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The White movement, also known as the Whites, was one of the main factions of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. It was led mainly by the right-leaning and Conservatism officers of the Russian Empire, while the Bolsheviks who led the October Revolution in Russia, also known as the Reds, and their supporters, were regarded as the main enemies of the Whites. It operated as a system of governments and administrations united as the Russian State, which functioned as a military dictatorship throughout the most of its existence, and military formations collectively referred to as the White Army, or the White Guard.
Although the White movement included a variety of political opinions in Russia opposed to the Bolsheviks, from the Russian Republic-minded Liberalism through monarchists to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds, and lacked a universally-accepted doctrine, the main force behind the movement were the conservative officers, and the resulting movement shared many traits with widespread right-wing counter-revolutionary movements of the time, namely nationalism, racism, distrust of liberal and democratic politics, clericalism, contempt for the common man and dislike of industrial civilization; in November 1918, the movement united on an authoritarian-right platform around the figure of Alexander Kolchak as its principal leader. It generally defended the order of Russian Empire, (2025). 9785829123178, Akademicheskiĭ proekt. ISBN 9785829123178 (2025). 9781955835176, New Acdemia+ORM. ISBN 9781955835176 although the ideal of the movement was a mythical "Holy Russia", what was a mark of its religious understanding of the world. The positive program of the movement was largely summarized in the slogan of "" which meant the restoration of imperial state borders, and its denial of the right to self-determination. The Whites are associated with pogroms and antisemitism; while the relations with the Jews featured a certain complexity, the movement was largely antisemitic, with the White generals viewing the Revolution as a result of a Jewish conspiracy. (2025). 9780812208146, University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812208146 Antisemitism and more broad nationalism and xenophobia of the movement were manifested in the acts of the White Terror, which often targeted non-Russian ethnic groups of the former Russian Empire.
Some historians distinguish the White movement from the so-called "democratic counter-revolution" led mainly by the Right SRs and the Mensheviks that adhered to the values of parliamentary democracy and maintained democratic anti-Bolshevik governments (Komuch,
/ref> and then supported either the Whites or the Bolsheviks or opposed both factions, making attempts to overthrow the White administrations and create ones their own, such as the "Political Centre" in 1920.
Following the military defeat of their movement, the Whites expelled from the USSR attempted to continue the struggle by creating armed groups which would wage guerilla warfare in the USSR. Some of the former White commanders also hoped to depose the Soviet authorities by means of collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II. In exile, remnants and continuations of the movement remained in several organizations, some of which only had narrow support, enduring within the wider White émigré overseas community until after the fall of the European communist states in the Eastern European Revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990–1991. This community-in-exile of anti-communists often divided into liberal and the more conservative segments, with some still hoping for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty.
The White officers believed socialist and pacifist politicians and intellectuals to be their enemies, condemning socialism as materialistic and anti-individualistic as opposed to "spiritual" and patriotic values of the army, and pacifism as threatening these values and allied with socialism. Liberal politics were distrusted as well, and during the Civil War the Whites preferred the Tsarist bureaucrats and officers to liberal civilians to administer the White-controlled territories. Racial antisemitism was widespread in the army and in Russian society in general; the Jews could not become army officers and were mistreated in the army, the officers believing them to be guilty of spreading subversive ideologies and not being able to become good soldiers. During the Civil War, antisemitism varied among the White officers, but was a crucial element of the ideology of the Whites.
Despite their conservatism, the Whites did not openly proclaim a reactionary movement and instead attempted not to alienate potential support and to attract a broad base, avoiding controversial decisions and openly expressing their stance on the major issues, and producing programs subject to various interpretations while neglecting propaganda work and promoting positive ideals. The Whites had the stated aim to reverse the October Revolution and remove the Bolsheviks from power before a constituent assembly, dissolved by the Bolsheviks in January 1918 could be convened.Christopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts in the South during the Russian Civil War, 1918–19 (The Alekseev-Denikin Period)", The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oct., 1992), pp. 688–707. There was no clear position on whether to consider the Provisional Government legitimate. However, while the socialists believed the socialist-dominated Constituent Assembly dissolved by the Bolsheviks to be legitimate, the White leaders did not recognize it and insisted on conveining a new Assembly after the Civil War. From 1918, Anton Denikin, while rejecting the outright slogans for the restoration of Tsarism popular within the officers as a possible detriment to their cause and recruitment and claiming the military could not decide for a government instead of the Russian people, began referring to a future "National Assembly". While its difference from the Constituent Assembly had never been defined, this change could imply that the Whites did not support the principles of popular sovereignty and universal suffrage. While the leaders of the movement continued to formally reject reactionary ideas, and some of the Whites accepted the ideas of the abolition of monarchy and some reforms, in general the movement sought to reestablish the traditional imperial social order. During the last phase of its existence, the movement under the leadership of Baron Pyotr Wrangel reverted to the term "Constituent Assembly", but issued a manifesto which advocated the necessity of "the Russian people" choosing "its own MASTER," implying that Wrangel meant a new Tsar.
The movement was generally conservative, while the largest group within the movement which had leanings most similar to fascism were the Cossacks, who were led by the economic motive of defending their estates and by their anti-modern culture. Their primary leader was Pyotr Krasnov,a staunch antisemite who appealed to the Cossacks with demagogue rhetoric and ideas of a mythical Cossack past. During World War II, Krasnov would become a prominent collaborator with Nazi Germany, leading collaborationist Cossack units. Among the members of the movement could be monarchists, republicans, rightists, and .Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 90. The Kadets were one of the largest liberal parties in Russia, however, many of them shifted to conservatism during the Revolution and more broadly World War I, when the Kadet party started promoting military dictatorship and territorial integrity of the Russian Empire and afterwards by its scale of support of the Whites became next to the Russian nationalist parties. At first, the Kadets as the main party of the Russian State attempted to build the government as a "collective dictatorship", until the Kolchak coup took place, and the Kadets became the supporters of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. (2025). 9785829123178, Akademicheskiĭ proekt. ISBN 9785829123178 Kolchak became the dictator of the Russian State and was recognized as the principle leader of the Whites while gaining the title of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, thus uniting the movement around himself on an authoritarian-right platform. Kolchak was a proponent of Russian nationalism and militarism, while opposing democracy which he believed to be tied to pacifism, internationalism, and socialism. White Siberia, N.G.O. Pereira. McGill-Queens University Press, 1996. p. 109
The Whites presented themselves as proponents of Russian partiotism, nationalism and conservatism as opposed to internationalism and revolutionary social programme of the Bolsheviks; the Whites relied on conservative populism which maintained that the Russian people possessed unique and valuable qualities which distinguished them from Westerners and made Western institutions in Russia inappropriate. They proclaimed that they were fighting "for Russia" and implied that Russia as a political entity could exist only on the basis of traditional social and political principles congruent with the history of Russia, and those who wanted to fundamentally change the social and political order were thus against Russia. They proclaimed that the army "stood above classes" just as above "politics" and were reluctant to hesitant to solve social contradictions, partially because it would alienate the support of the landowners and owning classes. Although such leaders as Denikin and Kolchak made attempts to implement a land reform which proposed a compulsory alienation of land with compensation to former owners, these attempts were sabotaged by the lower-ranking officers and Tsarist bureaucrats to which the White leaders granted the authority to implement the reform, while the White leaders took little action to enforce the implementation of their reforms.
The Whites rejected ethnic particularism and separatism.Christopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts," 689. It proclaimed the slogan of "" which meant its denial of the right to self-determination and the restoration of imperial state borders with possible exceptions for such states as Poland and Finland; in accordance with it, the Whites attempted to operate on the territories of the former empire they regarded as "Russia" but where ethnic Russians were a minority. This principle was violated during the Estonian War of Independence, where the Russian Whites aided the Estonian Republic. However, in accordance with this principle, the Whites did not recognize the Ukrainian People's Republic and fought against it in Ukrainian War of Independence, as well as against the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus. Following this principle, Kolchak refused General Mannerheim's offer to receive military aid from Finland in return for recognizing its independence, since for Kolchak a "Russia in pieces was not Russia." Whites differed on policies toward the German Empire in its extended occupation of western Russia, the Baltic states, Poland, and Ukraine on the Eastern Front in the closing days of the World War, debating whether or not to ally with it. While such White leaders as Pyotr Krasnov (Don Republic) and Pavlo Skoropadskyi (German-occupied Ukrainian State) agreed to receive support from Germany, many other leaders remained loyal to the Allies.
An important element of the ideology of the Whites was antisemitism. There was a certain complexity with the relations with the Jews, since the 'liberal' official White programs never featured antisemitism, and there was even a number Jewish officers in the White armies. However, antisemitism was shared by the White generals and spread by White propaganda, which blamed the Jews for the Revolution and spreading non-Russian and 'modern' values; the officers described Jews as microbes and blamed them for misfortunes ranging from military defeat to inflation and lack of foreign support, while the White Orthodox Christian priests denounced Jews as Christ-killers and called for a holy crusade against Jewish Bolshevism. Antisemitism varies among the leaders of the Whites: while for such figures as Krasnov every Jew was a conspirator against Russia, Denikin was moderate. Denikin confessed to a Jewish delegation which asked for protection that he did not like Jews and he took various steps against Jewish economic interests, but denied antisemitism of the Whites and that the pogroms directed by the Whites were directed against the Jews. While it appears that such figures as Denikin did not share the militant antisemitism of their subordinates, they did little to stop them. The historian Peter Holquist describes the Russian nationalist and antisemitic underpinnings of the Russian White Terror in the following way: "Anti-Soviet commanders and foot soldiers alike believed they knew who their enemies were, and they equally believed they knew what they had to do with such foes. White commanders sifted their POWs, selecting out those they deemed undesirable and incorrigible (Jews, Balts, Chinese, Communists), and executed these individuals in groups later, a process the Whites described as "filtering." Joshua Sanborn traces the antisemitic White Terror to state-supported antisemitism of the Russian Empire:
The propaganda service of the Volunteer Army, the , made the claim that "the Jews must pay for everything: for the February and October revolutions, for Bolshevism and for the peasants who took their land from the owners". The organization also reissued The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Although Denikin's troops committed only 17.2% of the (most of which were carried out by Ukrainian nationalists or by rebel armies not affiliated with any side), "white" officers praise soldiers who commit anti-Semitic crimes, some of whom even receive bonuses.Rubenstein, Richard L., and John K. Roth. Approaches to Auschwitz: The Legacy of the Holocaust. London: SCM, 1987, p. 138.
Winston Churchill personally warned General Anton Denikin (1872–1947), formerly of the Imperial Army and later a major White military leader, whose forces effected pogroms and persecutions against the Jews:
My task in winning support in Parliament for the Russian Nationalist cause will be infinitely harder if well-authenticated complaints continue to be received from Jews in the zone of the Volunteer Armies.However, Denikin did not dare to confront his officers and remained content with vague formal condemnations.
Some who were aligned with the White movement, such as Grigory Semyonov and Roman Ungern von Sternberg, did not acknowledge any authority but their own.
The White movement had access to various naval forces, both seagoing and riverine, especially the Black Sea Fleet.
Aerial forces available to the Whites included the Slavo-British Aviation Corps (S.B.A.C.). The Russian ace Alexander Kazakov operated within this unit.
The White generals never mastered administration; they often utilized "prerevolutionary functionaries" or "military officers with monarchististic inclinations" for administering White-controlled regions.Viktor G. Bortnevski, White Administration and White Terror, 360.
The White Armies were often lawless and disordered. Also, White-controlled territories had multiple different and varying currencies with unstable exchange-rates. The chief currency, the Volunteer Army's ruble, had no Gold reserve.Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 94–95.
The White Army operated in three main theatres:
The Southern Front featured massive-scale operations and posed the most dangerous threat to the Bolshevik Government. At first it depended entirely upon volunteers in Russia proper, mostly the Cossacks, among the first to oppose the Bolshevik Government. On 23 June 1918, the Volunteer Army (8,000–9,000 men) began its so-called Second Kuban Campaign with support from Pyotr Krasnov. By September, the Volunteer Army comprised 30,000 to 35,000 members, thanks to mobilization of the Kuban Cossacks gathered in the North Caucasus. Thus, the Volunteer Army took the name of the Caucasus Volunteer Army. On 23 January 1919, the Volunteer Army under Denikin oversaw the defeat of the 11th Soviet Army and then captured the North Caucasus region. After capturing the Donbas, Tsaritsyn and Kharkiv in June, Denikin's forces launched an attack towards Moscow on 3 July, (N.S.). Plans envisaged 40,000 fighters under the command of General Vladimir May-Mayevsky storming the city.
After General Denikin's attack upon Moscow failed in 1919, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia retreated. On 26 and 27 March 1920, the remnants of the Volunteer Army evacuated from Novorossiysk to the Crimea, where they merged with the army of Pyotr Wrangel.
Moreover, in the 1920s and the 1930s the White movement established organisations outside Russia, which were meant to depose the Soviet government with guerrilla warfare, e.g., the Russian All-Military Union, the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, and the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, a far-right anticommunist organization founded in 1930 by a group of young White emigres in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Some White émigrés adopted pro-Soviet sympathies and were termed "Soviet patriots". These people formed organizations such as the Mladorossi, the Eurasianism, and the Smenovekhovtsy. A Russian cadet corps was established to prepare the next generation of anti-Communists for the "spring campaign"—a hopeful term denoting a renewed military campaign to reclaim Russia from the Soviet Government. In any event, many cadets volunteered to fight for the Russian Protective Corps during World War II, when a number of White Russians collaborated with Nazi Germany. The collaborators included some prominent figures of the White movement, like Pyotr Krasnov, the leader of the White Don Cossacks during the civil war.
After the war, active anti-Soviet combat was almost exclusively continued by the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists. Other organizations either dissolved, or began concentrating exclusively on self-preservation and/or educating the youth. Various youth organizations, such as the Russian Scouts-in-Exteris, promoted providing children with a background in pre-Soviet Russian culture and heritage. Some supported Zog I of Albania during the 1920s and a few independently served with the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. White Russians also served alongside the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang and the Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang in 1937.
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