Expert board:

• Scientific Council of RAS on economic history;
• Research and Educational Center «The economic history of Central Russia and the Middle Volga region» of Ogarev Mordovia State University;
• Center of Economic History of  Lomonosov Moscow State University

Certificate of registration

I. V. Potkina

doctor of historical sciences, associate professor., EC member of the International Economic History Association, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: potka@inbox.ru

SOCIAL CONTROL DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN RUSSIA

The article analyzes the regulatory enactments in the social sphere. The author discovered a total of 164 ordinances, which allowed defining priority areas for categorical aid of the population. The year of 1916 was the peak of the legislative activities of the government in social policy when it was adopted 78 legal acts. During 1914–1917 the largest number of ordinances touched upon the problems of payment of benefits and pensions to servicemen, drafted into the combat army and fleet, and their families. The author also focuses on the state measures for ensuring refugee migrants, evacuation of state-owned and public institutions, officials and their families, regulation of housing prices, increasing of salaries of employees and workers in the governmental agencies due to high cost of living. Liberalization of civil legal relations is under consideration too, in particular the questions of abolition of the Jewish Pale and admission of women to the state service. The author dwelled on a question of efficiency of social support for the population in conditions of war. This article analyzes a number of measures that have had an indirect impact on the complicated social situation in the country. It was price policy, food products and other basic necessities of market. The overall conclusion of the author is that the Government policy was of multidimensional and had complex nature and corresponded to the basic criteria of a progressive model of social work.

Keywords: the First World War, social policy, regulatory enactments, financial allowances, refugee migrants, evacuation, prices, inflation, domestic market.

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