7. _Army Committees._ The _Army Committees_ were formed by the soldiers at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old regime officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps had its committee, over all of which was elected the _Army Committee._ The _Central Army Committee_ cooperated with the General Staff. The administrative break-down in the army incident upon the Revolution threw upon the shoulders of the _Army Committees_ most of the work of the Quartermaster’s Department, and in some cases, even the command of troops. 8. _Fleet Committees._ The corresponding organisations in the Navy. Central Committees In the spring and summer of 1917, All-Russian conventions of every sort of organisation were held at Petrograd. There were national congresses of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Soviets, Trade Unions, Factory-Shop Committees, Army and Fleet Committees—besides every branch of the military and naval service, Cooperatives, Nationalities, etc. Each of these conventions elected a Central Committee, or a Central Executive Committee, to guard its particular interests at the seat of Government. As the Provisional Government grew weaker, these Central Committees were forced to assume more and more administrative powers. The most important Central Committees mentioned in this book are: _Union of Unions._ During the Revolution of 1905, Professor Miliukov and other Liberals established unions of professional men—doctors, lawyers, physicians, etc. These were united under one central organisation, the _Union of Unions._ In 1905 the _Union of Unions_ acted with the revolutionary democracy; in 1917, however, the _Union of Unions_ opposed the Bolshevik uprising, and united the Government employees who went on strike against the authority of the Soviets. _Tsay-ee-kah._ All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. So called from the initials of its name. _Tsentroflot._ “Centre-Fleet”—the Central Fleet Committee. _Vikzhel._ All-Russian Central Committee of the Railway Workers’ Union. So called from the initials of its name. Other Organisations _Red Guards._ The armed factory workers of Russia. The _Red Guards_ were first formed during the Revolution of 1905, and sprang into existence again in the days of March, 1917, when a force was needed to keep order in the city. At that time they were armed, and all efforts of the Provisional Government to disarm them were more or less unsuccessful. At every great crisis in the Revolution the _Red Guards_ appeared on the streets, untrained and undisciplined, but full of Revolutionary zeal. _White Guards._ Bourgeois volunteers, who emerged in the last stages of the Revolution, to defend private property from the Bolshevik attempt to abolish it. A great many of them were University students.