The paper considers the issue, which is poorly researched in regtudied in regional historiography, one of the ways of recruiting of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which was realized by Bolshevist government on the territory of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic since the transition to compulsory military service from May 1918 to July 1921. The article, which is based on the analysis of archive material, many of which were for the first time ever put into scientific circulation, shows the complex process of realization of the program of the Universal Military Training (UMT) by the case of the biggest districts of Astrakhan province: Enotaevsky and Astrakhan. The author focused on the study of the issues of the UMT structure, main strategies and methods of implementation of the system of military instruction among men’s population. There were considered reasons for incompleteness of the UMT program in close connection with social, geographical and economics specific features of region. Based on the study of archive material, it was concluded that even though the program of the Universal Military Training (UMT) was not fully implemented, the conducted work has had a significant effect on the protection of Bolshevik’s power on the territory of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and Astrakhan province in particular.
