In 1918, Grabar took the lead of the Museums and Preservation Section of the Soviet Government, the Museum Fund and the Moscow-based state restoration workshops, becoming de facto chief curator of arts and architectural heritage for the whole Moscow region. As prescribed by the Bolsheviks in December 1918, Grabar's institutions catalogued all known heritage, "an action tantamount to confiscation", and despite continuing war many nationalized landmarks were actually restored. Grabar's group, like the contemporary Gorky Commission, was torn by a conflict of preservationists (Grabar, Alexander Benois, Alexander Chayanov, Pyotr Baranovsky) and "destroyers" (David Shterenberg, Vladimir Tatlin) and Grabar later complained that he had to offset two extremes, destruction of heritage and obstruction of avant-garde artists (he was himself the "main exponent of conservation"). Grabar successfully exploited whatever allies he could recruit amongst the ambivalent Soviet bureaucracy, starting with the Commissar for Education Anatoly Lunacharsky, and even managed to retain his affluent lifestyle of the past.