As news of the Siberian Army's victory at Perm began to filter through to western Europe in early 1919, the question of the precise aims of the Kolchak government came to occupy no insignificant place in the minds of the peacemakers then gathering at Paris (to say nothing of observers within Russia). After all, if – as many optimists in the anti-Bolshevik camp believed – the demise of the Soviet government at Moscow was now only a matter of weeks away, then the political programme of the ‘Supreme Ruler of All Russia’ would obviously have a serious bearing upon any efforts to establish a stable post-war order. However, on the basis of information supplied by the Omsk government since the coup of November 18th 1918, the question of Kolchak's aims was one which nobody either inside or outside Siberia was qualified to answer. As we have seen, in the first days subsequent to the overthrow of the Directory there had been some rather vague promises made of Omsk's commitment to the causes of ‘democracy’ and ‘law and order’ so as to assuage any Allied qualms regarding the establishment of the dictatorship. But since that time even a member of the Kolchak coterie would have been hard pressed to cite a single official statement or enactment which gave a more precise indication of the All-Russian Government's political commitments and desires; for, in truth, no such acts had been passed or statements issued during the final weeks of 1918, while the new régime had been preoccupied with disposing of the vestiges of the SR cause in Siberia.