By order of the Petrograd Defense region and the Northern
Screen on 14 March 1918, the
Pskov detachments created to repulse the
advance of German troops in February 1918 joined the
Luga district and reorganized as part of the Novoselskaya department of the district. Between March and May it guarded the demarcation line in the area of Pskov. The district was renamed the
Novgorod sector on 1 April 1918, and on 21 April the formation of the Pskov Infantry Division from units of the Luga District and a cadre from the Novgorod Infantry Division of the
Imperial Army. The Pskov Division was renamed the Luga Infantry Division on 17 May and on 9 June the headquarters of the Novgorod Sector merged with that of the Luga Infantry Division. The existence of the latter proved brief, however, as on 31 May it was renamed the 4th Petrograd Infantry Division. The division was transferred to the
Yaroslavl Military District in July and then to the
Volga Military District in September. The division joined the
5th Army of the
Southern Front in October and fought in defensive battles against the
Don Army in the area of
Novokhopyorsk and
Borisoglebsk until December. By an order of the
Southern Front on 21 January 1919, the division was merged with elements of the 11th (the former 1st) Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division to become the Consolidated Rifle Division. Briefly transferred to the
9th Army in January 1919, the 11th was relocated to the
Western Front in February, where it was redesignated as the 11th Rifle Division on 1 March. The 11th fought against Estonian troops and the forces of
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz in the area of
Marienburg in April, serving as the headquarters of the Marienburg Group of Forces. In May the division became part of the
Army of Soviet Latvia, which was redesignated as the 15th Army on 9 June. The division was renamed the 11th Petrograd Rifle Division on 7 August 1919. During that month it fought in the defense of Petrograd and the offensive against the
Northwestern Army in the Pskov area, then on the Luga–
Gdov,
Yamburg,
Narva, and
Dvinsk–
Rezhitsa sectors between October and December and January and February 1920. The 11th then fought against Polish troops in the area of Lake Ssho, Kamen, and
Ushachy, and in the May Offensive. The division fought in the
July Offensive during the
Polish–Soviet War between 4 and 23 July and then in the
Battle of Warsaw, fighting in the area of the
Narew and the
Vistula, retreating into Belarus after the Red defeat in the Battle of Warsaw. The 15th Army was disbanded in December and the division joined the
Petrograd Military District. It fought in the suppression of the
Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921 as part of the
7th Army. == Interwar period ==