War Industry Committee

"Military Industrial Committee" redirects here. For a state organ of Belarus, see ru:Государственный военно-промышленный комитет Республики Беларусь. For a state organ of Russia, see Military-Industrial Commission of Russia.

The War Industry Committees (WIC) or Military Industrial Committees (Russian: Военно-промышленные комитеты) were set up in Imperial Russia in 1916 in order to respond to the munitions crisis particularly following a series of defeats on the Galician Front in April 1915. The first congress of the war-industries committees was held on ees 25-27 July, 1915.^[1]

Whereas there were 226 district and local committees set up by February 1916, the Central War Industry Committee had a specific role in terms of allocating money, contracts and materials on behalf of the state. The local committees developed according to the conditions from which they emerged as there was not always a strong link with the Central WIC.^[2] The Moscow WIC, for example, was quite independent of the Central WIC, and under Pavel Ryabushinsky they frequently organised contracts without going through the Central WIC.^[2] By 1917 59 committees were running factories.^[3]

Central War Industry Committee

In July 1915 Alexander Guchkov, of the Progressive Bloc was elected chair of the Central Military Industrial Committee [ru].^[2] Peter Palchinsky was deputy chair.^[4]

See also

• Committee for Military-Technical Assistance

References

1. Siegelbaum, Lewis H. (1980). "The Workers' Groups and the War-Industries Committees: Who Used Whom?". The Russian Review. 39 (2): 150–180. doi:10.2307/128687. ISSN 0036-0341.
2. Peeling, Siobhan. "War Industry Committees". International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Freie Universität Berlin. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
3. Coopersmith, Jonathan. "Electrification, 1886–1914". The Electrification of Russia, 1880-1926. Cornell University Press. pp. 42–98. ISBN 978-1-5017-0716-2.
4. Beissinger, Mark R. (1988). Scientific management, socialist discipline, and Soviet power. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674794907.