Battalions of death

After the February Revolution the Russian army was falling apart while the Provisional Government prepared a summer offensive. In May 1917 the South-Western Front produced the idea of volunteer units sworn to fight to the last drop of blood; as commander-in-chief, Brusilov ordered the formation of "revolutionary shock battalions", also called battalions of death. In June any unit that adopted such a resolution was allowed to take the name; by October there were over a hundred.

The veteran soldier Maria Bochkareva won Kerensky's consent for a women's battalion. Of over 2,000 volunteers she kept about 300; in July 1917 they attacked near Smorgon and lost several dozen women killed and wounded. More women's units followed; estimates put the number of women who served in them at between 4,000 and over 6,000. A company of one of them defended the Winter Palace in October. The Bolsheviks disbanded the women's units at the end of 1917, and the shock battalions disintegrated with the army.