The results of activity of Russian joint-stock companies during the First World War (by the example of enterprises on processing of nutritious and gustatory substances)

Introduction. The article is devoted to the analysis of the results of activity of joint-stock companies during the First World War in the context of researching of reasons which led to the February 1917. At that, the author pays the most attention to the analysis of the activity of these enterprises during the last pre-revolutionary year 1916. Materials and methods. The work is based on the wide range of sources, including archive as well as statistics collections and publications issued by the leading economic journals in 1916-1917. System analysis is used and the main research method. Results. The author makes a conclusion that these are the joint-stock companies as the most dynamically developing form of incorporation of private capital at the edge of XIX-XX centuries which succeeded among all other forms of organizing capitalistic enterprises, mostly because of its organizational, legal and economic features. However, once the war began, the private business got in a more difficult situation, since it was not allowed for them to perform war department orders. Only after the war actions were delayed as of 1915 the state was forced to engage joint-stock companies to supply the army, mostly with raw materials and food. Discussion. The author focuses on the activity of enterprises specializing in processing of nutritious and gustatory substances. In this context the author describes in more detail the work of confectionary factories, who managed to get the best of the situation and significantly increased the production of cheap confectionaries, which resulted in sweets becoming a democratic product instead of a luxury good. Despite the crisis in 1916, which the sugar industry suffered, confectionary production continued to raise. Only in 1917 an insignificant decrease began, which was caused by the whole incapacity of the economic mechanism, which degradation was caused by revolution events. Conclusion. The conclusion is made that almost all private joint-stock companies of food industry worked rather stable during the war: showed profit, increased capitalization, payed dividends to the shareholders, which were not less than the pre-war ones or even exceeded them. At that, it is important to mention that the increase of dividends of joint-stock companies during the war proved not the economic prosperity of the workers but mostly the increase of inequality, which in its turn gave good reasons for escalation of social conflicts in society and in this regard supported the revolution. In this regard, the economic situation in the country did not look dangerous up to the beginning of 1917.