The articles of the thematic collection consider and compare the state of the Russian economy in the run-up to and during the world wars. The study of trends and features of the formation of the mobilization economy of Russia during the years of the First and ІІ World Wars and the post-war recovery period makes it possible to re-evaluate and correlate the readiness of the most important spheres of the domestic economy and management structures to solve the social, economic and financial tasks of wartime in the beginning and middle of the XX century