Russian State (1918–1920)

The Russian State (Russian: Россійское Государство, romanized: Rossiyskoye Gosudarstvo) was a White Army anti-Bolshevik state proclaimed by the Act of the Ufa State Conference of September 23, 1918 (the Constitution of the Provisional All-Russian Government), “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 delegations from Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Siberian Government, the Provisional Regional Government of the Urals, Cossack Troops governments, governments of a number of national-state entities, several all-Russian political parties that were present at the meeting formed the Provisional All-Russian Government (the so-called “Ufa Directory”), which was headed by Nikolai Avksentiev. It was found that the Provisional All-Russian Government "until the convening of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly is the sole bearer of the supreme power in the whole space of the Russian state". The act provided for “the transfer to the Provisional All-Russian Government, as soon as it requires it,” “all the functions of the supreme power.” Thus, the sovereignty of regional entities was abolished, which was replaced by the “wide autonomy of the regions”, the limits of which were completely dependent on the “wisdom of the Provisional All-Russian Government”.

The All-Russian government was charged with helping to speed up the convocation of the Constituent Assembly and subsequently unconditionally submit to it "as the only supreme power in the country".

The fundamentals of the national-state structure of Russia should have proceeded from federal principles: “the organization of liberating Russia on the basis of recognition of its individual areas of the rights of broad autonomy, due to both geographical and economic, and ethnic characteristics, suggesting the final establishment of a federal organization on federal principles by the full Constituent Assembly ..., recognition for national minorities that do not occupy a separate territory, the rights to cultural-national self definition.

With regard to the Russian Army, the Act spoke of the need to “re-create a strong, combat-ready, unified Russian army, delivered outside the influence of political parties” and, at the same time, “the inadmissibility of the political organizations of servicemen and the elimination of the army from politics”.

The following tasks were identified as urgent tasks for restoring state unity and independence of Russia:

On October 9, 1918, the Provisional All-Russian Government moved from Ufa to Omsk in connection with the approach of the Red Army to Ufa.

On November 4, the Provisional All-Russian Government appealed to all regional governments with a request to immediately dissolve “all without exception Regional Governments and Regional Representative Institutions” and to transfer all powers to manage the All-Russian Government. On the same day, on the basis of the ministries and central administrations of the Provisional Siberian Government, the executive body of the Directory was formed - the All-Russian Council of Ministers, headed by Pyotr Vologdsky. Such centralization of state power was due to the need, first of all, to “recreate the combat power of the motherland, so necessary in the struggle for the revival of Great and United Russia”, “to create the conditions necessary for supplying the army and organizing the rear on an All-Russia scale”.