FROM A DISTRICT TO A PROVINCE: FORMING A NEW ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER IN CHELYABINSK DURING THE CIVIL WAR (1918-1919)
The article shows that the political instability and military confrontation during the Civil War in Russia contributed to destruction of an old administrative territorial system and emerging a new multi-level one, from regional “governments” to new “oblast” and “guberniya” (province) units. In the context of the crisis, the nature of political interactions of individual territories was spontaneous, but it was often based on the pre-revolutionary framework of regional socio-economic relations. The paper considers the history of creating Chelyabinsk district by the Temporary Siberian Government, which included large parts of Orenburg, Ufa and Perm provinces occupied by the Czechs and the local anti-Bolshevist rebels in summer of 1918. It shows the inconsistency of a view on the “military” nature of entering this area under the Siberian authorities’ jurisdiction, which in fact was the result of a wider and more complex interaction of various political forces and military circles of the non-Bolshevist camp, and was approved by the decisions of congresses with participating representatives of the peasantry, Cossacks and other population groups. The author reveals a significant role of the district government of prominent right-wing socialists in the political life of the East of Russia in summer and autumn of 1918; characterizes the process of forming district structures and their partial destruction after Kolchak’s coup d’etat, as well as the relationships between the civilian, military and Cossack authorities in South Ural and Transurals. The emergence of a strong political center in Chelyabinsk in 1918-1919 led to organizing Chelyabinsk gubernia (1919-1923), which is now known as Chelyabinsk oblast of Russia.