The Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army military operations to liberate the Middle Volga region and the Urals from the troops of the People’s Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), the troops of the Czechoslovak Legion, the Siberian Separate Army, and other anti-Bolshevik armed forces.

By August 1918, the Komuch People’s Army (commanded by Vladimir Kappel) and the Czechoslovak Legion had established control over vast territories and formed a united anti-Soviet front in the Volga region. The command of the Red Army’s Eastern Front (commander Joakim Vatsetis, from September 28 – Sergey Kamenev) planned to launch a counter-offensive and successive attacks on Kazan, Simbirsk, Syzran, Samara to defeat the Volga group of the Czechoslovak Legion and the People’s Army, and then to open a general offensive, liberate all the Middle Volga and the Urals.

At the end of August, 5th Army units of the Red Army repelled Vladimir Kappel’s forces of the People’s Army that attempted to capture Sviyazhsk. On September 5, the 5th Army of the Red Army launched a counter-offensive and, during the Kazan operation of 1918, took Kazan on September 10. During the Simbirsk operation of 1918, the 1st Army of the Red Army (commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky) liberated Simbirsk (September 12). The strategic initiative passed to the Reds. Developing the offensive, the 5th Army liberated the right bank of the Volga by September 19. As a result of the Syzran-Samara operation of 1918 (September 14 – October 8), the Red Army troops captured Khvalynsk (September 26), Syzran (October 3), Samara (October 7). At the same time, units of the Red Army liberated the area from Chistopol to Sarapul.

On October 8, the Red troops launched a general offensive. Part of the Red Army troops was tasked to advance to Krasnoufimsk, Yekaterinburg. By mid-November, Buzuluk, Buguruslan, Belebey, Bugulma had been liberated. In mid-November, the 3rd Army of the Red Army (commander Reingold Berzin) took part in the Izhevsk-Votkinsk operation, aimed at the suppression of the anti-Bolshevik armed uprising of defense factories’ workers of the Kama area in the Vyatka governorate. As a result of the offensive in October – November, the Red Army liberated the entire Middle Volga region and the Kama area.

In December, the troops of the Red Army’s Eastern Front continued their offensive against Uralsk, Orenburg, Ufa, Yekaterinburg. On December 31, after persistent fighting, the 5th Army liberated Ufa. On the left wing, the 3rd and (later) 2nd armies at the end of 1918 carried out heavy defensive battles against the White Siberian Separate Army (commander Radola Gajda). Having lost in battles about half of its personnel, the 3rd Army left Kungur and Perm and retreated beyond the Kama.

The attempted counter-offensive by the Red Army’s 3rd, 2nd, 5th armies in January 1919 failed. The 1st and 4th armies of the Red Army developed an offensive to the southeast, liberated Orenburg (January 22), Uralsk (January 24), and Orsk (in February). In Orenburg, the 1st Army united with the Soviet Turkestan troops advancing towards it, cutting off the White Cossack armies of Aleksander Dutov and Vladimir Tolstov from the Aleksander Kolchak’s Russian Army. Thus, the unification of Aleksander Kolchak’s and Anton Denikin’s White armies was prevented.