was promoted to Major-General and nicknamed "the Siberian Ataman" and "the Siberian Tiger." He later accepted an invitation from Aleksandr Kolchak to become a commander in his army. His career with Kolchak was less successful—the Red Army had begun to take the initiative while Kolchak's forces dwindled away. Gajda, out of Kolchak's favor, was dismissed on 5 July 1919. After involving himself in the unsuccessful mutiny of Esers against Kolchak (17 November 1919) he escaped from Siberia and sailed to Europe. Military career in Czechoslovakia After arriving in Czechoslovakia in early 1920, Gajda was given a pension and the rank of General, but was not assigned a command. In November 1920 he was sent to study military theory at the École supérieure de guerre in France. He also studied agriculture at the Institut Technique de Pratique Agricole. Gajda returned two years later. On 9 October 1922, he was given command of the 11th Division in Košice, Slovakia. His involvement in the cultural life of the region soon endeared him to the locals. On 1 December 1924 he was named Deputy Chief of the General Staff in Prague under General Eugène Mittelhauser, head of French military mission in Czechoslovakia. Gajda became a rival of Mittelhauser and Mittelhauser's predecessor Maurice Pellé. In this capacity, Gajda worked successfully to limit the influence of the mission, which was brought to an end in 1926. On 20 March 1926 he became Acting Chief of the General Staff. In his position he backed up former legionnaires against former loyalist Austrian officers. Under pressure from president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk Gajda was forced to retire, because he had publicly shown himself sympathetic to Italian fascism. Combined with envy, political intrigue and fear of a military coup (similar to the contemporary May Coup in Poland) this led to the dismissal of the ambitious general. Politics Still a young man of 34, Gajda decided to turn to politics. At the end of 1926 he took part in the founding of the National Fascist Community (), modeled on Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party and became its leader on 2 January 1927. In 1929 the party took several seats in parliament. In 1931 Gajda was briefly imprisoned and stripped of military rank due to a prior scandal. During the night of 21–22 January 1933, the Židenice Mutiny broke out in Brno. This was an attempt on the part of 70 to 80