Lethal mobilities: Bodies and lice on Soviet railroads, 1918-1922

摘要

Many more people in Russia died from typhus and relapsing fever in 1918-22 than from violence in the First World War, the revolution and the civil war. Typhus and relapsing fever had been endemic in Russia for centuries, but they could not have become pandemics without the collapse of social order and the continued functioning of the railroad network, which was an attractor, concentrator and vehicle for masses of desperate, lice-ridden people. The chaos of revolution and civil war fostered new mobilities for people and lice, which helped drive the country to the brink of collapse.