Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

The Siberian Flotilla was initially commanded, independently, by Admiral S. N. Timirev (former commander of tsarist naval forces in the Far East and husband to M. V. Timireva, the mistress of Admiral A. V. Kolchak). With the establishment of the Omsk government, it came under the control of the naval ministry at Omsk and was successively commanded by Admiral M. I. Fedorovich (from 15 February 1919), Admiral M. A. Berens (December 1919–1 February 1920), and Admiral G. K. Stark (18 June 1921–January 1923).

SIBERIAN REGIONAL DUMA. A long-cherished dream of the advocates of Siberian regionalism, this local parliament was proclaimed, in opposition to Soviet power, by Siberian socialists, regionalists, and representatives of non-Russian minorities in Siberia (both natives and immigrant Poles and Ukrainians) at an Extraordinary All-Siberian Regional Congress at Tomsk, on 6–19 December 1917, and can be regarded as the embryo of the Democratic Counter-Revolution east of the Urals. Its first meeting was closed down by Tomsk Red Guards during the night of 26–27 January 1918, on the orders of Tsentrosibir′, which proclaimed the convocation of the Duma to be illegal, and 20 of its 93 members (almost all of whom were members of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries) were arrested. Prior to the arrests, however, some of its members had founded the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia, which claimed its mandate and authority from the Duma. Others formed the Western Siberian Commissariat to work underground toward the overthrow of the Soviet government.

However, with the emergence at Omsk of the increasingly right-wing Provisional Siberian Government in June–July 1918, the Duma (under the leadership of its chairman, I. A. Iakushev), struggled to assert its sovereignty and the principle that the Siberian government was responsible to it. The Duma was allowed to reconvene briefly, on 15–16 August 1918, but the leader of the Omsk regime, P. V. Vologodskii, supported by the military, insisted that the Provisional Siberian Government was independent of it. When the Duma attempted to force the issue by inserting its own candidate, A. E. Novoselov, into the government, Novoselov was immediately abducted and murdered (during the Novoselov affair) by Cossacks of the Siberian Army, who were acting under the orders of Colonel V. I. Volkov. On 6 November 1918, the Duma was formally dissolved by the Ufa Directory.

Siberian Regionalism. Siberian regionalism, or oblastnichestvo, was a political and social movement founded in the late 19th century by a circle of Siberian students in St. Petersburg, led by N. M. Iadrintsev and G. N. Potanin. These young radicals viewed Siberia, from which landlordism and serfdom were absent, as the best hope for destroying the tsarist autocracy; at the same time, they resented their region’s exploitation by the center as a source of raw materials and as a dumping ground for criminals and malcontents (although the presence of political exiles in Siberia actually fueled radical regionalism). The key text of the movement was Iadrintsev’s Sibir′ kak koloniia (“Siberia as a Colony,” 1882), which argued that the Siberians’ love of personal freedom and their proclivity for private enterprise had already differentiated them culturally and spiritually from the Russians, and that they should form a separate state, just as the United States had broken away from Britain. Members of the movement tended, however, to be as much (if not more) interested in history, linguistics, ethnography, and geography as they were in politics, and the regionalists never created a formal party.