Ufa Directory

The Ufa Directory (23 September-18 November 1918) was a Counter-revolutionary body that was created by the Ufa State Conference on September 23, 1918, in Ufa. It was a merging of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly and the Provisional Siberian Government (Omsk), the former having previously claimed to be the legitimate government of Russia. It lasted barely eight weeks. Its demise was definitely hastened by the Directors' decision to relocate immediately to Omsk, the capital of the PSG and the headquarters of the Siberian Army. Its SR members were not so naïve as to fail to recognize that this relocation was implicitly perilous: "We must put our heads in the lion's mouth," N.D. Avksent'ev informed critics of the move. "Either it will eat us or we will choke it." The government was deposed in a coup organized by Kadets, Cossacks, and leaders of the Siberian Army on 18 November 1918.