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| Department overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | November 18, 1918 |
| Preceding Department | |
| Dissolved | January 5, 1920 |
| Superseding agency |
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| Jurisdiction |  Russian State |
| Headquarters | Omsk (until 10 November 1919) |
| Ministers responsible | |
The Russian Government [1] (Government of the Russian State, Omsk government, Kolchak government) was the highest executive body in White-controlled parts of Russia during the Russian Civil War, formed as a result of the coup of 18 November 1918 in Omsk headed by Alexander Kolchak.
The government was composed of the Supreme Ruler, the Council of Ministers and the Council of the Supreme Ruler. The government also included the Extraordinary State Economic Conference, which was later transformed into the State Economic Conference. On 17 December 1918, a special “Preparatory Conference” was created under the Government to deal with foreign policy issues and coordinate activities with the delegation of the “Russian Political Conference” representing Whites at the Paris Peace Conference. Under Kolchak, the Governing Senate (the highest court) was restored. The Department of Police and State Security, officially included in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was actually an independent structure. The leadership of the ideological work was entrusted to the Central Information Department at the General Staff and the Press Department at the Chancellery of the Council of Ministers. The government consisted mainly of former members of the Council of Ministers of the Ufa directory, who contributed to Kolchak's coup. It united Siberian regional cadets, popular socialists, etc.
Alexander Kolchak, as the head of state, has concentrated all branches of government in his hands: executive, legislative and judicial. The Supreme Ruler had unlimited power and was the highest governing body. Any legislative act became effective only after being signed by the Supreme Ruler. Also, the Supreme Ruler was at the same time the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The power of the Supreme Ruler was viewed as exclusively temporary, until the victory over the Bolsheviks and the re-convocation of the Constituent Assembly.
Under Kolchak, the Council of Ministers was endowed with extremely broad powers. It was a body of not only the executive, but also the legislative branch. The Council considered decrees and acts prior to their approval by the Supreme Ruler.
| Portfolio | Minister | Took office | Left office |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prime Minister | 18 November 1918 | 21 November 1919 | |
| 22 November 1919 | 5 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of Internal Affairs | 18 November 1918 | 29 April 1919 | |
| May 1919 | 22 November 1919 | ||
| 22 November 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of Foreign Affairs | 18 November 1918 | December 1918 | |
| December 1918 | 3 December 1919 | ||
| 3 December 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of Finance | 18 November 1918 | 16 August 1919 | |
| 16 August 1919 | 3 December 1919 | ||
| 3 December 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of Justice | 18 November 1918 | 2 May 1919 | |
| 16 August 1919 | 29 November 1919 | ||
| 29 November 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of War | 18 November 1918 | 23 May 1919 | |
| 23 May 1919 | 10 August 1919 | ||
| 10 August 1919 | 27 August 1919 | ||
| 27 August 1919 | 5 October 1919 | ||
| 5 October 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of Navy | 20 November 1918 | 4 January 1920 | |
| Minister of Labour | 18 November 1918 | 4 January 1920 | |
| Minister of Agriculture | 18 November 1918 | 4 January 1920 | |
| Minister of Railways | 18 November 1918 | 13 November 1919 | |
| 13 November 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of Education | 18 November 1918 | 2 May 1919 | |
| 6 May 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| Minister of Trade and Industry | Nikolay Shchukin | 18 November 1918 | 6 May 1919 |
| 6 May 1919 | 16 August 1919 | ||
| September 1919 | November 1919 | ||
| 29 November 1919 | 4 January | ||
| Minister of Supplies | 18 November 1918 | 27 December 1918 | |
| Minister of Food and Supplies | 27 December 1918 | 1919 | |
| 1919 | 4 January 1920 | ||
| State Controller | 18 November 1918 | 4 January 1920 | |
| Chief of Staff | 18 November 1918 | 16 August 1919 | |
| 16 August 1919 | 4 January 1920 |
The Council of the Supreme Ruler was formally an advisory body under Kolchak government, in fact it was a body for making major political decisions, which were legislatively formalized by decrees of the Supreme Ruler and the Council of Ministers. It was established by order of Kolchak on 21 November 1918 and consisted of:
The result of the creation of the Council of the Supreme Ruler was the fact that the Council of Ministers was withdrawn from the politics. It has lost many of its executive functions, focusing almost exclusively on legislative activity. This, however, did not last long.
The central place in the Council of the Supreme Ruler was taken by the Minister of Finance Ivan Mikhaylov. He was one of the most influential members of the government, but his popularity was low. Under public pressure on 16 August 1919, Mikhaylov was dismissed. After that, the Council of the Supreme Ruler began to meet extremely irregularly, and its importance practically disappeared. After the fall of Omsk, it never met.
A few days after the 18 November coup, the last state controller of the tsarist government, Sergey Fedosyev , submitted a note to Kolchak on the establishment of the Extraordinary State Economic Conference. According to the initial project, it was assumed that representatives from trade and industry would prevail in it. The Council of Ministers has expanded its representation from cooperation. In this form, the decree was approved by the Supreme Ruler on November 22, 1918. [2] Initially, it was almost exclusively a bureaucratic organization with the task of developing emergency measures in the field of finance, supplying the army and restoring the commercial and industrial apparatus. ESEC became a representative body on 2 May 1919, when it was transformed into the State Economic Conference. ESEC included Sergey Fedosyev as chairman, minister of Finance, minister of War, minister of Food and Supply, minister of Trade and Industry, minister of Railways, State Controller, three representatives of the boards of private and cooperative banks, five representatives of the All-Russian Council of Trade and Industry Congresses and three representatives of the Council of Cooperative Congresses.
The opening of the newly created State Economic Conference took place on 19 June 1919 in Omsk. It included 60 members: ministers, representatives from the banks, cooperatives, zemstvo assemblies and city councils, as well as from the Siberian, Ural, Orenburg and Transbaikal Cossack troops. Georgy Gins was the chairman of this body.
After the capture of Omsk by the Reds, the SEC moved to Irkutsk, where the meetings were resumed after 8 December 1919.
The Russian Government was recognized at the international level formally (de jure) by only one state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. At the end of June 1919, Charge d'Affaires of the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry J. Milanković arrived in Omsk. Vasily Strandmann was approved as an envoy in Belgrade. The Russian Government was recognized de facto by the Entente countries (Russia's allies in the World War I) and the countries that emerged after the collapse of the European empires: Czechoslovakia, Finland, Poland and the Baltic states. [3]
On the eve of the fall of Omsk, on the morning of 10 November 1919, the Council of Ministers fled to Irkutsk by the Trans-Siberian Railway. Here it was cut off from the army and the Supreme Ruler. On 14 November Omsk fell for the communists, the whole frontline was falling apart. Suppressed by the setbacks, Prime Minister Vologodsky resigned, which was accepted on November 21. Pepelyayev was instructed to form a new government, who soon left Irkutsk to Kolchak's headquarters.
Mass uprisings broke out throughout Siberia, Whites relentlessly retreated to the east. In this situation, on 21 December 1919, a workers' uprising broke out in Cheremkhovo, supported in Irkutsk itself on the 24 December. The heading of the Cabinet was taken over by the Minister of Internal Affairs Alexander Cherven-Vodali. On the 28 December Cherven-Vodali, the Minister of War Khanzhin and the interim Minister of Railways Larionov formed an operational administrative body, the so-called "Trojectory". Due to the passivity of the Czechoslovak Legion, declaring its neutrality, the Trojectory, which did not have the required number of troops at hand, was forced to negotiate with the leaders of the anti-Kolchak uprising. Kolchak, realizing the imminence of his collapse, signed a decree on 4 January 1920 prejudging his abdication in favor of General Denikin, to whom it was planned to transfer power upon his arrival in Verkhneudinsk; power in the East of Russia passed to Ataman Semyonov.
On January 5, power in Irkutsk had passed in the hands of the Political Center led by SRs and Mensheviks. The Russian Government was overthrown. Prime Minister Viktor Pepelyayev was shot together with Alexander Kolchak on 7 February 1920.
Omsk is the administrative center and largest city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia and has a population of over 1.1 million. Omsk is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk, and the twelfth-largest city in Russia. It is an important transport node, serving as a train station for the Trans-Siberian Railway and as a staging post for the Irtysh River.
The Czechoslovak Legion were volunteer armed forces comprised predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting on the side of the Entente powers during World War I and the White Army during the Russian Civil War until November 1919. Their goal was to win the support of the Allied Powers for the independence of Lands of the Bohemian Crown from the Austrian Empire and of Slovak territories from the Kingdom of Hungary, which were then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the help of émigré intellectuals and politicians such as the Czech Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Slovak Milan Rastislav Štefánik, they grew into a force over 100,000 strong.
The White Army or White Guard, also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. They fought against the Red Army of Soviet Russia.
The Great Siberian Ice March was the name given to the 2000-kilometer winter retreat of Admiral Kolchak's Siberian Army from Omsk to Chita, in the course of the Russian Civil War between 14 November 1919 and March 1920.
The Provisional All-Russian Government (PA-RG), informally known as The Directory, The Ufa Directory, or The Omsk Directory, was a short-lived government during the Russian Civil War, formed on 23 September 1918 at the State Conference in Ufa as a result of a forced and extremely unstable compromise of various anti-Communist forces in eastern Russia. It was dissolved two months later after the coup, which had brought Admiral Alexander Kolchak to power in Communist-free areas of eastern Russia.
Viktor Nikolayevich Pepelyayev was a Russian politician, a supporter of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the State of Russia.
Anatoly Nikolayevich Pepelyayev was a White Russian general who led the Siberian armies of Admiral Kolchak during the Russian Civil War. His elder brother Viktor Pepelyayev served as Prime Minister in Kolchak's government.
The Siberian Army was an anti-Bolshevik army during the Russian Civil War, which fought from June 1918 – July 1919 in Siberia – Ural Region.
The Provisional Siberian Government was a short-lived government in Siberia created by the White movement in 1918.
The Perm Operation, sometimes called the Perm Catastrophe, was a military operation on the Eastern Theater of the Russian Civil War.
Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was a Russian admiral, military leader and polar explorer who held the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia from 1918 to 1920 during the Russian Civil War, though his actual control over Russian territory was limited. Previously, he served in the Imperial Russian Navy and fought in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.
The 5th Pri-Amur Corps was a formation of the Siberian Army, part of the anti-Bolshevik White movement during the Russian Civil War. It primarily operated in the Transbaikal region and was headquartered in the city of Chita. The 5th Corps was formed from the Transbaikal Cossacks and various other volunteer forces fighting under Ataman (chief) Grigory Semyonov, as part of his Special Manchurian Unit.
Leonid Aleksandrovich Ustrugov was a Russian railway engineer who served as the Minister of Railways in the White government of Admiral Alexander Kolchak during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1920. He later became a victim of Stalin's Great Purge.
Sergey Afanasyevich Taskin was a Russian political figure of the first quarter of the 20th century, a constitutional democrat. He was a leading member of the White movement.
The Russian State was a White Army anti-Bolshevik state proclaimed by the Act of the Ufa State Conference of September 23, 1918, “On the formation of the all-Russian supreme power” in the name of “restoring state unity and independence of Russia” affected by the revolutionary events of 1917, the October Revolution and the signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany.
The Supreme Ruler of Russia, also referred to as the Supreme Leader of Russia, was the head of state and supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian State, an anti-Bolshevik government established by the White Movement during the Russian Civil War. For nearly two years from November 1918 until April 1920, the armies of the White Movement were nominally united under the administration of the Russian State, during which the Russian State claimed to be the sole legal government of Russia. The office's sole holder for most of its existence, and the only one to officially adopt the titles and functions of the Supreme Ruler, was Admiral Alexander Kolchak, who was elected to the position by the All-Russian Council of Ministers following the November 18 coup which overthrew the Directory.
The State Conference in Ufa which took place on September 8–23, 1918, in the city of Ufa in southern Russia was the most representative forum of anti-Bolshevik governments, political parties, Cossack troops, and local governments of eastern Russia.
Pyotr Vasilievich Vologodsky was a Russian statesman, public figure, and mason. He was the first chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian state and the second and last chairman of the Provisional Siberian government.
Sergei Nikolaevich Rozanov was a lieutenant general, a leader of the White movement.
The Kolchak Coup or Omsk Coup refers to the events of 18 November, 1918, when members associated the left wing of the Directory were arrested by members of the White Army in Omsk and the subsequent decision of the All-Russian Council of Ministers to transfer sole supreme power to the Minister of Military and Naval Affairs Alexander Kolchak.
Cabinets of the Government of Russia | |
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 Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire (1905–17) |
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 Russian Provisional Government (1917) |
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 Governments of the Whites (1918–20) |
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 Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR (1917–46) |
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 Council of Ministers of the Russian SFSR (1946–91) |
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 Council of Ministers (1991–93) and  Government of the Russian Federation (since 1993) |
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