DOI 10.51255/2311–603X_2025_3_75

A. B. Astashov. Economic Abuses and Combating Them in the Russian Theater of Military Operations during the First World War // Petersburg Historical Journal, no 3, 2025, pp. 75–85

Abstract:

The article is devoted to a rare topic — the analysis of economic crimes in the Russian theater
of military operations during the First World War. In Russian historiography the question of abuses is more often considered from the point of view of class position or politicized approach to the activities of public organizations — All-Russian unions of zemstvos and cities. In this paper, written on the basis of archival materials, the emphasis is on the identification of economic crimes in the conditions of frontline everyday life, their types, dynamics, increasing volumes of economic losses, and their impact on the socio-political situation in the country. Particular attention is paid to the activities of public organizations and the attitude of the authorities and the army to them. The central subject is the fight against economic crimes by the army, especially in the Petrograd Military District. The author comes to the conclusion about the mass of problems in the organization of the supply of the population, the contradictory coexistence of two new types of war: regulation and free market is revealed. The war exposed the shortcomings of the system of supplying the army with the help of a group of persons (Jews) whom the authorities did not trust, and at the same time could not do without them. Hidden machinations, which were part of the daily routine of warfare, caused great harm to defense: speculation, mass fabrication of documents for property. The inconsistency of waging war “for money” was aggravated by the lack of reliable control, the absence of an effective legal framework, and the clash of interests of the military and civilian administration, as well as the agents of the free market. This combination of contradictory factors led to great losses of resources, suffering of millions of citizens, damage to the cause of defense, and the threat of loss of statehood. In this situation, sporadic, haphazard attempts by military figures to combat economic crime by neutralizing individual criminals, even of the highest level, were doomed to failure.

Key words: army supply, economic crimes, military field control, ethnocriminalistics, All-Russian Zemsky and City Unions, Northern Front, Petrograd Military District, regulatory.

Author:

Astashov, Alexander Borisovich — Dr. of Sci. in History, Professor, Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow, Russia).
E-mail: astashsh@yandex.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-2651-964X

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