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,