ABSTRACT
All the associations, all the organizations of the commercial-industrial class, whatever their objectives in a technical sense, were obliged in practice to turn away from their “business-like” course and enter the path of politics. In Adolf A. Volskii’s practical view, for example, national economic policy should be directed toward “promoting the economic glorification of Russia” and indicating “the paths to a better future, which can be realized under the present cultural, living, and political conditions of Russia.” The Association’s publications provide little support for early Marxist allegations of a bourgeois “alliance” with the government, and even with the agrarian conservatives, for the purpose of forestalling a popular revolution. During the war, Zhukovskii demonstrated his devotion to Russia’s cause by working with Avdakov to create the Central War Industries Committee. Organizationally, the Union was to rest on a network of local and provincial committees of trade and industry.
