Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/431
in the fall of 1918. Thus it was due to the tireless work of Czechoslovak engineers, who organized the available Russian common labor, that at the evacuation of the city of Samara millions of bombs and cartridges were saved. In Ufa they saved 10 tanks of oil, raw and refined. In general Czechoslovak technical experts saved in the vast territory west of the Urals, which had to be abandoned, all munitions, clothing and other necessaries, so that the Bolsheviks found there practically nothing that they could use for their own armies. Where the Russians worked alone, they did not make a very good showing; thus they had a whole month to evacuate Perm, but they did not save a single trainload of petroleum, although there was stored in Perm 325,000 pouds of it and all of northern Siberia lacked coal oil for their lamps.
By taking stock of raw material, ready manufactures and technical means of production and by good management the Czechoslovaks succeeded in making everything last for six months before new supplies were imported. Profiteering was kept down, because the Technical Corps assumed control over prices of materials and manufactures needed by the army.
By their energy and ability the Czechoslovaks saved incidentally much Allied property, for citizens of Allied states had a great deal of capital invested in factories over which Czechoslovak engineers exercised control; this capital would have been lost, together with the factories, without Czechoslovak interference. And if the plants had been permitted to go to ruin there would be practically no industrial production in Siberia today, for conditions still are not such as to encourage enterprise, and, besides, there persists deep distrust between the owners or managers and employees.
It is a great pity that the recent successes of the Bolsheviks have destroyed much of what the Czechoslovaks saved or created. The plants which they operated were for the most part located in the Urals, where coal and metals and other minerals are found, and where there was centered considerable industrial life. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks got very little when they drove back Kolchak's armies. Czechoslovak enginers who were on the spot, although their own army was guarding the railroad far to the east, saved raw material, ready manufactures and machinery, and when the Bolsheviki are thrown back it will be a comparatively easy matter to get the factories going once more.
The All-Russian government and Russian industrial circles appreciate fully the great work done by the Technical Corps of the Czechoslovak army, and in the records of the Corps there are many documents testifying to Czechoslovak efficiency in Siberia.