<P> From mid-1917 onwards, the Russian Army, the successor - organisation of the old Russian Imperial Army, started to disintegrate; the Bolsheviks used the volunteer - based Red Guards as their main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka (the Bolshevik state - security apparatus). In January 1918, after significant Bolshevik reverses in combat, the future People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Leon Trotsky headed the reorganization of the Red Guards into a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in order to create a more effective fighting force . The Bolsheviks appointed political commissars to each unit of the Red Army to maintain morale and to ensure loyalty . </P> <P> In June 1918, when it had become apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would not suffice, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army . The Bolsheviks overcame opposition of rural Russians to Red - Army conscription units by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance, exactly the same practices used by the White Army officers . The Red Army utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" (voenspetsy), sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty . At the start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers comprised three - quarters of the Red Army officer - corps . By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers . </P> <P> While resistance to the Red Guard began on the very day after the Bolshevik uprising, the Treaty of Brest - Litovsk and the political ban became a catalyst for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime . </P> <P> A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including landowners, republicans, conservatives, middle - class citizens, reactionaries, pro-monarchists, liberals, army generals, non-Bolshevik socialists who still had grievances and democratic reformists voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule . Their military forces, bolstered by forced conscriptions and terror and by foreign influence and led by Gen. Yudenich, Adm. Kolchak and Gen. Denikin, became known as the White movement (sometimes referred to as the "White Army") and controlled significant parts of the former Russian Empire for most of the war . </P>

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