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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. Though initially founded by loyalists of the Romanov dynasty, the movement later began to accept other ideologies. It operated as a loose system of governments and administrations 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 did not have a universally-accepted leader or 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; its positive program 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 movement is associated with pogroms and antisemitism, although its relations with the Jews were more complex; (2025). 9780812208146, University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812208146 it was typical among the White generals to believe that the Revolution was a result of a Jewish conspiracy.
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.
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 Whites presented themselves as proponents of Russian partiotism, nationalism and conservatism as opposed to internationalism and revolutionary social programme of the Bolsheviks; they proclaimed that they were fighting "for Russia", expecting the people to realize that the Bolsheviks were "obviously wicked" and turn against them 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 against Russia. The Whites rejected ethnic particularism and separatism.Christopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts," 689.
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.
British parliamentary influential leader Winston Churchill (1874–1965) 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. Aside from being anti-Bolshevik and anti-communistChristopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts," 690. and patriotic, the Whites had no set ideology or main leader. The White Armies did acknowledge a single provisional head of state in a Supreme Governor of Russia in a Provisional All-Russian Government, but this post was prominent only under the leadership in the war campaigns during 1918–1920 of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, formerly of the previous Russian Imperial Navy.
The movement had no set foreign policy. 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. The Whites wanted to keep from alienating any potential supporters and allies and thus saw an exclusively monarchist position as a detriment to their cause and recruitment. White-movement leaders, such as Anton Denikin, advocated for Russians to create their own government, claiming the military could not decide in Russians' steads. Admiral Alexander Kolchak succeeded in creating a temporary wartime government in Omsk, acknowledged by most other White leaders, but it ultimately disintegrated after Bolshevik military advances.
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. Consequently, the White movement had no unifying political convictions, as members could be monarchists, republicans, rightists, or .Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 90. Among White Army leaders, neither General Lavr Kornilov nor General Anton Denikin were monarchists, yet General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was a monarchist willing to fight for a republican Russian government. Moreover, other political parties supported the anti-Bolshevik White Army, among them the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and others who opposed Lenin's Bolshevik coup in October 1917. Depending on the time and place, those White Army supporters might also exchange right-wing allegiance for allegiance to the Red Army.
Unlike the Bolsheviks, the White Armies did not share a single ideology, methodology, or political goal. They were led by conservative generals with different agendas and methods, and for the most part they operated quite independently of each other, with little coordination or cohesion. The composition and command structure of White armies also varied, some containing hardened veterans of World War I, others more recent volunteers. These differences and divisions, along with their inability to offer an alternative government and win popular support, prevented the White armies from winning the Civil War. Двухнедѣльный военный и военно-морской журналъ «Часовой»: органъ связи русскаго воинства за рубежомъ подъ ред. В. В. Орѣхова и Евгенія Тарусскаго, — Paris, 1 мая 1932. — No. 79.
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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