Reorganization of local military administration bodies of the Soviet republic during the civil war (1918-1919)

The study analyses the experience of the Soviet state in creating and improving the structure of local military administration bodies in the most difficult period of the Civil War (1918-1919). Special attention is paid to the importance of creating a unified centralized military apparatus of the country during the formation of new armed forces, along with the selection of ideologically aware, professionally trained personnel at the local level and strict subordination of lower bodies to higher ones. The purpose of the research is to study the experience of improving the staff structure of local military administration. It reveals the reasons and conditions for the Soviet government’s rejection of a voluntary recruitment basis and transition to a mobilization principle of an army formation with the beginning the Civil War. It is shown that staffing of military commissariats with non-professional personnel and antisocial people was unreasonable and followed by the subsequent forced involvement of former officers of the old tsar army in the organization of the military commissariat system. The author analyses the difficulties of forming military administration bodies, such as insufficient funding for all types of supplies, the complexity of delivery of guidance documents to local authorities, the lack of stable and effective means of communication, and centralized military management throughout their entire chain of command. The research confirms the importance of local military administration systematic building, staff structure development and improvement in order to ensure the stability of mobilization activities of state and military administration throughout their vertical subordination.