“Genshtabisty”1 in Service at the Headquarters of the Red Army’s Iaroslavl Military District During the Civil War

Abstract

The Iaroslavl Military District (IMD) was established by an order of the Higher Military Council (HMC), dated March 31, 1918, on the territory of the Iaroslavl, Petrograd, Pskov, Novgorod, Kostroma, Nizhegorod, Vladimir, and Tver’ Provinces (guberniia). With the formation of the Petrograd District and dissolution of the Belomorsk District in September 1918, the territories of Vologda Province, Northern Dvina Province, and even parts of Arkhangel’sk Province became part of the IMD. In all, the IMD included “within its boundaries the enormous territory of twelve provinces encompassing the entire northern third of European Russia.” Of the seven “provincial” military districts the Bolsheviks established in Autumn 1918 and which played a determining role in securing the two main Bolshevik fronts during the Civil War (Eastern and Southern), the IMD was undoubtedly one of the most powerful, second only to the Moscow, Petrograd, and Orel Districts. The transfer of district headquarters to Ivanovo-Voznesensk (September 1918–March 1919), caused by the July (1918) mutiny in Iaroslavl, in no way affected the quality of work with regard to the district’s military development (voennoe stroitel’stvo).2