The article considers the problem of the condition of war prisoners in West Siberia in 1917. During World War I about two hundred thousands of war prisoners were placed on the territory of West Siberia. After February revolution in 1917 the rules of keeping war prisoners in the region considerably softened. They got the rights to be everywhere and to walk on the streets without the guard. The weakening of supervision for war prisoners resulted in the fact that many of them tried to escape across China to their motherland with the help of false documents. In the concentration camps with the help of local soviets war prisoners committees were created which were engaged in the everyday problems. War prisoners began to take an active participation in the political life of revolutionary Russia. Military units of “internationalists” were formed from war prisoners who actively supported local bolsheviks. The “internationalists” resisted the Czechs and Slovaks who were loyal to the Provisional government and who were going to fight against German troops within the corps containing almost forty thousand people. In that time war prisoners who were placed in village area and worked at private industrial enterprises began to demand the qualitative improvement of their conditions from the authorities. Thanks to support of local soviets, social status of the war prisoners in the region greatly changed for the better. The international inspectors, who controlled the conditions of keeping the war prisoners, began to present inconceivable claims to the Russian authorities. After the bolsheviks came to power and signed the Brest separate peace, war prisoners got a chance to return to their motherland.