The Russian Revolution/Chapter 20
XX.
BOLSHEVIK RAILROADING.
Even before 1914 the approximately 60,000 miles of railroads in Russia were inadequate to meet the needs of her 167,000,000 people scattered over a territory about three times as large as the United States. Now their insufficiency is more acute than ever, for the stormy days since August, 1914, have just about wrought their ruin, It is estimated that at present they are working at about 30 to 40 per cent of their pre-war efficiency. Industry in general is suffering accordingly.
The breakdown of the railroads began during the world war, when they were badly over-worked and neglected. Things were made worse by the social upheaval attending the revolution, which brought about wholesale sabotage of the railroad service by reactionary officials who still held their old positions. The ruin was further accentuated by the economic blockade of Russia, which by shutting off all importation, threw thousands of locomotives out of service for want of injectors, piping, and other small parts which had formerly all come from foreign countries and which Russia, in the broken-down state of her industries, was unable to produce. The final blow at the railroads was struck by the long civil war. Denekine, Kolchak, and other counter-revolutionaries destroyed thousands of miles of track, and great numbers of stations, engines, cars, etc. They dynamited 1600 bridges—a Red Army colonel told me of one bridge that had been blown up and rebuilt no less than six times by the advancing and retreating armies.
Under all these destructive influences the Russian railroads collapsed, and in view of the country's generally demoralized condition industrially, it is almost a super-human task to re-habilitate them. Yet a great deal has been done. Practically all the track has been put in shape again and most of the bridges also. Little by little the number of "well" engines increases and that of "sick" ones decreases. More and more cars are constantly being rendered available for transport. The 1,250,000 railroaders are earnestly at work, and the people at large follow with interest the "scores" made by them in the "shock" shops and on the various divisions. Gradually the difficulties are being overcome. With the lifting of the blockade large numbers of injectors and other articles, for which the roads are in dire need, are coming into the country. Heavy orders for locomotives, for early delivery, have been placed in Germany and Sweden. A general air of optimism prevails in railroad circles and great plans are being made for the future improvement of Russia's transportation system, among which is one providing for the electrification of every railroad in the country.
A few days ago, in company with a body of railroad men from various countries, I visited a number of Moscow's railroad offices, shops, and yards. First we called on the head of an important road. He greeted us most affably, and bubbling over with enthusiasm, explained for an hour the economic functions of his road and the plans that have been laid out for its future development. Leaving his office, we then had a look at the offices of the trade union and the Communist Party hard by. Both these organizations have definitely recognized functions in Russian industry, and their headquarters are always to be found near those of the general management.
Next our party went to the "back shop." There we found much activity, nearly all of which stopped upon our arrival. The workers were "tickled to death" to greet us. The mechanics among them explained the great difficulties they suffered for want of brass, babbit, tin, etc., and described their many ingenuous substitutes for these apparently indispensible materials. To me the machinery in the shops, a heritage from the days of the Czars, seemed primitive—about what was to be found in American railroad shops twenty years ago. Attached to the shop were large dining rooms, assembly halls, and library—all built since the revolution—for the refreshment, entertainment, and education of the workers.
From the shops we went to the big switching yard on the Moscow belt line. Since the recapture of the Baku oil regions and the Donetz coal mines by the Soviet forces most Russian locomotives have been readapted to burning oil or coal with a consequent great saving in fuel production and transport. But the one that pulled our train was still a wood burner. I rode in the cab, and on the way out fell into an argument with the engine crew as to the proper way to fire a locomotive with wood. I told them that when steam was badly needed the wood should be thrown in with the bark side up, and used to buttress my argument the story told by ancient American railroad men to the effect that even the old wood-burning engines themselves were aware of this fact, and as they laboriously coughed their way up the hills their slow exhaust kept enjoining the firemen to put the wood in "Bark-side-up," "Bark-side-up," etc., and when they topped the grades and steaming became easy, the rapid exhaust generously advised the firemen to "Throw-it-in-any-old-way," "Throw-it-in-any-old-way," etc. The Russian engine crew marvelled at the intelligence of our old wood-burners, but disputed the bark-side-up theory; the engineer from the standpoint of the laws of combustion, and the fireman from the less scientific, but more convincing grounds that as he could get no leather gloves because of the general shortage the only way he could protect his hands from splinters was to fire the wood bark-side-down. The fireman's reasoning settled the question.
The switching yard was at a town with an unpronouncable name not far from Moscow. It had two "humps," and about fifty miles of track. Several "cuts" of cars were broken up while we were there. Being a railroader myself, I watched the work with great interest. It was performed with dispatch; almost as fast as in American yards, despite the fact that Russian freight cars have no automatic couplers and to uncouple them the switchmen have to crawl under outlandish looking bumpers and unhook a turnbuckle arrangement. One advantage over the American system was that the cars, being very much smaller and lighter, could be sent down the hump riderless. A disadvantage of the yard was that for some reason, unknown to me, the tracks were about ten feet apart; thus at least doubling the walking necessary between the switches. The switch throwing was all done by hand.
In the yard was one of the world-famous propaganda trains. There are several of these in Russia. It is their mission to popularize the Government program and revolutionary ideas in general among the workers and peasants who live far from the big cities. The whole country is divided into sections, each of which has its propaganda train, The train we saw was decorated from end to end with revolutionary pictures. One car was fitted-out as a moving-picture theatre, another as a bookstore, and a third as a power plant to furnish light and electricity to the whole train. The train carried a large crew of speakers and agitators, who hold meetings along the route. The train also was equipped with a printing outfit, upon which are prepared newspapers and pamphlets for the eager peasants. A powerful wireless furnished the latest news to this unique newspaper. Wherever the propaganda trains go they make a sensation. Unquestionably they are an unusually powerful means of educating the people. The railroad men themselves are very much taken by the idea, and everywhere one sees the cars and locomotive tenders adorned with revolutionary mottoes and pictures, many of them very well painted.
The switch-yard we visited was the freight terminus of one of the most important railroads in Russia. The road's condition may be judged from the following figures given me by the guide accompanying our party. He said that before the world war there were eight freight trains each way daily; during the war the number ran up to twenty-four, and when we visited it there were ten. We inquired about passenger traffic, but as our guide was a freight man he could give us no authentic figures.
On our way home we called in at a hospital devoted to railroad workers employed in the Moscow district. The hospital was built several years ago, and its equipment was quite modern. There was a terrible shortage of medicines, however, as we could plainly see from the depleted aspect of the hospital apothecary shop. The doctors and nurses told us that many of their railroader patients had died in agony simply because the Entente countries would not allow Russia to import indispensible medical supplies. Many of the sick were women, a large percentage of Russian railroad workers being of that sex. The place was equipped for 500 patients and was nearly full. The staff informed us that during the recent typhus epidemic there were as many as 2500 cases being taken care of at one time. They were all railroad workers from the Moscow district. We visited every department in the institution except those devoted to patients suffering from cholera, typhus, and other contagious diseases. We could see some cholera cases through the windows of their section, but we were not anxious to make any closer acquaintance with the dreaded plague of which they were victims. Finally, bidding goodbye to our new-found sick railroader friends, we mounted our train and soon were plugging serenely along on our way back to Moscow.