Railway troops of the USSR

Pre-Soviet History of Railroads

The first formations of the railway troops in the Russian Empire were created on August 6, 1851, when Emperor Nicholas I approved the Regulation on the composition of the administration of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway , in accordance with which the first special military formations were created for the protection and operation of the railway - 14 separate military workers, 2 conductors and 1 telegraph company .

The history of the Railway Troops is inextricably linked with the history of the Russian state, its Armed Forces, and railway transport of Russia. All these years, military railway workers have made and are making a significant contribution to strengthening the country's defense capability and developing its transport infrastructure.

Soldiers and officers of the railway troops participated in all wars and armed conflicts that fell on the share of the Russian Empire, the construction of strategic railways for the state, as well as in the aftermath of natural disasters , accidents and catastrophes on the country's railways.

Organizationally, the railway troops from the moment of creation until the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 were an integral part of the engineering troops and were subordinate to the Main Engineering Directorate of the Military Ministry of the Russian Empire. In 1905, the railway troops were separated from the engineering forces and removed from the subordination of the Main Engineering Directorate with subordination to the Military Communications Directorate (VOSO) at the General Staff of the Russian Imperial Army ^[5] .

Soviet period

With the fall of the tsarist regime, the former organized organization of the armed forces was completely destroyed. The railway troops of the former Russian imperial army ceased to exist. This was facilitated by a decree issued by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on January 27, 1918, when the decision of the All-Russian Congress of the Railway Forces on their disbandment and transfer of property and personnel to the People's Commissariat of Railways was approved. By early June of that year, railway troops ceased to exist ^[6] .

The USSR railway troops were created on the basis of Order No. 41 of October 5, 1918, by the Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces of the Soviet Republic ^[6] .

From the first days of World War II, military railroad workers carried out combat missions to barricade and provide technical cover for railways, and with the beginning of the counterattack of our troops near Moscow, they began reconstruction work.

The railway units and formations were especially distinguished during the defense of Moscow and Leningrad , in the battles near Stalingrad and the Kursk Bulge , during the strategic operations of the fronts in Ukraine , Belarus , Moldova and the Baltic states, in the countries of Eastern Europe and Germany .

In total, during the years of the Great Patriotic War, the Railway Troops together with the special forces of the People’s Commissariat of Railways restored and built nearly 120 thousand km of main, second and station tracks, more than 15 thousand man-made structures ^[1] .

Participating in the post-war reconstruction of the country, the troops played a significant role in commissioning the existing railway lines: Moscow - Donbass , Moscow - the Caucasus , Moscow - Lviv , Moscow - Brest , reconstruction of many sections of the railways of the Moscow region, Ukraine , Belarus and the Baltic states .

Military railway workers made a significant contribution to the construction of the largest transport lines Kizel - Perm , Ust-Kamenogorsk - Zyryanovsk , Tyumen - Surgut , Ivdel - Ob , Abakan - Tayshet , and the Trans-Mongolian highway . Every ninth kilometer of railways in the Soviet Union was electrified by military railroad workers.

The most important stage in the history of the Railway Troops was their participation in the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway , where during the period from 1974 to 1989. personnel laid about 1.5 thousand km of the main track, completed 220 million cubic meters of earthwork, built 1227 bridges and artificial structures.

The main results of the activities of the railway units and formations at all post-war construction sites were the growth of their combat and mobilization readiness, the acquisition by the personnel of invaluable experience in carrying out significant volumes of construction and installation work in difficult climatic conditions.

Railway troops, as highly mobile and well-trained formations, were repeatedly involved in the liquidation of the consequences of natural disasters, accidents and catastrophes on the railways, and they always solved the tasks in full.

So, after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant , the railway soldiers built access roads as soon as possible, which allowed builders to build a sarcophagus over the emergency power unit at a faster pace. After the earthquake in Armenia , troop units restored railway lines three days later, ensuring the evacuation of the affected population by delivering the necessary assistance to the disaster area ^{[7] [5]} .

In terms of production activities, railway troops were directly subordinate to the USSR Ministry of Railways. And in terms of the arrangement and service of the troops, combat, political, special and mobilization readiness, they were subordinate to the Minister of War of the USSR. Since 1954, the USSR Railways were subordinate to the Ministry of Transport Construction of the USSR and the Main Directorate of Railway Troops (GUZHV). On February 1, 1957, the governing body became known as the Office of the Railway Forces. On January 13, 1965, it changed its name to the Central Directorate of Railway Forces, and from December 23, 1974 it was again called the Main Directorate of Railway Forces.

On March 21, 1989, the Railway Troops, together with the Border Troops of the KGB of the USSR and the Internal Troops of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs , were withdrawn from the Armed Forces of the USSR ^[3] .

Due to the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent process of the division of the Armed Forces of the USSR , the former Railway troops of the USSR were divided between the CIS states . The formations of the USSR railways stationed in Ukraine and Belarus were brought under the jurisdiction of these states even before the collapse of the USSR in the fall of 1991. The last major formations of the former USSR railways, whose departments were deployed on the territory of the Russian Federation, were placed under Russian jurisdiction on April 18, 1992 ^[2] .

In the Armed Forces of the USSR ( USSR Armed Forces) by the beginning of the 1990s there were 4 railway corps (railway) ^[4] :

• 35th railway building ( headquarters of Tynda );
• 1st railway building (headquarters of the town of Chegdomyn );
• 4th railway building (headquarters of Sverdlovsk );
• 2nd railway building (headquarters of Kiev ).

At the formation stage was the 76th railway building (building management in Volgograd ) ^[4] .

The training of junior officers for the railway troops was carried out in the following higher military educational institution:

• Leningrad Higher Order of Lenin Red Banner School of Railway Troops and Military Communications named after M.V. Frunze.

For the additional training of officers and junior technical specialists, the following training formations were included in the USSR Railways ^[4] :

• 9th Higher Central Officer Courses of the Railway Troops (military unit 87233, Petrodvorets, former 1st training railway regiment);
• 16th training railway regiment (military unit 44635, Volodarsk, Gorky region);
• 27th training railway Red Banner Regiment named after V. Vorovsky (military unit 12670, Volgograd).

List of Chiefs by the USSR railway troops ^{[8] [5]} :

• Fedorov, Ivan Ivanovich - 1918-1919;
• Domnin, Evgeny Filippovich - 1919-1920;
• Lieutenant General of Technical Forces Golovko, Vladimir Alexandrovich - 1942-1944;
• Lieutenant General of Technical Forces Prosvirov, Nikon Andreyevich - 1944-1945;
• Colonel General of the Technical Forces Kabanov, Pavel Alekseevich - 1945-1968;
• Colonel General of the Technical Forces Kryukov, Alexei Mikhailovich - 1968-1983;
• Colonel General Makartsev, Mikhail Konstantinovich - 1983-1992.

• Railway troops of the Russian Federation

When writing this article, material was used from the website of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation , the content of which is licensed under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 International license .