HOLY SHIT!

In 1922 The Soviet GPU (Joint State Political Directorate) arrested some engineers including Peter Palchinsky, Nikolai von Meck and A. F. Velichko. A. F. Velichko had been in charge of military transportation...he was shot. Nikolai von Meck, he attempted to increase the size of freight trains and not worry about heavier loads, he was shot.....he was accused of wrecking roadbeds and rails so that there would be no transportation should the State need it.


SHORTLY THEREAFTER


The State wanted average freight train loads doubled and tripled and any engineer who protested became known as "limiters" and they were then shot for what Solzhenitsyn described as "their lack of faith in possibilities of Socialist transport"



That's not even the worst of it, getting shot was getting off easy!!!