Provisional All-Russian Government

A State Conference took place at Ufa between 8 and 23 September 1918, which resulted in the establishment of this alternative to the Russian Republic and then when that was overthrown by the Bolshevik government. It encompassed 170 delegates, including some from other regions. A compromise resulted: the Komuch gained recognition for the SR-dominated All-Russian Constituent Assembly (elected in November 1917) as the eventual basis of power, but they also lost their claim to be the legal All-Russian government. In its place a five-man Directory was set up as the embodiment of the new government:

• Nikolai Avksentiev (SR Party)
• Vladimir Zenzinov (SR Party)
• Pyotr Vologodsky, a regional politician (SR Party) and head of the Omsk Provisional Siberian Government
• General Vasily Boldyrev
• the left Kadet Vladimir Aleksandrovich Vinogradov

A Council of Ministers carried out the day-to-day administration of the government. A majority of the Council of Ministers (10 out of 14) had served formerly as members of the Provisional Siberian Government.

In November 1918, the unpopular regional government was overthrown in a British sponsored coup d'etat. The Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) directory leaders Avksentiev and Zenzinov and members were arrested on 18 November by a troop of Cossacks under ataman Krasilnikov. The next morning Vologodsky called for a PA-RG Council of Ministers. The Directory was dissolved and the remaining cabinet members voted for its former Minister of War, Admiral Kolchak, to be named Supreme Leader of All-Russia (Verkhovnyi Pravitel). He promoted himself to full admiral. The arrested SR politicians were expelled from Siberia and ended up in Europe.

The Supreme Leader issued the following manifesto to the population:

The Provisional All-Russian Government has fallen. The Council of Ministers, having all the power in its hands, has invested me, Admiral Alexander Kolchak, with this power. I have accepted this responsibility in the exceptionally difficult circumstances of civil war and complete disorganisation of the country, and I now make it known that I shall follow neither the reactionary path nor the deadly path of party strife. My chief aims are the organisation of a fighting force, the overthrow of Bolshevism, and the establishment of law and order, so that the Russian people may be able to choose a form of government in accordance with its desire and to realise the high ideas of liberty and freedom. I call upon you, citizens, to unite and to sacrifice your all, if necessary, in the struggle with Bolshevism.

Included among Kolchak's ministers was former prominent Tsarist minister Sergey Sazonov, who would represent the government at the Paris Peace Conference.[1]

Before his death on 7 February 1920, Supreme Ruler Kolchak had on 4 January 1920, issued an order transferring to Ataman Grigory Semyonov "the whole civil and military power on the territory of Russia Eastern Outskirts". As Omsk had been conquered by the Reds on 14 November 1919, as well as Tomsk on 20 December 1919 and Krasnoyarsk on 7 January 1920, Chita became the capital of the territory which was also known as Eastern Okraina and which was to last until 28 October 1920.

• Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (2008). Edinburgh, Birlinn, pp. 143–8.

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