2

A Minister Plenipotentiary
for Russia’s Railroads:
The Stevens Commission in Russia,
June–December 1917

American efforts to reconstruct Russia’s political economy began in June 1917 where they would end in October 1922, on the Trans-Siberian railway system. Shortly after Russia’s March Revolution, which brought to power a fragile coalition of moderate socialists and liberals, the Wilson administration offered military assistance to the Provisional Government in the shape of railroad experts to improve operations on the strategic Trans-Siberian Railroad. In early May 1917, the administration announced that renowned railroad expert John F. Stevens would head an advisory commission of railroad experts to Russia for the disinterested purpose of assisting its military effort against Imperial Germany. Yet for American policymakers, and especially Stevens himself, the defeat of German war aims in Russia had important implications for American postwar objectives. Indeed, Stevens’s purely advisory role manifested the liberal principles Wilson hoped to infuse into postwar international relations generally. The United States hoped to open the Russian “door” by establishing the managerial and technical practices of the American corporate political economy on Russia’s developing transportation infrastructure. An international Open Door environment would provide the widest vent for America’s great financial resources and technical expertise.

Russia’s liberal March Revolution was a key determinant in Wilson’s decision to seek a declaration of war against Imperial Germany on April 2, 1917. In his confidential letter to Wilson on March 19, the first justification Secretary of State Robert Lansing gave the president for declaring war against Germany at that time was that such a step would “encourage and strengthen” the new liberal-democratic government in Russia.¹ For this reason, after America’s entry into the war, Wilson dispatched a special diplomatic mission headed by Elihu Root to Russia; the mission arrived in early June. Wilson hoped the Root mission would demonstrate America’s goodwill toward the Russian Revolution and help Washington determine the most effective means by which the United States might assist Russia’s war effort.

Meanwhile, the United States moved quickly to provide tangible assistance to the Provisional Government. On March 31, 1917, at a meeting of the Council of National Defense, Stanley Washburn, who had traveled extensively on the eastern front as a war correspondent, recommended that the United States send the fledgling government railroad experts to help improve the efficiency of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Any improvement in Russia’s war effort, and, ultimately, the very survival of the Provisional Government, depended on a major overhaul of the disorganized system of state-run railroads. Since early 1915, Russian industrialists had been criticizing government mismanagement of the railroads for the empire’s constant fuel and transportation shortages. But the industrialists lacked the unity and political will necessary to pressure the czarist government into enacting fundamental changes in the management of the state railroad system.² Recognizing that timely American assistance might break this impasse, Daniel Willard, the chairman of the Railway Advisory Committee of the Council of National Defense (CND), immediately offered to organize a commission of railroad experts for Russia. Demonstrating both its rationalizing impulses and its global perspective on the war, the CND believed that “competent railroad men” could also extend the benefits of American expertise to the Russian railway system. Inititially, the American experts would be expected to spend considerable time gathering data on the material and manpower needs of the chaotic Russian railway system.³

On April 2, 1917, the day Wilson requested a declaration of war against Imperial Germany, the State Department inquired of the Provisional Government whether it would welcome an inspection by six American railway experts.⁴ A week later the Provisional Government’s minister for Foreign Affairs, Pavel Miliukov, told Ambassador David R. Francis that he was authorized to accept the American offer. But shortly after this, Francis cabled Washington that he had not received formal consent. He had learned confidentially that the Russians had only reluctantly consented to the proposal, and he explained to the State Department that this hesitancy existed because the “Russian nature resents outside advice.” Moreover, the Russians claimed it would take two months before the commission could complete a report, and by that time it would be late in the summer. Francis did not question the motives of the Russian railway officials whom he believed to be competent; he merely passed on the request of the government that the United States expedite completion of an existing order for 375 locomotives from American manufacturers. The State Department quickly obtained a pledge from the American manufacturers to give priority to Russia’s orders.⁵

Washington anticipated that Russia would need extensive governmental credit to finance the purchase of locomotives and freight cars. Following a Russian request for an additional five hundred locomotives and ten thousand freight cars at the end of April, Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAddo explained to Francis the terms under which the U.S. government could extend Russia credits under the congressional authorization that allowed the Treasury to finance cobelligerents. The Provisional Government was anxious to obtain loans directly from the United States and not through British intermediation, as in the case of previous private loans from American banks. When American loans were made through Britain the cost of credit was increased, and Britain maintained some control over the purchases made by Russia. Under the terms of this loan, all Russian purchases had to be approved by a U.S. Treasury Department representative. This stipulation would help guarantee that America’s credit would be used for what the U.S. government believed to be the best purposes at a time when even its own financial resources were stretched. In other words, the United States would attach conditions to the loans it made to Kerensky’s government in order to closely supervise the supplies Russia would purchase.⁶

On May 17 the United States announced its decision to establish a credit of $100 million for the Provisional Government of Russia. This credit bore an interest rate of 3 percent per year, the same terms upon which the United States furnished credit to the Western allies. Root’s mission planned to discuss more fully with the Provisional Government Russia’s financial needs for its war effort. Additional credits could be provided by the United States within the limits set by Congress as the situation might demand.⁷

Prior to this, on May 3, the State Department announced that John F. Stevens would head the railroad mission to Russia, which would leave for Vladivostok in one week.⁸ A natural outdoorsman, Stevens built his reputation as a construction engineer in the American Northwest during his employment with James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railway, from 1889 to 1903. In 1905 Secretary of War William H. Taft made him chief engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission. During 1906 Stevens planned most of the construction work for the Panama Canal—many of his contemporaries believed he was largely responsible for the project’s ultimate success.⁹ Temperamental and physically rugged, Stevens was a commanding figure who exuded confidence and authority. He would have little tolerance for the deceitful and pretentious qualities of the Russian officials with whom he was to work. In turn, Stevens’s assertive management style would evoke resentment and much passive resistance from czarist officialdom. Nevertheless, his determination and his reputation as the leading civil railway engineer would help him to persevere during his trying service in Russia.

A controversy immediately developed between Root and Stevens over the commission’s ranking. Since the railroad question was the most important issue confronting Russia, Root believed that his special diplomatic mission should be authorized to discuss the issue with the Russian government. He feared the credibility of his mission might be undermined if the Railroad Commission were not accountable to it. Root wanted the railroad experts to make preliminary reports to the diplomatic mission and for all of the experts’ communications with the Russian government to pass through his hands.¹⁰

To head off a potential conflict over this issue Lansing drafted alternative instructions that defined the relationship between Root’s mission and the Railroad Commission. Under the first scenario, Stevens’s Commission would be directly subordinated to Root’s mission. Stevens would be obligated to report to Root’s mission and the railroad experts would function under Root’s direction. Alternatively, Stevens would be instructed to restrict the activities of his commission to transportation questions. But, since Root would carry ambassadorial rank, Stevens would be instructed to confer with him and to negotiate transportation questions with the Russian government in accordance with Root’s general recommendations.¹¹

Wilson flatly rejected both of Lansing’s definitions of the Railroad Commission’s status on May 7, 1917; the president left no room for misunderstanding. Wilson intended the Railroad Commission to be entirely independent of Root’s mission. Stevens and his experts were to be placed strictly at the service of the Russian government and were not to act as agents of the U.S. government. The commission would not report back to Washington, because it was accountable only to the Russians—to the extent the Russians desired its services. Perhaps because of his confidence in the technical ability of the American railroad engineers, Wilson believed the commission’s recommendations would be favorably received by the Russians.¹²

Wilson’s keen interest in this issue reflected the enlightened self-interest that characterized his Russian policy: he had a genuine desire to assist Russia’s liberal Revolution and a mistrust of the Allies’ traditional diplomacy. Wilson understood that American assistance to Russia must not only promote American interests; rather, an enduring and mutually beneficial relationship could only be developed if Russian national sovereignty was preserved. Wilson’s policy demonstrated a recognition that it would be counterproductive for the United States to impose its agenda on the Provisional Government; not only would heavy-handed American intervention violate his pledge to support liberalism in Russia, it would further erode the legitimacy of this fragile liberal government. Indeed, following Lansing’s offer to send the diplomatic mission to Russia in mid-April, Francis cautioned that the United States should work discreetly for the sole purpose of helping Russia to prosecute the war successfully. Francis counseled the State Department that great care should be exercised “in giving expression to views concerning internal affairs.” He emphasized that America’s prompt recognition of the Provisional Government, and President Wilson’s enthusiasm for the Russian Revolution, had made a “deep impression and have greatly augmented republican sentiment.” Francis consequently advised the State Department that the United States should “be careful to avoid anything likely to detract from a good record.”¹³

Wilson’s desire to place the Stevens Commission at the service of the Provisional Government must also be viewed within the context of the rivalry that existed between the United States and the Western allies over Russia. Francis had informed the State Department that Russian officials had only consented grudgingly to allow the visit by the American railroad experts.¹⁴ In view of this lukewarm reception, Wilson had all the more reason to demonstrate America’s respect for Russian sovereignty when Britain immediately attempted to divert American policy for its own purposes. On April 21, Britain’s ambassador, George Buchanan, told Francis that he was recommending to the Provisional Government that America be given control over Vladivostok and the whole Trans-Siberian railway system. As a quid pro quo, Britain had taken “control at Archangel.”¹⁵ This proposal was designed to erode Russia’s sovereignty by drawing the United States into a system of spheres of influence in Russia. This plan would also enhance Britain’s freedom of action by embroiling America with Japan in the Russian Far East. Francis reported that Britain’s proposal had aroused resentment among the Russian officials who told him, “Russia does not need nurses.”¹⁶ This context of interpower rivalry explains why Wilson took a personal interest in the status of Stevens’s Commission. Wilson’s intervention in this obscure controversy would give the United States an important diplomatic advantage in the coming years. Mindful of the Provisional Government’s tenuous position, Wilson shrewdly perceived the political advantage in having Stevens’s Commission formally appointed as an advisory body to this officially recognized regime. Following the Provisional Government’s collapse in November 1917, Wilson’s foresight placed the United States in a position to credibly assert that Stevens had been invested with the authority to assume trusteeship over the Trans-Siberian railway system.¹⁷

Wilson’s insistence that Stevens’s Commission act strictly as a body of technical experts, accountable only to the Russian government, certainly enhanced the credibility of the mission with important liberal-bourgeois elements in Russia, such as the Kadet party (Constitutional Democrats), a powerful force in the Provisional Government. While conservative on social questions, the Kadet party was eminently bourgeois in its view of itself as the steward of Russia’s future national greatness. In his study on Russian liberals during the Revolution, William Rosenberg has shown that what unified the Kadet party was the notion that it stood above partisan politics as the party of national progress.¹⁸

Stevens’s Commission arrived at Vladivostok on June 3. The commission’s personnel consisted of Stevens, chairman; John G. Greiner, bridge expert; George Gibbs, a technical engineer; William C. Darling, a civil engineer; and Henry Miller, a transportation expert.¹⁹ Stevens immediately fell ill and remained in a Petrograd hospital for the better part of June. Nevertheless, he quickly identified the problems that should be addressed first. From his sickbed, Stevens “diplomatically” advised his hosts that greater efficiency was required both in the operation of the railroads and in the utilization of repair facilities. Stevens estimated that the Trans-Siberian Railroad had more employees per mile and more motive power than any railroad in America, but the line was not being run efficiently. The Russian railroad officials, sensitive to Stevens’s criticisms, quickly reacted because Francis informed Washington that they “apparently desire him to recommend large equipment purchases and [to] leave.”²⁰

Stevens believed that the inefficient operation of Russia’s railroads was a result of overly centralized control by the Ministry of Ways of Communication at Petrograd. The officials who staffed this bureau generally had only a technical knowledge of railroad matters and were without practical operational experience. Many of the officials were college professors who did not even devote all of their time to the business of the ministry. Yet, the detailed operation of the government railway system was directly coordinated by this technical office. At the local level, a general manager supervised a simple track and station organization. There was no specialized middle management, such as division superintendents, superintendents of transportation, train masters, train dispatchers, traveling engineers, or traveling auditors. A general car dispatcher at Petrograd regulated car distribution. Station masters merely moved trains from station to station.²¹

On June 21, 1917, the commission made three preliminary recommendations to the Ministry of Communications, which it believed would bring about an increase in engine service on the Trans-Siberian railway. Locomotive mileage on Russian railways was limited by the practice of operating an engine with one crew along a short distance with a turnaround to complete the day’s run. This method resulted in the loss of a great deal of time since the turnaround left the locomotive idle for more than half the time. To remedy this situation, the commission recommended first, that trains be run twice their current distance and second, that engines be provided with a double crew (pooling) to achieve these longer through-runs. Through this plan the number of engine terminals and relay points could be reduced from seventy to thirty-eight on the Trans-Siberian railway. Finally, the flexible American dispatcher system should be adopted to facilitate a more efficient movement of freight under widely varying traffic conditions. The commission believed these changes could increase tonnage service by 40 percent.²²

To introduce these practices on the Trans-Siberian railway, Stevens arranged to have American operating personnel placed on the railroad commission. On July 30, 1917, Stevens cabled Willard that the Russian officials had requested a unit of 129 operating men to consist of division superintendents, dispatchers, train masters, traveling engineers, master mechanics, and a telephone expert to install telephone dispatching along the Trans-Siberian. Stevens informed Willard that “these men [were] merely to educate Russians in American operation.”²³ This comment suggests the motive behind America’s assistance to Russia’s railroads. Stevens’s Commission was transferring American technology and operational methods wholesale onto the Russian railroad network. This influence would not only help Russia’s war effort, but it would also play a central role in fostering postwar economic reconstruction and a more productive use of national resources. After the Russians accepted the commission’s recommendations in mid-August, Stevens again gave evidence of this motive when he declared, “There has been a great change recently in official spirit here, now apparently enthusiastic for American methods which we must make successful.”²⁴

The commission did recognize that Russia required a large number of new locomotives and freight cars. In late June Stevens anxiously inquired about an old order for 375 American decapod freight locomotives, which had been due in April. The commission estimated that an additional 1,500 freight locomotives and 30,000 to 40,000 boxcars per year would be necessary. On July 14 Second Assistant Secretary Frank Polk notified Francis that on recommendation of the Root mission 500 additional locomotives and 10,000 cars had been ordered in the United States. Another 1,500 locomotives and 30,000 freight cars were being considered. By February 1918 the United States planned to have 875 decapod locomotives shipped to Vladivostok.²⁵

To facilitate the shipment of large numbers of American locomotives Stevens arranged to have locomotive assembly shops built at Vladivostok. When locomotives and boxcars were shipped overseas it was more efficient to transport them in pieces and then to complete their assembly at the point of destination. Stevens’s Commission sketched a layout for those assembly facilities to be located just outside Vladivostok. The American locomotive builders would supply the necessary equipment, such as cranes, boilers, air compressors, hydraulic pumps, and the supervisory personnel to operate the plant. In the first week of August 1918, the Council on National Defense informed the commission that the length of the buildings had to be increased to provide for twice the capacity originally contemplated. For their part, the Russian purchasing agents in Washington used the matter of the assembly plants as a bargaining chip to pressure the United States for larger locomotive orders. George Lomonosov, representative of the Ministry of Communications on Ambassador Boris Bakhmetev’s mission, advised American officials against building the plants at Vladivostok unless 1,500 additional locomotives were to be shipped there.²⁶

The commission’s recommendation that American locomotives and freight cars be introduced on the Trans-Siberian Railroad demonstrates the confluence of American economic interests with Wilson’s desire to furnish Russia with objective technical assistance. The freight capacity of Russia’s railroads was limited by Russia’s use of light equipment. Russia’s standard locomotives were not very powerful and the four-wheeled boxcar had a low carrying capacity. Consequently, large numbers of small trains limited freight movement and caused congestion on the lines.²⁷ Powerful American decapod locomotives and the eight-wheeled freight car equipped with state-of-the-art air brakes and automatic coupling would greatly increase the capacity of the Russian lines.

The recommendations of the American railroad experts were consistent with the Wilsonian worldview that a community of interests existed between the United States and Russia. The introduction of American equipment and operational principles on Russia’s railroads would rationalize its transportation system and provide a tremendous stimulus for American trade and investment in postwar Russia.

On July 19, 1917, the commission submitted its final report to the Minister of Ways of Communication in regard to improvements that should be made on the Russian railways. This report was divided into two sections: the first dealt with recommendations that could quickly be applied to all railroads, while the second dealt with permanent changes that should be implemented over time. Its format was thus in accord with the purpose of the commission to assist Russia’s war effort, but it also pointed the way toward an extensive reorganization of Russia’s railroads in line with American practices.

To immediately increase the daily work of the locomotives, the commission specified a number of simple mechanical expedients that would help refuel and water locomotives more quickly. It also stressed that the repair of locomotives and cars had to be expedited. The restoration of labor efficiency was the most critical factor in this regard. With the working day now limited to eight hours, the commission believed that the workers must be urged to increase their currently low productivity as a necessary sacrifice for the national defense. Since the eight-hour day would seriously reduce output, given the existing shop facilities, the commission strongly recommended that two, or preferably three, shifts be instituted at all main or division shops. Furthermore, all “limitations” that inhibited the fullest utilization of shop facilities should be abolished. Work should be apportioned between shops so that each one could do the work for which it was best suited. In general, the commission emphasized that all efforts should be concentrated on increasing the output of repair facilities while the construction of new locomotives and cars should be suspended in Russia.²⁸

While permanent improvements would take considerably more time to complete, the commission recommended that they should nevertheless be systematically undertaken as soon as possible. These improvements should include mechanically operated facilities to coal and water the locomotives and a network of fully equipped roundhouses for all locomotives not in use. A systematic plan should be formulated for redistributing and rebuilding main locomotive and car repair shops. Finally, the old locomotives should be retired in favor of the more powerful American decapod locomotives and the eight-wheeled boxcar should replace the smaller Russian four-wheeled cars.²⁹

The commission also made specific recommendations for the Moscow-Petrograd fine and for the lines that ran from Moscow to the Donets Basin. These recommendations stressed the immediate establishment of division superintendents with their accompanying staffs, and a more efficient use of the heavy locomotives already in use on these lines.³⁰ With regard to the movement of coal from the Donets Basin to the industrial centers of Moscow and Petrograd, the commission’s recommendations were designed to promote greater self-sufficiency for the Russian economy. It was estimated that 2 million tons of coal were ready for shipment from the basin. However, only 325 cars of coal per day were being moved northward. With the existing equipment, basic operating changes could increase this amount to five hundred cars per day. If two hundred decapod locomotives were added to these lines with the suggested improvements in the facilities, one thousand cars per day could be moved. Moreover, the commission emphasized that coal output in this region could be doubled, which would alleviate Russia’s prewar dependence on coal imports from Britain of four to five million tons, or 20 percent annually.³¹

Meanwhile, disaster had struck the Provisional Government in the weeks the commission prepared its recommendations. After its July military offensive collapsed amid widespread desertions, the Provisional Government lost the political middle ground that had enabled it to continue a defensive war for the limited goal of liberating Russian territory. This had been the only position upon which the moderate socialist-bourgeois coalition could maintain popular support for a continuation of Russia’s participation in the war. Political conditions rapidly polarized following the summer military fiasco: on the extreme left, the Bolsheviks’ call for an immediate peace attracted growing support from the war-weary peasantry and urban proletariat, while, on the extreme right, the army high command quickly lost patience with the government for its inability to maintain military discipline.

To further complicate matters for the American advisers, deepening governmental paralysis and frequent turnover in the Ministry of Communications led the Russians to delay approval of the commission’s recommendations. Moreover, the Russian railway officials had been distinctly unenthusiastic about introducing American methods. George Gibbs revealed that Russian opposition to the American operational recommendations remained “emphatic” until early August. Most of the summer had passed with little accomplished when the American experts decided “to appeal to Kerensky personally.” By that time, a “practical man,” Kadet P. P. Yurenev, had been appointed minister of railways.³² On August 10, 1917, the commission members met with Kerensky personally and summarized their activities. During this meeting, Kerensky promised to have the commission’s recommendations implemented “in their entirety.” Kerensky issued these instructions directly to the new minister of railways, whereupon the American experts “were able to obtain a clear-cut agreement upon the program especially in effecting operating changes.”³³ In all likelihood the Americans insisted that they be given operational control over the Trans-Siberian Railroad to ensure the implementation of the reforms.³⁴

It is even likely that the commission’s assistance in expediting the equipment orders was made contingent on the Russians’ acceptance of the experts’ managerial control over the line. This is suggested in that it was only after the operational questions were finally resolved that the commission pressed its case for the equipment orders in Washington. With the operational questions now settled, Gibbs and John Greiner returned to the United States to work out the details related to the equipment orders.³⁵ On August 27 Willard informed Stevens that 275 decapods from the old order would finally be shipped by September and the remaining 100 would be sent by early October at the latest.³⁶

From a broader perspective, this episode demonstrates the limits of Wilsonian “noninterventionism.”The American experts undoubtedly felt justified in seeking Kerensky’s intercession on behalf of their apolitical technical recommendations. Nevertheless, these technical and managerial issues had significant political implications since they were directly linked with America’s global policy objectives.

Having finally overcome the resistance of the Russian officials, Stevens’s experts were immediately dispatched to clear up the congestion on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.³⁷ By mid-September Stevens was able to report that a “decided improvement” in the operating efficiency of that line had already been achieved.³⁸ In early October, Henry Miller, who was directing the activities of the commission on the Trans-Siberian, reported that the accumulation of freight at Vladivostok had been reduced by 40 percent since May. Furthermore, the decapod locomotives had begun to arrive, and there were now fifty new ones at Harbin and Vladivostok. Since July eight hundred boxcars had been shipped from America and another three hundred were expected to depart for the Vladivostok assembly shops by October 1. One thousand gondola cars had been shipped since July 1, four hundred of which were being assembled at Vladivostok.

Even more encouraging for the Stevens mission was the imminent departure from the United States of the American operating personnel, and the expected completion of the locomotive assembly plants at Vladivostok by November 15. Ambassador Francis derived particular satisfaction from this progress since it finally enabled him “to successfully refute insinuations of [the] British and French that [the] American Railway Commission [was] effecting nothing.”³⁹

Unfortunately, the improvement of operating conditions along the Trans-Siberian Railroad during September was offset by the critical railroad conditions in European Russia. At the end of the month—during which the Provisional Government survived a coup attempt by Gen. L. G. Kornilov—the foreign minister, Mikhail Tereschenko, and the minister of Ways of Communication, A. V. Liverovskii, urgently requested to meet with Ambassador Francis about the transportation situation.⁴⁰

Francis immediately instructed Stevens to return to Petrograd, leaving the supervision of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Miller and William Darling. And, given the magnitude of the transportation crisis in European Russia, Francis also requested the State Department to send another top railway expert with a competent subordinate staff. He added that this individual would not serve in a subordinate position but would work in cooperation with the minister of Ways of Communication. Thus, the American railway experts were now to be accorded plenipotentiary powers over the European Russian railroads as well as the Trans-Siberian Railroad.⁴¹

Because of the unprecedented mobilization of resources for the western front, Willard informed Francis that another high-ranking railroad official could not be spared for the European Russian railroads. He suggested that Stevens should take the position as adviser to the minister of railways. Meanwhile, Miller would be thoroughly capable of supervising the Trans-Siberian line, and he would be receiving welcome support soon. George Emerson, general manager of the Great Northern Railroad, would depart for Vladivostok in mid-November with a contingent of about three hundred skilled managerial personnel, mechanics, and interpreters to assist Miller in completing the introduction of American methods on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.⁴²

Stevens met with Ambassador Francis and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tereschenko on October 23. He impressed Tereschenko with the urgency of the situation, and a conference was planned for October 25 for Francis, Stevens, Tereschenko, Minister of Ways of Communication Liverovskii, and the chairman of the Economic Committee, S. N. Tretiakov. The purpose of this meeting was to arrange Stevens’s recommendations for all of the lines south of Moscow.⁴³ Once again, Stevens actually had to exert a great deal of pressure on Tereschenko. During his meeting with the foreign minister, Stevens harshly criticized the Russian officials for failing to implement any of the commission’s recommendations on the European Russian lines. Over three months had passed since the general recommendations had been approved, but, with winter approaching, Stevens saw no improvement in European Russia. Stevens bluntly warned Tereschenko that, unless the Russian government immediately acted on the recommendations of the commission, it would be withdrawn from Russia. The withdrawal of the Railroad Commission would in turn signal a loss of confidence in the Russian government and thereby bring into question the advisability of extending further economic assistance to the Provisional Government. In view of the Provisional Government’s weakness Stevens was skeptical whether any tangible action would result from the meeting on October 25.⁴⁴

But Stevens’s threats had their desired effect on the Russian officials. At the conference, which was delayed a day until October 26, they agreed to greatly augment Stevens’s authority over the Russian railways. He would now be installed in the Ministry of Ways of Communication in an advisory capacity to the minister. Since the government immediately placed Stevens on assignment, his post was assumed by Henry Horn, who had been serving in Russia with the Red Cross. Ambassador Francis revealed that Stevens was to be much more than an adviser, as “the Council of Ministers will give [the] required orders for execution of his recommendations.”⁴⁵ Stevens’s role had been transformed from that of an adviser to that of a plenipotentiary with extensive authority over the Russian government. Ambassador Francis expressed the extent of influence the commission now wielded when he advised Washington that if “our recommendations [are] not executed promptly I shall seriously consider abandoning such position.”⁴⁶ Later, Stevens would admit that he had become what amounted to a proconsul when he related that he “had been appointed to what virtually meant Director General of all the Russian Railways, and the Department of State had agreed to it, providing I was willing.”⁴⁷

It was out of desperation that the Provisional Government turned control of the whole Russian railway system over to Stevens. The Russians finally gave him this authority because he had become indispensable to the government. After his installation in the Ministry of Ways of Communication, the government dispatched Stevens on an assignment which it considered crucial to its survival. The government delegated to Stevens the urgent task of moving six million bushels of grain it had purchased in western Siberia at the end of the summer to European Russia before the onset of winter. This feat required the implementation of his recommendations across 2,500 miles of railroad that ran between Moscow and Omsk. The Russian officials were pleased with the rapid improvements Stevens had made on the Trans-Siberian railway system, and they were now pinning their hopes on his ability to accomplish similar results on the stretch of the line between Moscow and Omsk in a very short time.⁴⁸ Before leaving Petrograd, Stevens emphasized that “this line from Siberia must feed a great part of Russia, and Tereschenko tells me it is the most important problem in Russia.”⁴⁹ Stevens also attempted to impress Willard with the gravity of the situation when he passed on the government’s claim that the movement of grain was not only the most important problem facing Russia but that it was “absolutely vital to [its] existence.” He then inquired whether the United States could furnish him with eight more railroad units for this duty.⁵⁰

But by the end of October 1917, Stevens harbored no illusions about his ability to enhance Russia’s fighting capacity. He emphasized to Willard that the United States would be making “a very great mistake if it places great dependence upon Russia as a favorable factor in the further prosecution of the war.”⁵¹ This comment is important because it indicates that broader policy objectives were at stake in Russia, which transcended the purely strategic question of maintaining an eastern front. It is likely that Stevens viewed the operational capacity of the Russian Army as a moot issue. Yet, it is under those circumstances that his central role in the American struggle against Germany’s Mitteleuropa economic system becomes more apparent. In the Provisional Government’s final days he concentrated his efforts on preventing a collapse that would facilitate Russia’s absorption into a German Mitteleuropa. Stevens expressed this concern shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution when he wrote Willard that “there is no doubt now that the proper course for the United States and all the Allies is to stand by Russia as long as there is a shadow of hope left, and to throw up our hands now would simply hasten the throwing of Russia into Germany’s hands.”⁵² Faced with this threat, Stevens believed it had become absolutely necessary to move western Siberian grain to European Russia in order to help maintain the army’s cohesion and to diffuse social unrest in the cities.

Thus Stevens’s final mission for the Provisional Government epitomized America’s quest for a liberal international order. In working now merely for the government’s survival, he was striving to head off social revolution and an inevitable separate peace with Germany. Stevens considered the Bolshevik movement, or as he caustically referred to it at the time, “the Bolchanks (the unruly element),” as little more than a disintegrative force.⁵³ He understood that Germany would attempt to use them as pawns.

On October 28 Stevens left Petrograd for Moscow to prepare the way for the Western Siberian grain shipments. There he found eight thousand freight cars loaded with food, ammunition, rifles, clothing, and medical supplies. Some of this freight had been there for as long as two years. Stevens spent nearly a week in Moscow attempting to unclog this bottleneck and to move some of this freight toward the front. He then traveled east along the southern branch of the Trans-Siberian railway as far as Chelyabinsk instructing the divisional officers on how to handle the wheat shipments. Shortly after he returned to Samara on the Volga River, the Bolshevik Revolution erupted. This marked the end of Stevens’s efforts to prop up the Provisional Government.⁵⁴

By the end of November, Stevens was so discouraged with the deterioration of conditions in Russia that he threatened to return to America. During this trying period Willard repeatedly urged Stevens to remain at Harbin in Manchuria until George Emerson’s contingent of railroad personnel arrived. During December Willard repeatedly tried to encourage Stevens with the hope that the situation would “develop much better than you expect.” Willard stressed that “there is great opportunity for most valuable work for you and Emerson in Russia, providing [a] stable government is established and [I] think it would be most unfortunate to abandon that plan as long as there is any hope.”⁵⁵ This would continue to be the American attitude toward Russia for the next five years. While there was any prospect that stable conditions might be restored in Siberia, American policy favored the retention of American influence on the Trans-Siberian system.

Stevens’s spirits improved when Emerson and his men arrived at Vladivostok on December 14. However, with America’s Russian policy on indefinite hold, Stevens recommended that he and Emerson’s Railway Service Corps await developments in Japan. Willard readily concurred with this advice, believing that stable conditions would be restored in Russia in the near future.⁵⁶ A note of confidence reappeared in Stevens’s cables during mid-December even as he prepared to leave Vladivostok for Japan.

An important American representative in Russia, F. M. Titus of the American Locomotive Sales Corporation, forcefully argued the merits of retaining the Railway Service Corps in the Russian Far East. Titus was the engineer who was supervising construction of the assembly shops at Vladivostok where the American equipment was being completed. Therefore, his opinions represent quasi-official American sentiment, notwithstanding his particular interest in promoting his company’s exports to Russia. His recommendations are also significant in that they reflect basic historical assumptions that informed the approach American businessmen and statesmen took toward the Russian question. Titus stressed that the United States was held in high regard by the “better element” in Russia primarily because “we have pledged our word to help Russia in the rehabilitation of her Railway system.”⁵⁷ This assistance had engendered feelings of goodwill and friendship toward the United States, which would be of inestimable value after the war when America planned to expand its economic relations with Russia. However, Titus now likened Russia “to a great strong man who is ill.” Thus, after promising assistance to Russia as a “friend,” the United States could not abandon her to “hoodlums” (the Bolsheviks) without betraying her trust. He reiterated with particular emphasis:

You realize that we will want Russia’s friendship after the war is ended. We want her trade. We may want concessions for the development for her, of her vast deposits of coal and mineral wealth. In self defense we need to place her railways in a condition such as will enable her (and us) to handle efficiently the trade and commerce developed. If we abandon her now in her hour of need, can we hope to compete with another and gain that to which we have so long been looking forward, and for which we have been making preparation.⁵⁸

Titus contended that the United States should assume a trusteeship over Russia, because centuries of autocratic rule had eroded the population’s initiative. But he reasoned that “a comparably small force of Americans to form a nucleus would very quickly find itself surrounded by a vast number of the better class of Russians who, recognizing in them a strong ‘leader with the initiative’ to do things, would be glad to give their services, and their lives if need be, to again bring about order.”⁵⁹ Emerson’s railway personnel could play a strategic role in the reconstruction of Russian society if they were entrenched on the main communication artery.

Titus suggested that America’s more recent experiments with trusteeship over its insular dependencies offered a precedent for a possible course of action in Russia. While he did not advocate armed intervention in Russia, Titus did think “that were the Allies to get together, and place in Petrograd today an ‘International Control’ based upon the principle of our ‘Control’ over Cuba and the Philippines, that it would accomplish quick and marvelous results.”⁶⁰

Ambassador Francis, Willard, and the State Department agreed that retention of the Railway Service Corps in Russia was of vital importance to future Russian-American relations. Francis articulated the enlightened self-interest that motivated American policy when he maintained that the corps served humanitarian purposes, such as famine relief, as well as the commercial interests of the United States. He believed the “moral effect” to be derived by the corps’ humanitarian assistance would be “immense.”⁶¹ Thus, the American commitment to the Trans-Siberian railway system for the next five years was based on the objective of cultivating a community of interest between the United States and Russia, not merely assessments of short-term commercial gain.

Between March and November 1917, the Stevens Commission was at the service of the progressive political forces represented in the Provisional Government. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the efforts of Stevens and the Railway Service Corps to rehabilitate the Trans-Siberian railway system would continue to underpin America’s Russian policy. Yet their trusteeship over the Trans-Siberian railway would now take on even more critical importance. This system became the artery through which the United States attempted to foster reconstruction of Russia’s civil society. Economic assistance for progressive social groups, such as the cooperative societies and zemstvos, was necessary to contain social chaos, restore productive activity, and to forestall German economic designs in Russia.