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The Soviet Union was heavily dependent on rail transport, not least during the Russian Civil War and the World War II, but also for industrialization according to the five-year plans. During the Soviet era, freight rail traffic increased 55 times (over that of the Russian empire just before World War I), passenger traffic increased almost 10 times, and the length of the rail network almost doubled.〔Громов, p.170〕 The Soviet Union had a railway network of (excluding industrial railways), of which were electrified. ==Pre-war industrialization period, 1928-1941== After the foundation of the Soviet Union the People's Commissariat of Railways (NKPS) (after 1946 renamed the Ministry of Railways (МПС)), the railway network expanded to a total length of 106,100 km by 1940 (vs. 81,000 km in 1917 which was exceeded in length only by the United States).〔Гормов pp. 15,17〕 The volume of freight hauled (in tonne-km) increased over 4 fold during this period.〔Аксененко v.2, ch.30, table 30.4〕 A notable project of the late 1920s and one of the centerpieces of the First Five-Year Plan was the Turkestan–Siberia Railway, linking Western Siberia via Eastern Kazakhstan with Uzbekistan. In the late 1920s, the young Soviet Union under Stalin embarked on a program of rapid industrialization. In a 1931 speech, where Stalin promoted intensive industrialization, he concluded with "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall be crushed."〔J. V. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, (Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1953) pp. 454-458. (Stalin on Rapid Industrialization: Speech to Industrial Managers, February 1931 ) From "Documents in Russian History" a website whose "about" page is currently blank.〕 But if industrialization is to be given first priority, what priority is to be given to railway development, keeping in mind that industrialization requires greatly increased rail transportation of goods, for example, iron ore and coal to steel mills. An example of this was the "Ural-Kuznetsk metallurgical combine" (approved in 1928) where the source of coal was located over 2000 km from the source of iron ore.〔Westwood 1994, p. 163.〕 Not only that, but the steel output has to be transported long distances to the points of it use. A British railway historian 〔Westwood 1994, p.158〕 claims that the Soviet objective was to limit investment in railway improvements so that railways could barely meet the new and heavy demands for increased transport placed on them by industrialization, thereby allowing more capital for such industrialization. While there were significant investments made in railways, they were not enough to avoid the failure at times to transport all the goods, especially in early 1931 and 1933 which were called "crises". Some of these resulted in shutdowns of production.〔Westwood 1994, pp ,.165-7〕 However, in other cases "crisis" was used to describe a situation where the stocks of inputs stored at a plant (such as iron ore at a steel mill) almost ran out due the railways failure to deliver on time. No harm would be done to production but it would be a close call. Near the start of first 5-year plan of industrialization (1928) there were four main railway decision makers: the government, the party, Gosplan (the Soviet planning agency), the and the railway ministry (known as NKPS).〔Аксененко, v.2, ch. 2.3 3rd para. Westwood 1994, p.159〕 When the NKPS didn't seem to be able to cope with a situation, the party or government would intervene.〔Westwood 1994, p. 159–60.〕 The majority agreed on increasing investments, but there was no clear consensus on how these investments were to be used. Gosplan advocated the rationalization of the railways, coupled with tariffs based on actual cost, which would reduce traffic demand and provide funds for investment. In 1931, in a Central Committee (CC) resolution proposed recapitalization 〔Лехно p.31+ explains the meanings of various names given to track work〕 (replacing all the ties, rails, and renewing the ballast by either cleaning or new ballast) to create some "super mainlines" which would be electrified. This resolution was never adequately carried out, and the actual electrification achieved was only about a tenth of that proposed. The Central Committee sent Lazar Kaganovich to solve the railway crisis in 1935. Kaganovich first prioritized bottleneck areas over other less-traveled areas; his second priority was investing in heavy traffic lines, and thirdly, other lines (which were also burdened with increases traffic) were left to fend for themselves.〔Westwood 1994, p. 160–61.〕 Another problem facing rail transport was the massive industrialization efforts pushed on by the authorities. The industrialization proved to be a heavy burden on the railways, and Vyacheslav Molotov and Kaganovich even admitted this to the 18th party congress. Even so, the Soviet Government continued their industrialization efforts to better prepare themselves for a future war with Germany, which became reality in 1941.〔Westwood 1994, p. 162–63.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rail transport in the Soviet Union」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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