Faculty and students of the General Staff Academy were involved in debates over Soviet military restructuring in the last years of the USSR.

They became associated with the military reform efforts of Major Vladimir Lopatin and made specific suggestions for deep force reductions.

Following the Russian Revolutions, the Nikolaev Military Academy functioned in support of the White Army, being evacuated to territory held by Admiral Alexander Kolchak.

With the defeat of the White cause in the Russian Civil War, the academy ceased to exist in 1921, with its final graduation held in Vladivostok at the end of that year.

[3] On 7 October 1918 the Revolutionary Military Council ordered the foundation of the General Staff Academy of the Red Army, based in Moscow.

[3] The first intake of students, who joined on 25 November that year, numbered 183, with the official opening of the academy taking place on 8 December 1918.