<P> Mensheviks and Socialist - Revolutionaries supported peasants fighting against Soviet control of food supplies . In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took Samara and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly--known as the "Komuch". By July the authority of the Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion . The Komuch pursued an ambivalent social policy, combining democratic and socialist measures, such as the institution of an eight - hour working day, with "restorative" actions, such as returning both factories and land to their former owners . After the fall of Kazan, Vladimir Lenin called for the dispatch of Petrograd workers to the Kazan Front: "We must send down the maximum number of Petrograd workers: (1) a few dozen' leaders' like Kayurov; (2) a few thousand militants' from the ranks"'. </P> <P> After a series of reverses at the front, the Bolsheviks' War Commissar, Trotsky, instituted increasingly harsh measures in order to prevent unauthorized withdrawals, desertions and mutinies in the Red Army . In the field the Cheka special investigations forces, termed the Special Punitive Department of the All - Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combat of Counter-Revolution and Sabotage or Special Punitive Brigades, followed the Red Army, conducting field tribunals and summary executions of soldiers and officers who deserted, retreated from their positions or failed to display sufficient offensive zeal . Trotsky extended the use of the death penalty to the occasional political commissar whose detachment retreated or broke in the face of the enemy . In August, frustrated at continued reports of Red Army troops breaking under fire, Trotsky authorized the formation of barrier troops - stationed behind unreliable Red Army units and given with orders to shoot anyone withdrawing from the battle line without authorization . </P> <P> In September 1918 Komuch, the Siberian Provisional Government and other local anti-Soviet governments met in Ufa and agreed to form a new Provisional All - Russian Government in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: two Socialist - Revolutionaries (Nikolai Avksentiev and Vladimir Zenzinov), two Kadets (V.A. Vinogradov (ru) and PV Vologodskii) and General Vasily Boldyrev . </P> <P> By the fall of 1918 anti-Bolshevik White forces in the east included the People's Army (Komuch), the Siberian Army (of the Siberian Provisional Government) and insurgent Cossack units of Orenburg, Ural, Siberia, Semirechye, Baikal, Amur and Ussuri Cossacks, nominally under the orders of Gen. V.G. Boldyrev, Commander - in - Chief, appointed by the Ufa Directorate . </P>

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