Moscow and Ekaterinburg and the repair of the Kazan-Ekaterinburg
line, which particularly suffered during the war. An attempt was
to be made to rebuild the bridge over the Kama River
before the ice melts. The Commander of the Reserve Army
was appointed Commissar of the eastern part of the Moscow-Kazan
railway, retaining his position as Commander of the Army.
With a view of coordination between the Army Soviet and
the railway authorities, a member of the Soviet was also appointed
Commissar of the railway. On January 25th it was
announced that a similar experiment was being made in the
Ukraine. A month before the ice broke the first train

actually crossed the Kama River by the rebuilt bridge.


By April of this year the organization of industrial
conscription had gone far beyond the original labor armies.
A decree of February 5th had created a Chief Labor
Committee, consisting of five members, Serebryakov and Danilov,
from the Commissariat of War; Vasiliev, from the
Commissariat of the Interior; Anikst, from the Commissariat
of Labor; Dzerzhinsky, from the Commissariat of Internal
Affairs. Dzerzhinsky was President, and his appointment
was possibly made in the hope that the reputation he had
won as President of the Extraordinary Committee for
Fighting Counter-Revolution would frighten people into
taking this Committee seriously. Throughout the country in
each government or province similar committees, called
"Troikas," were created, each of three members, one from
the Commissariat of War, one from the Department of