Western Rifle Division was one of the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

s military formations during the Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

.

It was formed in summer 1918 from the initiative of Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania

Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania

The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania was a Marxist political party founded in 1893. Its original name was the "Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland" and it eventually became part of the Communist Workers Party of Poland...

 (SDKPiL) and Polish Socialist Party-Left (PPS-Lewica). The division

Division (military)

A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...

 was created on the basis of a Polish communist regiment

Regiment

A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...

, the Red Regiment of Revolutionary Warsaw (Czerwony Pułk Rewolucyjnej Warszawy) and in the beginning it was mostly composed of Polish volunteers.

First it fought on the Southern Front against the White

White movement

The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

 Cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

s of Pyotr Krasnov

Pyotr Krasnov

Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov , 1869 – January 17, 1947), sometimes referred to in English as Peter Krasnov, was Lieutenant General of the Russian army when the revolution broke out in 1917, and one of the leaders of the counterrevolutionary White movement afterward.- Russian Army :Pyotr Krasnov...

; later against the forces of Anton Denikin and Pyotr Wrangel. During the Polish-Soviet War

Polish-Soviet War

The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...

 it was part of the Western Army

Western Army (Russia)

The Western Army or 16th Army was created on November 15, 1918, by the Russian SFSR for the purpose of recovering territories lost by the Russian Empire during the First World War and establishing Soviet republics in those territories...

, it fought against the Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defence

Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defence

Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defence was a voluntary military formation composed primarily of Poles that was created in the aftermath of First World War during the formation of Second Polish Republic in the Kresy Polish-Russian borderlands....

 units and later Polish Army of the newly created Second Polish Republic

Second Polish Republic

The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...

 in the opening phase of the Polish-Soviet War

Polish-Soviet War

The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...

. Spearheading the Russian westward offensive of 1918-1919

Russian westward offensive of 1918-1919

The Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919 was part of the general move of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic into the areas abandoned by the Ober-Ost garrisons, that were being withdrawn to Germany following that country's defeat in the World War I. The Soviet Western Front...

 ('Target Vistula') it took Wilno in January 1919; it sustained heavy losses during the fights at Baranowicze against forces of general Stanisław Szeptycki (part of Operation Wilno

Vilna offensive

The Vilna offensive was a campaign of the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. The Polish army launched an offensive on April 16, 1919, to take Vilnius from the Red Army. After three days of street fighting from April 19–21, the city was captured by Polish forces, causing the Red Army to...

, a Polish counteroffensive).

After losses of 1918 and mid-1919, in June 1919 it was heavily reinforced with Russians

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

, Belarusians

Belarusians

Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...

 and Ukrainians

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

 and lost its Polish character; it was then (9 June) renamed to 52nd Rifle Division of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

.

Commanders of the division were commissairs Stanisław Bobiński and Stefan Żbikowski.

Organization:

• I Brygada Strzelców – Rewolucyjny Czerwony Pułk Warszawski, 3 Rewolucyjny Pułk Siedlecki, Warszawski Pułk Huzarów and I dywizjon artylerii lekkiej
• II Brygada Strzelców – 2 Rewolucyjny Pułk Lubelski, 4 Rewolucyjny Pułk Warszawski, Mazowiecki Pułk Ułanów, II dywizjon artylerii lekkiej
• III Brygada Strzelców - 5 Rewolucyjny Pułk Wileński, 6 Rewolucyjny Pułk Grodzieński, Warszawski Pułk Huzarów, III dywizjon artylerii.

The division also comprised various support units. Dziewanowski notes it had 5 regiments.