Zemstvo Offices for Small-Scale Credit

credit institutions in prerevolutionary Russia established at the district zemstvo (local self-government) level according to the law of July 7, 1904, to serve peasants and rural artisans. By the 20th century, capitalistic relations had become deeply ingrained in rural Russia; peasant’s farms and rural artisan’s enterprises needed credit, which they could not obtain from the banks. Loans for commercial turnover and for buying implements were issued by the zemstvo offices for small-scale credit. Their services were mostly used by kulak elements and by the upper class of the well-to-do artisans. As of the end of 1914, there were \\5Szemstvo offices for small-scale credit (1.5 percent of the total number of cooperative credit institutions). The zemstvo offices for small-scale credit did not have sufficient funds (their loans represented only 7 percent of all loans issued by the cooperative credit institutions), and there-fore they were not developed on a large scale.