Heads of Vseroglavshtab were N. N. Stogov (18 May–2 August 1918); A. A. Svechin (2 August 1918–22 October 1918); and N. I. Rattel′ (22 October 1918–10 February 1921).
VSEVOBUCH. This acronym (derived from the Russian Vseobshchee voennoe obuchenie) denotes the practice of universal military training for civilians in Soviet Russia. It was introduced by an order of VTsIK, on 22 April 1918, and applied to all adult workers and peasant males aged 16 to 40 years, although women could also volunteer for military training. The system was jointly overseen by the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs and the People’s Commissariat for Education and involved an eight-week program. This was delivered by some 50,000 instructors by the end of 1918. Soviet sources claim that by the end of 1920, 5,000,000 people had received military training. Vsevobuch was abolished in 1923 (although it was reintroduced in the USSR during the Second World War).
Vsevolodov, Nikolai Dmitrievich (4 May 1879–?). Lieutenant (13 August 1901), lieutenant colonel (12 June 1913), colonel (15 August 1916). One of the most notorious and damaging of those military specialists of the Red Army who deserted to the Whites, N. D. Vsevolodov was a graduate of the Siberian Cadet Corps (1896), the Nicholas Cavalry School (1898), and the Academy of the General Staff (1905). Prior to the First World War, his postings included commanding a squadron of the 5th Dragoons (15 April 1908–15 April 1910) and serving as an adjutant on the staff of the 17th Infantry Division (26 November 1910–30 October 1913). Following the February Revolution, he occupied a series of senior staff posts (including chief of staff of the Moscow Military District, from 19 August 1917). In 1918, he entered the service of the Red Army, becoming chief of staff (29 October 1918–20 April 1919) and then commander (6–16 June 1919) of the 9th Red Army. According to Soviet commentators, in those posts he ferried information to the enemy, compromising the position of the entire Southern Front and facilitating the subsequent Moscow offensive of the White forces of General A. I. Denikin, before deserting to Armed Forces of South Russia. Vsevolodov was evacuated with White forces from Novorossiisk in March 1920 and spent a period in refugee camps on Lemnos before joining the emigration. His subsequent fate is unknown.
VSNKh. The acronym (sometimes rendered as Vesenkha), derived from its name in Russian (Vserossiiskii sovet narodnogo khoziastva), by which the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is usually known. This body (which had its counterparts in other Soviet republics), which sought to exercise supreme control over the Soviet economy, was founded on 5 December 1917 by decrees of VTsIK and was made subordinate to Sovnarkom. As one of the key organs of War Communism, it sought to direct the production and organization of nationalized industries and to manage the supply and distribution of key goods, and it exercised rights of confiscation and expropriation.
Initially, VSNKh was dominated by Left Bolsheviks (notably N. I. Bukharin, G. I. Lomov, and V. N. Smirnov), but over the spring of 1918, increasing numbers of Bolsheviks more loyal to V. I. Lenin and the party apparatus were placed in key posts within the organization, culminating with the naming of A. I. Rykov as chairman of VSNKh in May 1918. Subordinate to it were so-called glavki (from the Russian for “main committees”) that sought to direct individual industries or branches of the economy, for example, Glavneft (for the oil industry), Glavsakhar (sugar), Glavzoloto (gold), etc. By 1920, the organization was responsible for 37,000 nationalized enterprises, although the Soviet state’s broad economic strategy during the civil-war years tended to be decided elsewhere (notably in the Council of Labor and Defense). In 1923, following the creation of the USSR, it was transformed into an all-union people’s commissariat. In 1932, VSNKh was abolished and replaced by a series of people’s commissariats for heavy industry, light industry, etc.
Chairmen of VSNKh during the civil-war period were N. Osinskii (5 December 1917–28 March 1918); A. I. Rykov (28 March 1918–28 May 1921); and P. A. Bogdanov (28 May 1921–6 July 1923).
VTsIK. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee (Vserossiiskii tsentral′nyi ispolnitel′nyi komitet) of the Soviets of Workers’ Peasants’, Soldiers’ and Cossacks’ Deputies, which was elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in theory served as the highest legislative body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) while the Congress was not in session and was thus (again, in theory) the government of all territories controlled by the Bolsheviks during the civil wars. It had initially been elected at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (3–24 June 1917), but did not at that stage claim governmental authority. The 102-member VTsIK, elected at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets (25–26 October 1917) in the midst of the October Revolution, which was dominated by the 62 Bolshevik members and their allies, notably 29 members of the Party of Left Socialists-Revolutionaries (plus 34 nonvoting, candidate members, 29 of whom were Bolsheviks and 5 Left-SRs), became in name the government of the RSFSR, although in practice state policy was decided by the smaller Sovnarkom and by the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, while (from November 1917) VTsIK’s presidium handled day-to-day affairs and rapidly eclipsed the authority of the plenum.
The roles of VTsIK, Sovnarkom, and the Congress of Soviets often overlapped and were not clearly defined by the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of July 1918, although some clarity was brought to the matter by the issuing of the decree “On Soviet Construction” at the Eighth All-Russian Congress of Soviets (22–29 December 1920). However, this mattered little, as by the summer of 1918 the Bolsheviks’ grip on VTsIK was nearly complete, with the Left-SRs banned in the wake of the Left-SR Uprising and Mensheviks and other parties prevented from putting forward candidates for elections: of the 178 candidates elected to VTsIK by the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets (4–10 July 1918), 157 were Bolsheviks. Thereafter, any pretense that VTsIK might genuinely debate the decrees passed by Sovnarkom—much less reject them—was dropped, and the appearances before VTsIK of Sovnarkom representatives became a formality.