After the October Revolution of 1917, Frunze became Military Commissar for the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Province in 1918. In the course of the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922, he was appointed as head of the Southern Army Group of the Red Army Eastern Front [ ru ] (March 1919). After Frunze's troops defeated Admiral Alexander Kolchak and the White Army in Omsk, Leon Trotsky (the head of the Red Army) gave overall command of the Eastern Front to him (19 July 1919).