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At the end of 1918, the first partisan detachments began to form in the Yenisei province. They became the basis of Soviet officials who had gone into the forest after the overthrow of the Soviet power, as well as peasants, dissatisfied with harassment of the white authorities and deserters from Kolchak's army. The partisans enjoyed the full sympathy of the local peasants. Gradually, the scattered partisan detachments turned into a real peasant army and took control of the territory of 14 volosts with a population of one hundred thousand. A kind of "liberated region" was formed, in which the Kolchak regime was overthrown. In March 1919, in the village of Umbazh, the 1st congress of the partisan army was held, at which the Stepno-Badzhei Soviet Republic was proclaimed. Partisan commander Aleksandr Kravchenko (former head of the criminal investigation department under the Soviet regime) became the commander-in-chief of the rebel army, and Pyotr Shchetinkin (former staff captain of the Russian army) became the chief of staff of the army.
As part of the partisan army, four partisan regiments were created. They were named by the names of the places of creation and deployment - Mansk, Kansk, Talsk and Aginsk. The total strength of the Peasant Army in April 1919 was 2,700 infantry and 350 cavalry. In addition to the infantry and cavalry, the army included a machine-gun company equipped with captured machine guns. After the arrival of the detachment of Peter Shchetinkin in the Stepno-Badzhei Republic, it was transformed into the North-Achinsk regiment and the number of the army increased to 5 thousand soldiers.