In the Red Army since 1918. During the Civil War in 1918–1919, the commissar of the workers' detachment to combat Dutovism, a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Ural Regional Soviet and chief political commissar of the 3rd Army of the Eastern Front (from January to March 1919). One of the regicides of Nicholas II. Party and signatory to the decision to execute the royal family in July 1918. Delegate with a decisive vote at the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) March 18–23, 1919. He commanded the Red Army detachment in the battles of Zlatoust, created regular units of the Soviet Army in the Urals. Together with representatives of the Ural Regional Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), he was one of the organizers of the first political departments of the Soviet Army. Later, in the same year, he became the head of the cultural education department of the Petrograd district military commissariat. On his initiative, political workers' courses were created, on the basis of which the Red Army Teacher Training Institute was formed, later transformed into the Military–Political Academy. In May 1919, he was a member of the City Defense Committee, and was sent as the authorized to the 7th Army on the Lugov front sector against General Yudenich's troops.