John Stevens was one of America's most capable yet little known construction engineers during the period from 1880 to 1923. During this time he worked in the development of the Great Northern Railway and solved many of the engineering problems in the construction of the Panama Canal. Stevens also worked to operate the railroads of eastern Russia from 1917 to 1922.

"John F. Stevens was a remarkable man who successfully combined the two careers of engineer and diplomat. Until recently, little has been written of his engineering career and nothing of his diplomatic career. While his professional achievements are of interest to economic historians, it is surprising that diplomatic historians have neglected Stevens' Russia and Siberian activities during World War I and subsequent four year period. Altogether, he served the United States in the Far East nearly six years and directed three railway missions to Russia during the years 1917 to 1923. Stevens' three railway missions concerned the Chinese Eastern, Trans-Siberian, and Siberian railways. All have been important strategic, commercial and military transportation systems...President Wilson selected Stevens to head these missions because of his extensive railway experience prior to 1917"--P. 14.

During World War I, a specialized Russian battalion comprised of ethnic Czechs and Czech and Slovak prisoners of war--the Legion--became a pawn in an international game of power and deceit. The Legion's detour through Siberia became the greatest human interest story of the war, chronicled weekly in the New York Times and New York Herald. More than half of the Legion's troops lost their lives as the evacuation of Czech and Slovak POWs through Vladivostok precipitated the murder of the Russian royal family and forced the Legion to act as protectors of the Russian treasury and the Trans-Siberian Railway while the White and Red armies battled. For political purposes, tales of the Legion's odyssey have been buried or expunged. This volume offers the seminal account of this hidden yet epic journey, shedding light on a fascinating but forgotten facet of World War I.

In this book Anthony Heywood reassesses Bolshevik attitudes towards economic modernization and foreign economic relations during the early Soviet period. Based on hitherto unused Russian and Western archives, he examines an extraordinary decision made in March 1920 to import vast quantities of railway equipment. The book argues that under War Communism and the NEP railway modernization was vital to a strategy of rapid economic modernization, and provides the first detailed case study of the government's import policy. Following the histories of the principal contracts, it analyses Soviet foreign trade as a means to tackle domestic economic challenges. This book provides readers with a new perspective on Soviet economic development, and reveals the scale of Bolshevik business dealings with the capitalist West immediately after the Revolution.