ABSTRACT
The crisis in Russia's food supply during the winter of 1916 helped topple the old regime and threatened to create sufficient upheaval in towns, garrisons and trenches to jeopardise the war effort itself. The efforts of food dealers, co-operatives, warehouse owners and railway administrators were devoted primarily to the movement of grain from the main producing regions in the Central Agricultural Region and the south-west to the main centres of consumption and to Russia's ports. Around one-third of all cereal production reached the market, with roughly equal proportions being destined for the home and foreign markets. A rough approximation of the size of the cereal harvest on the territory continuously in Russian hands reveals sharp differences in the behaviour of individual crops. Russian consumers did not starve, but their access to food depended increasingly on their own efforts to obtain food by whatever means, including semi-legal initiatives and the outright seizure and redistribution of stocks during food riots.
