Bolsheviks, Baggers and Railroaders

Students of the Russian Civil War have long considered the railroad system crucial to the survival of the Communist regime.1 Some scholars also recognized early on that food supply was a critical question in the history of Soviet Russia.2 Recent studies have shed more light on both topics, but this paper combines the two in a study of the Communist state's attempt to monopolize the transport of food, especially grain, on the railroads.3 In addition to discussing how the Soviet state sought to enforce that monopoly, the paper analyzes policymaking from two complementary perspectives. One surveys the actual problems encountered in the social space of the railroad network and considers the available policy options. The other assesses the effects of policy decisions in the light of the state's two basic purposes: to survive, and to advance the revolutionary transformation of human society. In addressing these issues, I will try to avoid taking sides in the old debate between those who ascribed primacy in Bolshevik policies and motivations to either

Physics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Computer Science · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Law · Soviet and Russian History

• Canadian Publications on the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for 1993

  Nevenka Koscevic, Connie Wawruck-Hemmet•Canadian Slavonic Papers•1994

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• Honour among communists

  Robert Argenbright•Revolutionary Russia•1998

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