“...Locomotives will freeze, famine is coming, and there are cases of typhus...”. Railways of the Great Siberian campaign 1919–1920

The  publication  of  documentary  materials  reflects  the  history of the organization and conducting of the retreat of the units of Admiral A.V. Kolchak’s  Eastern  Front  and  the  evacuation  of  civilian  refugees  from  Omsk and  other  cities  in  Siberia  in  November  1919 –  January  1920.  The  article considers the issues of the technical condition and operation of the TRANSSiberian railway and, in particular, the functioning of the rolling stock. Those aspects for the history of the Civil War in the East of Russia to this day remain poorly studied. Evidence is provided on the state of the military, refugee and civil  trains,  and  about  the  situation  of  passengers.  Consistently  and  with the  involvement  of  documentary  material,  the  stages  of  the  preparation  and implementation of evacuation measures are described, and the reasons for the failure of planned decisions are analyzed. The article presents evidence on the consequences of full-scale disaster with the railway accident that became part of the Civil War history in Siberia. The materials from the State Archives of the Russian Federation that have not been widely used in scientific research and have not been published yet, as well as some previously published documentary evidence, were used. The study of that aspect of the Civil War history in Siberia allows to get an idea of not only the military, but also of the political importance that the TRANS-Siberian railway played in the absence of developed transport communications in the East of Russia.

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