On March 15, 1919, the Samara Gubernia Executive Committee received a telegram: "Samara, to all uyezdsovdepam. In order to restore the destroyed sections of the railway and bridges as soon as possible, as well as in connection with the approach of spring ice drifts, all Soviets are invited to provide the most energetic assistance in organizing the expulsion of the necessary number of workers and carts at the request of the railway administration, which must be carried out urgently on an equal basis with the requirements of the military command. Responsibility for insufficient and untimely delivery of workers and carts is assigned to the volost, uyezd and provincial executive committees. For refusal and non-performance of work, the perpetrators will be tried by the military revolutionary tribunal. Chairman of the Soviet of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense Lenin. For the Markov Drug Company " 1 .
What was the reason for these extraordinary measures? Memoirs of contemporaries and archival documents restore the prehistory of the telegram... A difficult situation developed in the Volga region after the expulsion of the White Guards from there in the summer and autumn of 1918. Retreating, they destroyed huge material values. Equipment in factories and factories was removed or rendered unusable, oil tanks and warehouses in Syzran and Samara were destroyed, and public utilities were disabled in cities: water supply, sewerage, and transport. "No thief," S. A. Korotkoi, commissar of the Samara - Zlatoust Railway, noted in his report to the headquarters of the 1st Army, "will turn around as the founders robbed the state premises." 2 Railway transport was in a particularly difficult situation. The connection of the Middle Volga with the country was interrupted, as the bridges near Simbirsk and Syzran, as well as across the Kinel, Samara and Belaya Rivers, were blown up, and the track facilities were rendered unusable. 138 destroyed and burned bridges, many versts of dismantled tracks, 40% of damaged telegraph and telephone networks - this is just a short list of the destruction on the Samara-Zlatoust railway 3 .
There was also no telegraphic connection with the center. As reported in the report of the postal and telegraph district administration, " from Syzran to Samara, control poles were cut down and blown up at all railway stations, ... a telegraph cable across the Volga River connecting the Center with Siberia and Turkestan was blown up along with railway bridges, cables and wires across the Samarka River in Samara were blown up"4 . Belyaks almost completely destroyed the already meager locomotive and car fleet. Instead of 600 steam locomotives on the Samara-Zlatoust railway, only 67 remained, and even those could work with great difficulty. Meanwhile, the condition of this highway depended on the delivery of equipment and food to the Eastern Front, whose troops fought heavy battles with the Kolchaks, as well as the supply of bread to the center. The restoration of transport in these conditions became not only the most important military and economic, but also a political task.
V. I. Lenin said at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on January 17, 1919: "The last desperate crisis in St. Petersburg is due to the fact that our supplies are on the Volga-Bugulma railway and it is impossible to remove them from there. The transport situation is desperate. " 5 And on December 29, 1918, Lenin presided over a meeting of the Defense Council, where the issue of increasing the carrying capacity of the Volga-Bugulma Railway was discussed.
1 "V. I. Lenin and Samara". Kuibyshev, 1966, p. 132.
2 "Samara province during the Civil War". Collection of documents. Kuibyshev, 1958, p. 139.
3 "50 years on the road". Kuibyshev, 1967, p. 62.
4 State Archive of the Kuibyshev region, f. 21, op. 3, d. 1, ll. 16-17.
5 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 426.
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Lenin recommended that all forces should be used to provide assistance to transport, and that people should be mobilized as labor conscripts to restore destroyed railway tracks and bridges, and clear drifts.
The delay in restoring the bridge over the Volga near Syzran 6 was particularly hindering traffic. Wagons with cargo had to be rolled across the Volga River on ice, along a temporarily laid railway line. On January 20, 1919, for example, 170 wagons were rolled over, and from January 11 to January 20, 10 block trains with 7 loaves of bread were transported in this way, but this was not enough, and the work was extremely laborious. Despite his enormous workload, Lenin personally supervised the restoration of the Syzran and Simbirsk Bridges over the Volga, the bridges over the Kinel and Samarka Rivers. When in December 1918 Vladimir Ilyich was informed about the delay in these works, and he demanded that a special commission of inquiry be appointed immediately to find out the reason for the delay and punish those responsible .8
On January 23, 1919, the Samara Provincial Committee of the RCP(b) discussed the situation on the Samara-Zlatoust railway and adopted a number of measures to strengthen party work among railway workers and bridge builders. To restore the work of transport, the best forces of the party organization were mobilized. At the suggestion of V. V. Kuibyshev, a large group of communists was sent to help the railway workers. It included local party leaders and metalworkers, builders, and bridge workers .9 The commissioning of the destroyed sections of the railway was carried out directly following the advance of the advancing Red Army units. The main work was performed by specially created repair teams. First of all, bridges, railway tracks, communication facilities, and water supply were reconstructed.
On Lenin's initiative, a group of skilled workers and bridge engineers arrived from Moscow to help Syzran residents. V. D. Bonch - Bruevich later wrote about the progress of the restoration of the bridge over the Volga: "With what a huge effort, I remember, they repaired, for example, the Syzran Bridge over the Volga... We gathered a select group of workers in Moscow and transferred them to the site by emergency trains. Everything necessary for repairs was sent after them, and I, in my position as manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, monitored the passage of these trains through all the junctions and reported on the progress of the case to Vladimir Ilyich twice a day... The work was very difficult, but it progressed with amazing speed. The workers were well aware of the enormous political significance of restoring this bridge, which connects the Urals and Siberia with the central provinces. The Government issued large food rations to the construction workers. Riveting the bridge was necessary at a very high altitude, in a sharp wind, with a frost of 18° " 10 .
The board of the Samara Trade Union of Railway Transport Workers and Employees appealed to the railway workers with a proclamation in which they called on:: "All efforts to raise the transport, to increase its efficiency for the front and rear!"11 . Workers and peasants involved in the repair of bridges and railway tracks, regardless of time, selflessly worked to speed up the restoration of the destroyed. However, the commissioning of transport routes progressed more slowly than the situation required. There were not enough people and materials. The situation on the railway remained extremely tense. To concentrate all efforts on the delivery of bread to the Center, from March 15, 1919, a "commodity month" was declared on the Samara-Zlatoust road, and all passenger transportation was canceled.
In order to speed up the restoration of bridges and destroyed sections of the railway, Lenin signed the telegram above on March 15, 1919. A day after receiving it, the deputy of the Samara pre-city executive committee replied:: "Pre-Council of Defense to Comrade Lenin. Gubkom mobilized 14 responsible Soviet workers to restore transport. The request of the railway authorities is executed immediately. I will make an urgent order to the executive committees " 12 .
6 In October 1918, two spans of the bridge were blown up by retreating White Guards.
7 "Commune", 27. III. 1919.
8 "Samaritans to Ilyich". Collection of documents. Kuibyshev. 1970, p. 206.
9 Party archive of the Kuibyshev Regional Committee of the CPSU (PACO), f. 1, op. 1, 36, l. 14.
10 "Memoirs of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", Vol. 4, Moscow, 1969, pp. 344-345.
11 "Essays on the history of the Kuibyshev organization of the CPSU". Kuibyshev, 1960, p. 290.
12 TsGAOR USSR, f. 130, op. 4, d. 602, l. 36.
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The workers of the Samara main railway workshops wrote in the "Bulletin of Railways" in March 1919: "We, the workers of the Samara main workshops, having heard at the general meeting on March 21 the report of Comrade Diakonov on the need to exert all our forces to raise transport for the salvation of the RSFSR and taking into account all the hard work of our advanced comrades-the workers of Moscow and Petrograd, from hunger, we make a solemn promise to exert all our strength to raise transport and commit ourselves to fulfill this promise in practice. " 13 The Samara Regional Committee of the RCP(b) discussed and outlined specific measures for the rapid restoration of bridges and destroyed sections of the railway. Compulsory labor and horse-drawn service was introduced in Samara, Buguruslansky, Bugulminsky, Buzuluksky and Melekessky counties. Orders of the railway were urgently fulfilled by all metalworking enterprises of Samara and Syzran. In addition to the enterprises of the Gubernia-Sovnarkhoz, the engineering and construction Department of the Southern Group of Troops of the Eastern Front was involved in the work, and the Gubkomrem (provincial commission for the repair and reconstruction of railway transport) was created. Agitators of the Gubernia party committee intensified political work among the population involved in the restoration of destroyed railway sections: political conversations were regularly held, leaflets and newspapers were distributed .14 The measures taken have yielded results. The pace of work increased every day, and the bridge over the Volga River near Syzran was put into operation two weeks ahead of schedule. On March 28, 1919, after testing, the opening of traffic across the Volga River on the Syzran Bridge took place. M. V. Frunze was present at the celebration on this occasion. On March 29, 1919, the commissioner of the People's Commissariat of State Control for the Samara region telegraphed Lenin: "To the Chairman of the Defense Council. On the twenty-eighth of March, the bridge across the Volga River is open " 15 . The Samara and Kinelsky bridges 16 were also put into operation ahead of schedule, and in early April traffic resumed along the entire Samara-Zlatoust railway. Lenin's directive was carried out.
13 "50 years on the road", p. 110.
14 PACO, f. 1, op. 1, d. 36, l. 15.
15 "Samaritans to Ilyich", p. 36.
16 On April 1, 1919, the bridge over the Kinel River was restored, and on April 4, the bridge over the Samara River was restored.
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