already been arrested by local Bolshevik authorities; others had not been able to reach Tomsk.

Three weeks later, on the night of January 28-29, some 40 delegates finally succeeded in meeting. They expeditiously elected a government known as the Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia (PGAS), under the chairmanship of a young Socialist-Revolutionary Pyotr Derber. Another member of SR Party--Col. Arkady Krakovetsky--became Minister of War; his task was to organize