Abstract
This article aims to quantify and assess the damage and destruction suffered by the locomotive stock of the Russian railways during the First World War and Civil War, as a means both
to test Bolshevik claims of wanton destruction by anti-Soviet forces and to examine the post-war recovery. It argues that destruction was rather less extensive than one might expect; that although damage did become significant, it only briefly threatened the Bolshevik regime; and that in this area the so-called ‘restoration period’ of 1921 –25 was in fact primarily a process of modernisation in which new equipment replaced damaged and old equipment.
to test Bolshevik claims of wanton destruction by anti-Soviet forces and to examine the post-war recovery. It argues that destruction was rather less extensive than one might expect; that although damage did become significant, it only briefly threatened the Bolshevik regime; and that in this area the so-called ‘restoration period’ of 1921 –25 was in fact primarily a process of modernisation in which new equipment replaced damaged and old equipment.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 31-59 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Revolutionary Russia |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | Jun 2012 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsFor assistance with the preparation of this paper the author is especially grateful to Bob Argenbright, Eileen Consey, P. A. Copeland, Susan Heywood, Iurii Il’in, Boris Kolonitskii, Ben Marsden, the late F. M. Page, Sergei Pogodin, John Westwood and the anonymous peer reviewers. The research was part-funded by the British Academy and Russian Academy of Sciences.