could form commissions and subcommissions that dealt with both the procurement of weapons, equipment and equipment abroad, and directly with the implementation of a general domestic economic policy in the state for the development of certain branches of industrial and agricultural production. However, as the materials show, the transfer of management functions to the state apparatus and the entire mobilized economy of the country into the hands of the military department led to distortions in the development of the country’s national economy. Primary attention was paid to industrial enterprises working for the purposes of state defense, while the organization of food supply and transport support in the Russian Empire, despite the initiatives of the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the All-Russian Zemstvo Union, which had a representative in a Special Meeting, did not found due support and attention from the Chairperson of the Special Meeting.