In August 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council decided to send an expeditionary partisan detachment to the rear of the White Guard troops on the Eastern Front. In September 1918, Kozhevnikov was chosen to organize the partisan struggle in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. The detachment of Kozhevnikov, formed mainly from volunteers of the Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod and Astrakhan postal and telegraph districts, numbered initially some 500 men. By November 1918, his detachment already had 12,000 men and became known as the .