The Army began its creation on 27 June 1941 mostly from the previously raised 168 destroyer battalions intended to deal with expected enemy saboteurs and parachutists, reporting directly to the commander of Northern Front. The personnel was drawn from the reserve officer cadres, retired officers, workers and students of Leningrad. The initial intention was to create an army with seven divisions, but eventually 10 divisions were raised. The Army began formation on 29 June, and by 2 July, 45,183 people had been accepted as volunteers, with a proposal for a 200,000-strong Army being made by the city Communist Party Committee with a view of expansion to 15 divisions according to the number of rayons in the city. By 4 July, the number of volunteers had increased to 77,413б, and by 6 July reached 96,776. Initially it consisted of four People's Militia divisions, but 10 were eventually raised.
Division structure
The structure of eight of these was based on the field rifle divisions with three rifle regiments, one artillery regiment structure, and other units for a total of about 10-11,000 personnel.
1st People's Militia Division named for the Kirovsky District with by 15 August had joined the retreating 70th and 237th Rifle Divisions and engaged in the fighting on approaches to Novgorod. On the 3 September its 3rd regiment was transferred to the command of the 291st Rifle Division, and replaced by the 76th Latvian Separate Rifle regiment on the 14 September.
4th Light Division of Narodnoe Opolcheniye named for the Dzerzhinsky District , with only 4,257 personnel, but almost entirely motorised, and admitting only volunteers with prior combat experience. The division was allowed a period of extended combat training.
*Separate battalion of Special Purpose
3rd Guards Leningrad People's Militia Division which later fought with the 402nd Red Banner rifle regiment of the 168th Rifle Division formed in the Petrograd District
4th Guards Division of Narodnoe Opolcheniye formed in the Kalinin District was never fully formed and on the 13 August transferred to Army reserve, its personnel used to complete units of other divisions. However, its three rifle regiments continued to participate in combat under command of other divisions, and the staff of the division was retained, and used to conduct induction training and formation, as well as command of replacement Opolcheniye battalions.
264th, 265th and 266th separate machinegun-artillery battalions
104th destroyer battalion deployed in the area of Terioki
Deployed around Kolpino was the 120th destroyer battalion
2nd Latvian workers regiment
5th Division of Narodnoe Opolcheniye formed early September 1941 from the former 4th division and on the 10 September dislocated to Pulkovo.
*291st separate machinegun-artillery battalion
6th Division of Narodnoe Opolcheniye
7th Division of Narodnoe Opolcheniye raised on the 17 September it was formed on the 30 September as the 56th Rifle Division.
277th separate machinegun-artillery battalion around Ropsha
83rd separate machinegun-artillery battalion around Ropsha and Kolpino
227 partisan detachments were also created, but only 67 were sent into combat with a total of 2,886 personnel to operate behind German lines.
Combat history
The Army units, in cooperation with the regular Red Army formations, participated in fighting on the approaches to Leningrad and the entire Leningrad Strategic Defensive in the area of Narva - Pskov - Novgorod, primarily against the 18th Army of the Army Group North. The fighting was extremely vicious, and most divisions were reduced to 50% of their initial strength by the time they were amalgamated or integrated into the regular Red Army formations at the end of September. On the 23 September 1941 all the divisions of the Leningrad Narodnoe Opolcheniye Army divisions were used to form Red Army units mostly within the Leningrad Front.
