Change in the conditions of the meat consumer market in the Irkutsk Governorate General in the years of the First World War
The article examines the reasons for changing the conditions of the meat consumer market functioning in the Irkutsk Governorate General during the First World War. It is shown that the government initially did not develop a plan for supplying meat to the army and the civilian population, which included measures for the rational use of meat reserves and the support of cattle breeding. Peasants reduced livestock due to shortage of labor and shortages of fodder, wide speculation of wholesalers-buyers, increased demand for meat from the population of cities. By the end of 1916 there was a significant decrease in the number of livestock, a shortage of meat began in the rear and at the front. In the Irkutsk Governorate, cattle breeding was one of the main occupations of the foreign and Russian peasant population, but imbalances and regional disproportions were characteristic of the local meat market. Foreigners consumed mainly meat and dairy food and practically did not engage in commercial livestock production. In the uyezds with the settlers from the western regions of the country, consumption grew faster than the increase in production: the development of industry, the consolidation of cities markedly increased the demand for cattle products. A lot of meat was required for gold mines. The meat was concentrated in the hands of large wholesalers who imported it from Mongolia and Western Siberia. During the war years, the two most important factors influenced the change in the meat market in the region: the beginning of the work of the Mongolian expedition and the introduction of firm prices. As a result of the activities of the expedition, stocks of commercial cattle were quickly exhausted, and on the Mongolian market, in the Siberian and Far Eastern regions, representatives of various cities, public organizations, speculators created competition for each other and inflated prices. The introduction of solid prices, which were significantly higher than the market prices that existed in Siberia, led to the massive export of livestock and meat to the European part of the country.