The complexity of the history of anti-Bolshevism in Siberia and the fact that it has hitherto occupied only a minor place in western historiography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War has had two unavoidable impacts upon the study of it which is before you. In the first place it has clearly added to the length of the book, as events, organizations and persons unfamiliar even to those with some specialist knowledge of the period have had to be introduced in some detail. In this regard I would beg my readers’ indulgence, whilst referring those requiring additional biographical detail on persons mentioned herein (and additional information regarding the acts and institutions of the White régime and its opponents and allies in Siberia) to the annotations I supplied for the two-volume collection of documentary and memoir materials, Collins, D. and Smele, J.D. (eds.) Kolchak i Sibiŕ: dokumenty i issledovaniia, 1919–1926 (White Plains NY, 1988). In the second place, the complexity and novelty of its subject has forcibly limited the scope of the present study. Although, whenever necessary, an effort has been made to set the history of the Kolchak government into the context of developments in the wider world–in particular, of course, into the history of the White movement and the civil war as a whole – no apology needs to be made for Civil War in Siberia's concentration upon events in the east. The aim of the work is to contribute but one more piece to the jigsaw and to bring us but one more step towards a general and thoroughly comprehensible tableau of the Russian Revolution and Civil War.