Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

As the Soviet regime collapsed in Siberia in May–June 1918, members of the Derber government who had remained underground at Novonikolaevsk and Omsk emerged as the Western Siberian Commissariat and its successor, the Siberian Provisional Government, but came to act increasingly independently of their progenitor, while the Siberian Army completely refused to recognize Derber’s authority. The replacement of the radical Derber with the more moderate I. A. Lavrov as prime minister, on 30 July 1918, had little impact on the government’s power and influence, and by October 1918, it had entirely ceased to function (although it only formally disbanded on 3 November 1918, when it recognized the authority of the Ufa Directory).

SIBERIAN ARMY. This anti-Bolshevik military force was created at Novonikolaevsk, chiefly around what remained of the structures of the Russian Army’s West Siberian Military District, on 26 May 1918, as Soviet authority collapsed across Siberia in the wake of the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion. It was initially a volunteer force, consisting mostly of officers, but by July 1918 had begun a series of mobilizations among the Siberian peasantry.

The Siberian Army was originally called the West Siberian Independent Army (from 13 June 1918), but was redubbed the Siberian Army on 27 June 1918. It thereafter shifted its base of operations to Omsk, where the Provisional Siberian Government came to power on 30 June 1918 and sought to coordinate and control White forces across all Siberia and the Far East. From 12 June 1918, it consisted of the Mid-Siberian and Steppe Corps and the West Siberian Detachment, to which was added a 3rd (Urals) Corps on 26 August 1918. Finally, from 25 September 1918, by which time the Siberian Army had become one of the forces of the Ufa Directory, it was reorganized into five territorial corps: 1st Mid-Siberian (Tomsk and Altai gubernii); 2nd Steppe (Tobol′sk guberniia and Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk oblasti); 3rd Urals (Perm′ guberniia and the eastern districts of Ufa and Orenburg gubernii); 4th East Siberian (Irkutsk and Eniseisk gubernii and Transbaikal and Iakutsk oblasti); and 5th Amur (Amur, Maritime Province, Kamchatka). Estimates indicate that by September 1918, the Siberian Army had a strength of 37,600 men, with 70 field guns and 184 machine guns. However, in this period officers of the Siberian Army, who had set about restoring the uniforms and ranks and insignia of the old Russian Army, found themselves in conflict with the socialist political authorities of the Democratic Counter-Revolution, and many became involved in the plots (such as the Novoselov affair) that would culminate in the Omsk coup, which involved the arrest of the directory and the elevation to power of Admiral A. V. Kolchak as supreme ruler.

During the autumn of 1918, the Siberian Army conducted operations against Red forces in the Urals and in Semirech′e, as well as battling Red partisans across Siberia, with its greatest success being the capture of the northern Urals city of Perm′ from the 1st Red Army on 24 December 1918. Following that victory, the force was reformed into a new Siberian Independent Army, which performed creditably in the spring offensive of Admiral Kolchak’s Russian Army in March–June 1919, eventually advancing so far west as to facilitate the capture of Glazov, in late June. When, however, White forces were forced to retreat (the Siberian Army having had its left flank suddenly exposed by the collapse of the Western Army to its south), and Kolchak dismissed the Siberian Army’s rebellious commander, General Radola Gajda, the Siberian Army was divided into the 1st Army and the 2nd Army of Kolchak’s reconstitued Eastern Front, on 22 July 1919.

Commanders in chief of the Siberian Army were Colonel (later Major General) A. N. Grishin-Almazov (13 June–5 September 1918); Major General P. P. Ivanov-Rinov (5 September–13 December 1918); Major General A. F. Matkovskii (acting, 15–24 December 1918); General R. Gajda (24 December 1918–7 July 1919); and General M. K. Diterikhs (10–22 July 1919). Its chiefs of staff were Colonel P. A. Belov (12 June–15 November 1918); Major General I. I. Kozlov (acting, 16 November–30 December 1918); and Major General B. P. Bogoslovskii (4 January–17 March 1919).