UDC

Authors

Abstract

This article turns to the black market and shadow economy in the Russian Empire during World War I. The destruction of the established economic ties opened up new opportunities for traders to make substantial profit. The author of this paper studied previously unused archival documents to reveal the methods and schemes of illegal transactions with key commodities: food and strategic raw materials. Over time, the shadow sector extended to new segments of the national economy, undermining the economic mechanism and playing into the enemy’s hands. Moreover, the fraudulent schemes described here in detail were applied both by petty traders and prominent representatives of the economic elite in southern Russia, such as the company of E.T. Paramonov’s heirs. Local authorities monitored the violations but had neither enough tools nor will to stop these illegal activities and waited for the command from above. Consequently, the executive bodies had no choice but to observe the negative trends affect the lives of ordinary people, causing unrest, giving rise to various rumours and paving the way for civil disobedience. Brothers Paramonov’s membership in the Constitutional Democratic Party and the first timid attempts to evaluate their commercial activities during the judicial inquiry, possibly, contributed to the growing discontent among the liberals with the government agencies.

Keywords

References

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