Vsevobuch

Founding and Design

In March 1918 the 7th Congress of the Bolshevik Party and the Fourth Extraordinary Congress of Soviets decided to create Vsevobuch, and the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of 22 April 1918 legally formalized it. The decree tied the measure to socialism's stated goal of universal disarmament, and argued from the premise that Russia alone was then ruled by workers that the republic had to build a powerful army to defend itself. Training was therefore designed not to divert workers and peasants from their normal occupations, and arms and training were withheld from the propertied classes, who were held to be enemies of Soviet power. Liability extended to men aged 18 to 40.

The Central Department of Vsevobuch (TsOVVO) directed the system, with departments at military commissariats at district, provincial, city, uyezd and volost level. By late 1918 there were 7 district, 37 provincial and 493 uyezd departments and 4,616 factory and village bureaus, staffed by some 50,000 instructors.

Training and the Civil War

The first eight-week, 96-hour program ran two hours a day without interrupting production and covered the rifle and marksmanship, drill, field service, entrenchment and garrison duty. Trainees were also sorted by prior service, and as the Civil War went on the system moved from training individual soldiers to forming reserve units: 3 rifle divisions, cadres of 2 rifle divisions and 54 rifle regiments, 1 rifle brigade, 1 cavalry regiment and 35 ski companies were formed and handed to the Red Army. In 1919 it trained 100,000 communists and Komsomol members, more than 82,000 workers and over 730,000 peasants; roughly 5 million passed through the system during the Civil War, supplying more than half of the Red Army's reinforcements in 1919-1920.

In June 1919 the country was divided into regimental and battalion territorial districts, subdivided into company, platoon and section areas. In November 1919 the Special Purpose Units (ChON) joined Vsevobuch and often fought as independent detachments; near the fronts, Vsevobuch detachments also mounted patrol and guard duty. Those who completed the course were registered as liable for military service, and the territorial units built around them were a cadre framework for mobilization. Shortages of rifles, ammunition and teaching aids, however, forced instructors to rely heavily on their own improvisation and on the enthusiasm of trainees.

Suspension in 1923 and Revival in the Great Patriotic War

Training was suspended in 1923. On 17 September 1941 the State Defence Committee issued its decision on universal military training, in force from 1 October, imposing 110 hours of compulsory training on men aged 16 to 50 without interruption of work. A Main Administration of Universal Military Training (GUVVO) was created within the People's Commissariat of Defence, with departments at republican, krai and oblast commissariats and two or three instructors at city and district level. From 11 October 1941 Russian-language courses were added for conscripts who did not speak Russian, running from 90 hours in Tajikistan to 150 in Azerbaijan.

The sources disagree on when the 110-hour training programme for women was introduced. The Russian Wikipedia article describes it as introduced in October 1941, while the English Wikipedia article dates it to 4 March 1942. Which is correct cannot be settled from the available material, so both accounts are reported here.

About 9,862,000 Soviet citizens passed through Vsevobuch in 1941-1945. GUVVO was disbanded in 1946 and its departments in military districts and commissariats in 1947-1948, ending the system.