Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

And the news from Omsk was improving rapidly. Chief of Staff Dieterichs started with small changes at the Stavka to avoid controversy, but then moved quickly toward more sweeping organizational reforms of the kind that Colonel Ward had long recommended. These reforms received high praise in the Siberian press and also proved popular among the civilian population.

But even more significant was a speech Admiral Kolchak gave soon after to a gathering of notables in Omsk, in which he declared, ”Repression against the politically undecided in Siberia will serve only to drive a wedge between our cause and the citizens whose support we need. One does not defeat Red Terror with White Terror.“ In the same speech, he denounced pogroms against Jews and the persecution of other ethnic minorities as ”socialism of the ignorant.”

In the weeks following Kolchak’s reform speech, much was made in Allied capitals of the Supreme Ruler’s move toward the political center. Winston Churchill cited it as yet one more reason to recognize the Omsk government as the sole legitimate representative of the Russian people. Kolchak supplied an even more potent reason in early July, when he endorsed Russia’s external debt as a ”solemn obligation of the Russian people.“ Within a week, President Wilson and the Allied Council of Five promised Omsk further financial credits, stopping just short of full diplomatic recognition.

In fact, the Supreme Ruler’s decisions to reform civilian governance followed the Maid’s well-known platform so closely that Ned began to ponder just how far Zhanna’s influence over him might have reached.

* * *

Though both Ned and Ivashov were required by their duties to remain in Omsk after their return from Uralsk, Zhanna insisted on rejoining her volunteers without delay. Three days after her confrontation with Lebedev at Liberty House, she had what she wanted: namely, the new Chief of Staff’s approval to lead her brigade back to Uralsk, from which they would mount a Lower Volga offensive aimed at linking up with Denikin’s AFSR, possibly at Tsaritsyn.

Before her planned departure for Uralsk, the Supreme Ruler summoned the Maid for a private meeting at his office.

Zhanna appeared that afternoon at Liberty House and was ushered into his dimly lit office, where the Admiral was hunched over a confusion of papers spread across his massive desk.

As the Maid’s name was announced, Kolchak lifted his head, then rose with a wan smile to invite her to sit on his carved wood sofa while he poured her tea from the samovar that was kept scalding hot at all hours.

“Cakes?” he asked, seizing a small almond cake from a tray on the sideboard for himself and then hastily laying the tray before her as an afterthought.

“Thank you, Your Excellency,” she said, without taking a cake, and then promptly turned the occasion to her own purposes.

“Admiral, I congratulate you on your appointment of General Dieterichs as Chief of Staff, and on his recent progress toward reforming the army,” she began as soon as her host set two glasses of steaming tea on the table before them and sat beside her on the couch. “But I think the times call for something even bolder.”

She watched for the Supreme Ruler’s reaction, and seeing no objection in his tired eyes, she went on.

“Our cause must represent more than mere opposition to Bolshevism,” she argued. “We cannot expect the Soviets to simply topple of their own weight. Rather, while fighting to overthrow them, we must also offer something better, so that the people will have a reason to join our side. Yes, we know the enemy offers only empty promises. But we, too, must promise them something. And our promises must be superior to those of the Bolsheviks if we are to succeed. We cannot win by proposing a return to the old ways, nor by promising whatever our opponents do, only less of it.”

The Supreme Ruler sipped his tea quietly while he listened to the Maid. When she stopped, he set his glass on the table and offered her a sympathetic smile.

“I agree, of course,” he replied while scratching his neck with a forefinger. “But I must confess, Zhanna Stepanovna, I have not yet managed to devise any political program that would not drive away either the left wing or the right of my coalition,” he answered, turning his palms up with an expression verging on helplessness. “Sometimes I question whether it can be done at all.”

“But it must be done,” Zhanna insisted with an urgency just short of pleading. “And, as you are Supreme Ruler, it falls upon you to do it.”

“Despite what some say, I did not instigate the takeover that put me in power, and never sought the post of military dictator. It was thrust upon me,” Kolchak insisted, his eyes taking on a haunted look. “I would gladly renounce it if there were any other way to hold our side together long enough to beat the Bolsheviks.”