Road to Power: The Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Colonization of Asian Russia, 1850–1917 by Steven G. Marks

Abstract

434 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE operational performance offers little evidence that workers at one line toiled more contentedly and productively than those at the other. Steven W. Usselman Dr. Usselman, associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has published articles in TOC and other journals on business management and technical change in the American railroad industry and is currently completing a book on the subject. Road to Power: The Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Colonization ofAsian Russia, 1850-1917. By Steven G. Marks. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. xxi + 240; illustrations, notes, bibliogra­ phy, index. $31.95. Steven G. Marks’s well-researched study, Road to Power, takes issue with the traditional explanation for the construction of the TransSiberian Railroad. The primary motivation behind the undertaking was neither defense against external enemies nor a desire to develop a primitive region. Instead, the project was conceived as a political enterprise to extend state control over every aspect of Russian society. In this sense, “the Trans-Siberian project almost seems to belong more to the Soviet period than to the tsarist” (p. 225). Although the concept of a trans-Siberian railroad was born during the reign of Alexander III, the planning of the project sputtered for years amid bureaucratic wrangling. Marks’s story comes alive when he takes up the careerofthe ambitious, self-promoting minister offinance, Serge Witte. Shrewdly, Witte outflanked and outmaneuvered his op­ ponents. One of his favorite tactics was to replace officials opposed to the project with weak mediocrities who could be pliantly manipulated. His shrewdest stroke was selecting the twenty-three-year-old Grand Duke Nicholas as chairman of the Committee of the Siberian Railroad. The appointmentingratiated Witte with the future tsarand, forall prac­ tical purposes, guaranteed the completion of the project. As Marks makes clear, the railroad could not have been built without Witte’s de­ termined leadership. But Witte’s performance, especially when com­ pared with the construction of America’s transcontinental railroads, was not ofvirtuoso caliber. In fact, the project was characterized by such flaws in design and construction as to constitute “A Monument to Bun­ gling” (the title ofchap. 9). The deficiencies of the railroad were a con­ tributing factor to Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. This use­ ful and compact study is clearly organized and is illustrated by excellent maps, photographs of such leaders as Witte and Nicholas II, and pho­ tographs of railroad scenes and construction sites. Benjamin D. Rhodes Dr. Rhodes is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater. ...