Moscow, MSU Publishing House, 1975, 189 p. The print run is 2210. The price is 90 kopecks.

The study of political institutions in pre-revolutionary Russia is one of the most pressing problems of historical science. This topic is listed among the main areas of research work of the Institute of the History of the USSR of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, defined in the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU1 . The monograph by MSU History teacher S. V. Voronkova is the first special study of the Special Conference on State Defense, which was established by law on August 17, 1915 and was one of the main political institutions of Russia during the First World War, the central body of the system of military and economic regulation of the country's economy.

The author focuses on the documentary materials of the Fund of the Special Conference on Defense, which for a number of reasons are stored in several archives: the Central State Archive of the USSR, the Central State Archive of the USSR, the Archive of the Military History Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Signal Troops. So far, few works have been created devoted to the study of archival complexes of documents of pre-revolutionary institutions of Russia .2
1 Voprosy Istorii, 1969, No. 4, p. 4.

2 L. E. Shepelev. Private capitalist commercial and industrial enterprises of Russia in the late XIX-early XX centuries and their archival funds. "Information Bulletin of the State Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR", 1958, vol. 10. Archive funds of joint-stock commercial banks. "Problems of source studies", Vol. VII. L. 1959; L. V. Vinogradova. Main types of ce documents-

page 154

The documents of the Special Conference on Defense were widely used in the development of various problems of the history of Russia at the beginning of the XX century in connection with the study of its economic policy during the First World War, the mobilization of industry for military needs, the characterization of the bourgeoisie, the development of state-monopoly capitalism, etc. Along the way, attention was also paid to the history of the institution itself .3 There were no special works on this topic. A detailed study of the documents of the Special Meeting on Defense fills this gap. S. V. Voronkova generally managed to show the multilateral nature of these materials, the degree of their research, the location and possible ways to further search for materials from some of the institutions that were part of the Meeting, and some techniques for working with archival documents in order to use them effectively in the interests of science. In a relatively small volume of work, the author presents a rich factual material, reports little-known, and sometimes unknown in the literature information about this state body. The latter include data on the system of record keeping and documentation, the technique of reproducing materials (pp. 62-75), the history of the foundation and the organization of its materials after liquidation on March 20, 1918. Special Meeting on Defense (pp. 93-107), etc.

The peculiarity of the work is that it is a rare case in the literature of a complex consideration of a number of problems of historical, source studies and archival studies, the solution of which requires knowledge of problems in the field of the history of state institutions, source studies, history and theory of office management and archival affairs.

When studying the history of the founder S. V. Voronkov, serious attention is paid to the emergence of a Special Meeting on defense. An analysis of the documents confirms the position already expressed in the literature that, although the idea of creating such a body belonged to the bourgeoisie ,the tsarist government, when forming a Special Defense Conference, despite the significant representation of the bourgeoisie in it, tried to concentrate the commanding heights in its hands. 4 The author focuses on the system of bodies that were part of the Special Meeting. This fact orients researchers not only in terms of structure, which has not been sufficiently covered in the literature, but also shows the main directions of the multi-faceted activity of this body. Speaking about its history during the period of the Provisional Government, S. V. Voronkova shows the illusory nature of the bourgeoisie's reform activities, which mainly sought to preserve the state apparatus inherited from the autocracy, including the military and economic bodies.

The monograph attempts to address issues related to the origin of the fund's documents, their processing, and the documentation system of institutions of the Special Meeting on Turnover. Of considerable interest are the historical fates of these documents and the characteristics of the collections (Chapter II), as well as the scientific classification of the materials of the Special Meeting. Classification by thematic groups allowed the author to give a detailed description of the content of documents. However, S. V. Voronkova is not satisfied with this, considering that such a classification "can only slightly facilitate the selection of the most essential and important materials" (p.135). One cannot disagree with this, since the scientific approach to classification involves grouping materials taking into account all their inherent characteristics. A striking example of this situation is the further grouping of-

nat and the organization of its office work. "Some issues of studying historical documents of the XIX-early XX centuries", L. 1967; E. S. Paina. Senatorial audits and their archival materials (XIX-early XX centuries). Ibid.

3 A. A. Manikovsky. Combat supply of the Russian army in the First World War 1914-1918. Vol. 1-2. Ed. 2-E. M.-L. 1930; A. L. Sidorov. Economy of Russia in the period of the First World War 1914-1917. "Reports and messages" of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University, 1945, issue 1.; its. Economic situation of Russia during the First World War, Moscow, 1973; A. P. Pogrebinsky. Mobilization of industry in Tsarist Russia in the First World War of 1914-1917. Voprosy istorii, 1948, No. 8; I. V. Mayevsky. Economics of Russian Industry in the conditions of the First World War, Moscow, 1957; V. S. Dyakin. The Russian Bourgeoisie and Tsarism during the First World War (1914-1917). L. 1967; T. D. Krupina. The political crisis of 1915 and the creation of a Special Conference on Defense. "Historical Notes", 1969, vol. 83; V. Ya. Laverychev. On the question of the peculiarities of imperialism in Russia. "History of the USSR", 1971, N 1, etc.

4 See N. P. Eroshkin. Istoriya gosudarstvennykh uchrezhdenii pre-revolutionary Russia, Moscow, 1968, p. 302.

page 155

author of the documents of the Special Meeting on the main groups and varieties.

S. V. Voronkova identifies six main groups of mass sources: regulations and rules; journals of the Special Meeting, its commissions and committees 5; army supply plans; acts of enterprise surveys, surveys of industrial areas; accounting and statistical materials; correspondence. Then, in each of these groups, materials are divided and characterized by their varieties and types. For example, the group of journals includes journals of the Special Defense Meeting, journals of commissions and committees, transcripts and drafts of journals, and reports of commissions. Such a sequence of grouping the protocol group of documents will allow you to understand the degree of significance of the content of each of them, as well as various ways of maintaining meeting logs. The classification of correspondence is interesting. The author divides it into internal and external correspondence. In each of these groups, a classification is carried out on the basis of correspondence, which makes it possible to identify the circle of correspondents and the nature of their relationship with the Special Meeting on Defense, as well as the types of documents included in the concept of "correspondence". S. V. Voronkova gives a general description of this type of documentation and individual groups and subgroups of documents by their varieties.

The proposed classification of materials, of course, reflects the information contained in the documents of this body. The analysis of thematic complexes allowed us to show all the diversity and richness of the content, materials of the Special Meeting on Defense. These are the mobilization of Russian industry and prospects for its development, the supply of the Russian army, the economy and economic policy, the political system of tsarist Russia, its international financial and economic relations, the history of the working class, etc., which makes it possible to further use the documents of the Special Conference when studying the problems of the formation of state-monopoly capitalism during the top leaders" and the prerequisites of the Great October Socialist Revolution. This classification can be taken into account in the work of the archive to improve the scientific reference apparatus for the fund, which will help to better orient researchers in the composition and content of the funds of the Special Meeting on Defense.

However, I would like to see more material in this work on the relations between the Special Conference on Defense and bourgeois organizations. This would lead to a wider range of related funds for possible search of documents of the Special Meeting. For, in addition to the above-mentioned committees and commissions of this body itself and other institutions of this system, the funds of the departments of the Military Department and the Central Military-Industrial Committee, the documents of the Special Conference were also deposited in the funds of the bourgeois landowner organizations (the All-Russian Zemstvo Union and the Union of Cities, Zemgor), stored in the Central State Administrative Thus, the Zemgor Foundation has documents describing the economic situation of Russia during the war years: the lack of raw materials, fuel, the catastrophic situation with transport, the helplessness of the tsarist government and its inability to cope with the impending catastrophe .7 These issues are most fully reflected in Zemgor's correspondence with the Special Defense Conference and its local branches, the Factory Meetings .8 The Zemgor Foundation also has information about the participation of representatives of bourgeois landowner organizations in the work of committees and commissions of the Special Conference on Defense .9
The author does not always describe with equal completeness the main bodies that were part of the system of the Special Conference on Defense-committees and commissions; When covering the activities of the latter, questions of organizational structure are often omitted (the preparatory commission on artillery issues, the preparatory commission on aviation issues, the requisition commission, etc. - pp. 38, 40, 45, etc.)., which makes it difficult to study the statement of office work and analyze the documents of these institutions. Describing the documents of the Special Meeting on

5 At present, the Central State Archive Service of the USSR, together with the Main Archive Department under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Institute of History of the USSR of the USSR Academy of Sciences, is working on publishing journals of the Special Meeting on State Defense (see " Journals of the Special Meeting on State Defense. 1915". Moscow, 1975).

6 TSGVIA USSR, f. 12564; f. 12593; f. 12642 (Zemgor).

7 Ibid., f. 12642, op. 35, d. 20, ll. 165-180.

8 Ibid., op. 30, dd. 1, 23; op. 35, dd. 8-15.

9 Ibid., op. 30, d. 4, ll. 1-6.

page 156

S. V. Voronkova actually considers not one fund, but a group of funds of institutions that were subordinate to or were connected by the nature of their activities with a Special Meeting. This circumstance calls into question the very concept of "archival fund" in the author's interpretation. In fact, the Special Meeting on Defense is interpreted by the author as a joint archival fund, which includes a number of funds. In this regard, it is necessary to clarify some other archival terms ("fundraiser", "archival unit", etc.), because such treatment of archival terminology does not meet the general high level of solving the problems posed in the monograph.

page 157

Permanent link to this publication: