Tomsk provincial revolutionary committee - extraordinary organ of state power (December 1919 - October 1920)

After Tomsk province was freed from the White Guard troops in December 1919 Bolsheviks began to restore the provincial government. However, due to the unstable socio-economic situation and the possibility of anti-soviet action, state power was concentrated in hands of the provincial revolutionary committee formed on December 25, 1919 for ten months. The committee was an extraordinary organ of state power with extensive power in the field of civil and military administration. Its members were not elected but appointed by higher authorities and, above all, the Siberian revolutionary committee, which the Tomsk revolutionary committee was under the direct subordination to. The provincial committee had a right to form revolutionary committees of counties and administrate their activity. Functioning of the provincial revolutionary committee proceeded on the basis of the Statute of the revolutionary committees approved by the Central executive committee and the Council of Defence on October 24, 1919. However, the absence of the most important questions (regarding the structure, competencies, roles and responsibilities of the revolutionary committees) noticeably reduced the legal significance of this act and did not allow to apply its requirements in practice. In the period of the revolutionary committee administrative activity the centre of Tomsk Province was temporary moved to Novonikolayevsk. This required a very complicated organizational restructuring of the revolutionary committee. As a result, Novonikolayevsk revolutionary committee was turned into a province committee and Tomsk revolutionary committee reduced its authority to the county level. Periodical change of its members was a characteristic feature of the revolutionary committee. During the whole period of existence of the revolutionary committee some professional Bolsheviks were among its members: V. Shumkin, A. Karlov, F. Krylov, M. Levitin, N. Kalashnikov, G. Sobolevski, B. Shumyatsky, M. Sumetsky, A. Belenets, F. Orlov, J. Poznansky. Work forms of the revolutionary committee included meetings of the presidium, the revolutionary committee meeting with department heads and representatives of concerned agencies, the economic conference. All major actions that took place in the revolutionary committee were to have had the sanction of the provincial party committee. Possibility of party interference in the work of soviet authority was achieved by entry of the party members to the revolutionary committee and vice versa. By the autumn of 1920 the situation in the province allowed to move the administration from extraordinary organs of state power to the constitutional ones. At the first Congress of the provincial councils held on October 25-28 the provincial executive committee of soviets of workers, peasants and Red Army deputies was elected. The revolutionary committee gave full power to the new institution and ceased to exist.

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