Volga Germans

The article shows the most important aspects of the life of the German villages of the Volga region in 1918 using specific facts and examples. An important tool for consolidating the power of the Bolsheviks on the ground were the Red Guard formations created by them, the main requirement for which was to protect the new government and ensure the implementation of its policy on the ground. Performing their functions, these detachments often used repressive methods of treating peasants up to their murder, especially when food and other property were seized from them. 

The article is devoted to the research of family structure of German settlements in the Volga Region in the middle of XIX-th century, based on the analisys of "Gnilushka" colony in the Kamyshin district of Saratov province. Family structure model of the colony is being studied by the enumeration lists from the point of view of demographic analysis and J. Handzhnal's theory of existence of a unique European-type marriage.

The author analyzes a short Saratov period of the course of life of a well-known German social democrat Ernst Reuter. According to the directive of the RSFSR Council of Peoples Commissars Chairman V. I. Lenin and Peoples Commissar on Nationalities J. V Stalin a German war prisoner and communist Ernst Reuter was sent to Saratov Volga Region in April 1918 where he became the leader of the Volga Region Commissariat on the Germans.