Red Guards (Russia)
Red Guards (Russian: Красная гвардия) were paramilitary volunteer formations consisting mainly of urban factory workers, peasants, cossacks and partially of soldiers and sailors for "protection of the soviet power". Red Guards were a transitional military force of the collapsing Imperial Russian Army and the base formations of Bolsheviks during the October Revolution and the first months of the Russian Civil War. Most of them were formed in the time frame of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and some of the units were reorganized into the Red Army during 1918. The Red Guards formations were organized across most of the former Russian Empire, including territories outside the contemporary Russian Federation such as Finland, Poland, Estonia, Ukraine, and others. They were not centralized and were formed by decision of a local political party and local soviet members. By fighting to protect and extend the power of the Soviets, they aided the creation of a new state that (according to its original conception) would give "all power to the soviets": the Soviet Union.
Main article: Bolshevik Military Organizations
Organization[edit]
During the revolution, training of the Red Guards was arranged by the Military Organization of the RSDLP (Bolshevik Military Organizations).
Enlistment was voluntary, but required recommendations from Soviets, Bolshevik party units or other public organizations. The military training of workers was often performed without disengagement from the work at plants. There were both infantry and mounted regiments. At different places, the organization was nonuniform in terms of subordination, headcount, degree of military training. This state was often called "half-partisan". While successful at local conflicts (e.g., with ataman Alexander Dutov in Orenburg guberniya), this loose organization was inefficient when combating larger, organized forces of the White Army. Therefore, when the creation of the Red Army was decreed, Red Guards had become the Army Reserve and the base for the formation of regular military detachments.