Boris Viktorovich Savinkov in Omsk (October–November 1918)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the important period in the political biography of Boris Savinkov – his stay in “white” Omsk in October–November 1918, when exactly here, in the temporary capital of “white” Russia, the final military-political doctrine and strategy of the united anti-Soviet political forces to fight against Soviet Russia were being formed. Despite the relatively short time of B. V. Savinkov's stay in Omsk, this period in its capacity, acuteness and importance became for him in many ways decisive. The article is made in the trend of synthesis of the such specializations as “The History of Russia”, “Sociality-Politic Anthropology”, “Regional History”. There are the combination of historical-anthropology approach and biographical method the main methodological base of this investigation. It was in Omsk in October–November 1918 when Savinkov was almost finally formed as a realist-pragmatist of the counter-revolution. Almost — because the final decision he made, apparently, on the road, or rather, during the sea route from Russia to Europe, when he learnt that in Omsk there was the coup d'йtat of Admiral Kolchak. When he arrived in Paris, he would have no doubts, and he would continue the work entrusted to him by the All-Russian Provisional Government – the Directory – already in the interests of the Russian (Omsk) Kolchak government. Of course, Savinkov had his own personal considerations, explanations and justifications in this regard. Later he would write: “There was a question of decisive importance whether Siberia would be able to create an army or not. This question was more important than those discussed at the meeting in Ufa, and perhaps the essence of the coup that had taken place in Omsk in November 1918 lay in the fact that the Siberians did not believe that the Directory would be able to organize a disciplined military force. It was organized by Admiral Kolchak”. This was the decisive argument in the decision of the former fighter against tsarism, SR-radical and terrorist to move to the camp of extreme reaction, against which at this very time in Russia, Siberia and, including in the “capital” Omsk, many SRs, including some of his former associates in the fight against tsarism, began to rise.