country work, mainly woodcutting. They tried to collaborate
with the local "Troikas," sending help when these Committees asked
for it. This, however, proved unsatisfactory, so, disregarding the
"Troikas," they organized things for themselves in the whole area
immediately behind the front. They divided up the forests into definite
districts, and they worked these with soldiers and with deserters.
Gradually their work developed, and they built themselves narrow-gauge
railways for the transport of the wood. Then they needed wagons and
locomotives, and of course immediately found themselves at loggerheads
with the railway authorities. Finally, they struck a bargain with
the railwaymen, and were allowed to take broken-down wagons which the
railway people were not in a position to mend. Using such skilled labor
as they had, they mended such wagons as were given them, and later made
a practice of going to the railway yards and in inspecting "sick" wagons
for themselves, taking out any that they thought had a chance even
of temporary convalescence. Incidentally they caused great scandal
by finding in the Smolensk sidings among the locomotives and wagons
supposed to be sick six good locomotives and seventy perfectly healthy
wagons. Then they began to improve the feeding of their army by sending
the wood they had cut, in the trains they had mended, to people who
wanted wood and could give them provisions. One such train went to
Turkestan and back from the army near Smolensk. Their work continually
increased, and since they had to remember that they were an army and
not merely a sort of nomadic factory, they began themselves to mobilize,
exclusively for purposes of work, sections of the civil population.
I asked Unshlicht, who had much to do with this organization, if the
peasants came willingly. He said, "Not very," but added that they did
not mind when they found that they got well fed and were given packets
of salt as prizes for good work. "The peasants," he said, "do not
grumble against the Government when it shows the sort of common
sense that they themselves can understand. We found that when we said
definitely how many carts and men a village must provide, and used them
without delay for a definite purpose, they were perfectly satisfied and
considered it right and proper. In every case, however, when they saw
people being mobilized and sent thither without obvious purpose or
result, they became hostile at once." I asked Unsh