Establishment of the Provincial Commissioner Institute during the Revolution of 1917 (on the example of Tomsk Province)

The period of revolution is a critical stage in the life of a society and a state. The most forcible display of this period is a political struggle of various interest groups that defend one or another way of national development. The February revolution in Russia was not an exception. The overthrow of autocracy in Petrograd gave momentum to the fast pace of developments in provinces. It was the beginning of the formation of local governments on new bases and principles. The process of public authority formation in provinces and counties is particularly important. Regional government was the main power basis of central authorities. The future and prestige of the whole political regime depended on the success of regional government actions. In the article the process of formation of the institute of the provincial commissioner in Tomsk Province and its special aspects are reconstructed. Siberia, especially Tomsk Province, had particular practices of forming of local government institutes during this period. Massive confrontation on the question of the local authority structure between the regional political and public elite and central authorities took place in Tomsk Province. The leading role in this confrontation belonged to the coalition of the Socialist Revolutionary, Constitutional Democrat and Menshevik parties, as well as the regional political elite who tried to stay in power. These interest groups dominated in the Tomsk Committee of Public Order and Security, then in the National Assembly. They lobbied for the institute of the provincial commissioner relying on democratic forces. At the initial stage of the local government formation the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, having great popularity, approved of this model of the provincial authority. It was Tomsk Province that showed such a tendency to a special way of autonomy and democratization of power. However, the democratic model of the organization of local government soon proved its instability and, as a result, frailty. The provincial commissioner supported by the local democracy actually had no real and independent mechanisms to pursue a policy. This situation was also complicated by the deficiency of a well-weighed political course of central authorities. All these factors finally led to the overthrow of the Provisional government regime. The Bolsheviks' actions proved to be more effective. They managed to affect the public sentiment and to bent people to its will and political course.

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