The formation of the crisis of protecting the Railways of Soviet Russia in 1917 - 1919: a view from the inside

Importance. In 1917, the objects of the transport infrastructure went through a durability test. The Bolsheviks used emergency measures and spontaneously created armed formations, however, their effectiveness was unsatisfactory. The government had been looking for a way out of the crisis. The documents stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation testify to the reasons for the failures of railway protection in the first post-revolutionary years. The purpose of the study is to analyse the process of formation and adjustment of state policy in the field of transport security and the state of railway protection in 1917–1919 and to assess the information presented in the report by V.V. Fomin.
Materials and Methods. The historical and genetic method allows to consider the peculiarities of railway protection in 1917–1919. The retrospective method contributes to the condition assessment of railway protection. The empirical data are grouped by the typological method. The comparative method identifies common and special features of the phenomena considered. The structural method divides information into smaller elements and organises into a hierarchical structure. The analytical method is used to verify the facts set out in the report.
Results and Discussion. The reasons for the railroad protection failures in the early years of the Soviet regime are identified. The events on railroad transport of 1917–1919 are characterised.
Conclusion. It is concluded that the complex analysis of the sources revealing the reasons for the failure of railroad protection in the early years of the Soviet regime is necessary; the approaches of the highest echelon of power to the development of state policy on transport in 1917–1919 are shown.