View source for White movement

{{Short description|Major faction in the Russian Civil War}}
{{distinguish|White Power Movement|White Russia (disambiguation){{!}}White Russia|Belarus|Nuer White Army}}
{{Infobox militant organization
| name             = White movement
| native_name      = Бѣлое движеніе<br />Белое движение
| logo             = Flag of Russia.svg
| caption          = [[Flag of Russia]]
| leaders          = {{unbulleted list|[[Alexander Kolchak]]{{Executed}}|[[Anton Denikin]]|[[Pyotr Wrangel]]|[[Lavr Kornilov]]{{KIA}}<ref>[[Evan Mawdsley]] (2008) ''The Russian Civil War'': 27</ref>}}
{{Collapsible list
 | title = {{nobold|...{{nbsp}}''and others''}}
 | [[Mikhail Alekseyev]]{{Natural Causes}}
 | [[Nikolai Yudenich]]
 | [[Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov|Grigory Semyonov]]{{Executed}}
 | [[Pyotr Krasnov]]
 | [[Sergey Markov]]{{KIA}}
 | [[Anatoly Pepelyayev]]{{Executed}}
 | [[Pavel Bermondt-Avalov]]
 | [[Mikhail Diterikhs]]
 | [[Roman von Ungern-Sternberg]]{{Executed}}
}}
| dates            = 1917–1923
| predecessor      = [[Russian Imperial Army]]
| successor        = [[White émigré]]s
| area             = {{flagicon|Russia}} [[Russian State]]
| allegiance       = [[Russian Government (1918–1919)|Russian Government]] (1918–1919)<br />[[South Russia (1919–1920)|South Russia]] (1919–1920)
| clans            = {{Collapsible list
 | title = {{nobold|[[White Army]]<ref>[https://bigenc.ru/domestic_history/text/1853225 The White Guard] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200225183923/https://bigenc.ru/domestic_history/text/1853225 |date=25 February 2020 }} // "Banquet Campaign" of 1904 – Big Irgiz – Moscow: The Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2005 – Page 190 – (The [[Great Russian Encyclopedia]]: in 35 Volumes / Editor-in-Chief [[Yury Osipov]]; 2004–2017, Volume 3) – {{ISBN|5-85270-331-1}}</ref><ref name=alpha>{{cite web | title=The White armies | website=Alpha History | date=15 August 2019 | url=https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/white-armies/ | access-date=30 March 2021 | archive-date=5 April 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405030704/https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/white-armies/ | url-status=live }}</ref>}}
| bullets          = yes
 | [[Volunteer Army]]
 | [[White Rebel Army]]
 | [[White movement in Transbaikal]]
 | [[Ural Army]]
 | [[Turkestan Army (Armed Forces of South Russia)|Turkestan Army]]
 | [[Far Eastern Army]]
 | [[Northern Army (Russia)|Northern Army]]
 | [[Army of Wrangel]]
 | [[Caucasus Army (Armed Forces of South Russia)|Caucasus Army]]
 | [[Don Army]]
 | [[West Russian Volunteer Army]]
 | [[Armed Forces of South Russia|AFSR]]
 | [[Northwestern Army (Russia)|Northwestern Army]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.etis.ee/Portal/Publications/Display/8a68a8be-fe4c-4bbb-b165-53cc0a72f7eb|title=ETIS - Rets.: Reigo Rosenthal, Loodearmee, Tallinn: Argo, 2006|website=www.etis.ee|access-date=2019-01-10}}</ref>
}}
| ideology         = {{nowrap|[[Anti-communism]]{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=74}}<br />{{ill|Non-predetermination|ru|Непредрешение}}<br />'''Majority:'''<ref name="RedTerror">[http://swolkov.org/doc/kt/pre1.htm Предисловие // Красный террор в годы Гражданской войны: По материалам Особой следственной комиссии по расследованию злодеяний большевиков.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808181529/http://swolkov.org/doc/kt/pre1.htm}} / Под ред. докторов исторических наук Ю. Г. Фельштинского и Г. И. Чернявского — London, 1992. "Yuri Felshtinsky writes that there were differences in the ideology of the White movement, but the prevailing desire was to restore a democratic, parliamentary political system, private property and market relations in Russia."</ref>{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=74}}<br />[[Russian nationalism]]<ref name="nikulin">{{cite book| author = Никулин В.В., Красников В.В., Юдин А.Н. | chapter = | chapter-url = | format = | url = https://tstu.ru/education/elib/pdf/2005/nikkras.pdf | title = Советская Россия: Проблемы социально-экономического и политического развития | orig-year = | agency = | edition = |location= Тамбов |date = 2005 |publisher= Издательство ТГТУ |at= |volume= | pages = | page = | series = | isbn = 5-8265-0394-7}} {{Cite web |url=https://tstu.ru/education/elib/pdf/2005/nikkras.pdf |title=Архивированная копия |access-date=2020-04-25 |archive-date=2012-01-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120103190220/https://tstu.ru/education/elib/pdf/2005/nikkras.pdf |url-status=unfit }}</ref><ref>The White Movement and the National Question in Russia: a collective monograph. / Edited by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V. T. Tormozov, Candidate of Historical Sciences A. G. Pismensky. Authors: V. T. Tormozov, A. A. Ivanova, and others. — Moscow: Saratov State University Publishing House, 2009. — 157 p. —{{ISBN|978-5-8323-0602-5}}.</ref><br />[[Right-wing populism]]{{sfn|Kenez|1980|pp=77-78}}<br />[[Antisemitism]] ([[Antisemitism in the Russian Empire|Russian]]){{sfn|Kenez|1980}}</br>[[Conservatism]] ([[Conservatism in Russia|Russian]]){{sfn|Kenez|1980}}<br />'''Factions:'''<br />[[Proto-fascism]]{{sfn|Kenez|1980}}<ref>{{cite book|title=Red Advance, White Defeat: Civil War in South Russia 1919–1920|author1=Peter Kenez|author-link1=Peter Kenez|isbn=9781955835176|year=2008|publisher=New Acdemia+ORM}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Oberländer |first1=Erwin |title=The All-Russian Fascist Party |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |date=1966 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=158–173 |doi=10.1177/002200946600100110 |jstor=259654 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/259654 |access-date=23 November 2024 |issn=0022-0094|url-access=subscription }}</ref><br />[[Monarchism]] ([[Monarchism in Russia|Russian]])<br/>[[Liberalism]] ([[Liberalism in Russia|Russian]])<br />[[Republicanism|Moderate republicanism]]<br/>''other different ideologies''}}
| position         = [[Big tent]]<ref name="osb">Osborne, R. (2023, April 14). ''[https://study.com/academy/lesson/white-army-history-facts-russian.html White Army of Russia | History, Significance & Composition]''. Study.com. "Loosely commanded by former imperial admiral Alexander Kolchack, the White Army was composed of volunteers, conscripts, liberals, conservatives, monarchists, religious fundamentalists, and any group that opposed Bolshevik rule. These various groups had little in common besides their opposition to Bolshevik rule."</ref><ref>Slashchov-Krymsky Ya. A. White Crimea, 1920: Memoirs and documents. Moscow, 1990. P. 40. "According to the leader of the defense of Crimea from the Bolsheviks in the winter of 1920, General Ya. A. Slashchev-Krymsky , the White movement was a mixture of the pro-Cadet and pro-Octobrist upper classes and the Menshevik - SR lower classes."</ref><ref name="st">{{Cite web |url=http://www.belrussia.ru/page-id-834.html |title=Первая лекция историка К. М. Александрова о Гражданской войне. Часть первая. |location=St. Petersburg |date=5 January 2010 |website=belrussia.ru |access-date=2010-10-18 |archive-date=2010-10-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101031134259/http://belrussia.ru/page-id-834.html | quote=The White movement as a whole, despite the presence of political shades: republicans, monarchists, non-predeterminists, was a military-political movement that defended the values of [[Stolypin]]'s Russia.}}</ref><br />'''Majority:'''<br />[[Right-wing politics|Right-wing]]<ref name="right">{{cite book |editor=Anthony Mattiello Jr |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Babylon_Revealed/F5hIDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22right-wing+Whites%22+Russia&pg=PT161 |title=Babylon Revealed: Over 2,600 Years Ago Babylon Was Destroyed by God. Will It Happen Again? |quote=After World War I, a bloody three-year battle for control of Russia ensued between the right-wing Whites and the Communist Party (the Reds). |date=January 16, 2018 |publisher=[[WestBow Press]] }}</ref><!-- Don't add [[Far-right politics|Far-right]] because there were political moderates and liberals among the members of the White movement. --><br />
| slogan           = {{ill|Great Russia, one and indivisible|ru|Россия единая, великая и неделимая}}<ref name="un1">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGib6O8vocoC | isbn=978-0-521-03025-0 | title=The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization Since the French Revolution | date=2 November 2006 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref name="un2">{{Cite book| url=https://academic.oup.com/book/10472/chapter-abstract/158344535 | doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250219.003.0001 | chapter=Civil War | title=The White Russian Army in Exile 1920-1941 | date=2002 | last1=Robinson | first1=Paul | pages=1–15 | publisher=Oxford University Press | isbn=978-0-19-925021-9 }}</ref><ref name="un">{{cite web | url=https://www.hoover.org/research/wake-empire | title=In the Wake of Empire }}</ref>
| crimes           = [[White Terror (Russia)|White Terror]]<ref>{{cite book |last1= Rinke|first1=Stefan|last2= Wildt|first2=Michael|date=2017 |title=Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions: 1917 and Its Aftermath from a Global Perspective|publisher=Campus Verlag|page=58 |isbn=978-3593507057}}</ref><br />[[Pogroms during the Russian Civil War|Pogroms]] (1918–1920)<ref name="YIVO | Russian Civil War">{{Cite web |title=YIVO {{!}} Russian Civil War |url=https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/russian_civil_war |access-date=2022-11-08 |website=yivoencyclopedia.org}}</ref>
| size             = 3.4 million members {{small|(peak)}}
| allies           = 
{{Collapsible list|
| title            = [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War |Allied intervention]]
| bullets          = yes
| {{flagcountry |British Empire|name= United Kingdom}}
| {{flagcountry |United States|1912|name= United States}}
| {{flag| Empire of Japan|name=Japan}}
| {{flagicon |Republic of China (1912-49)|1912}} [[Beiyang Government|China]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Joana Breidenbach |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=icZJJN0wYPcC&q=khunkhuzy+russians&pg=PA90 |title=China inside out: contemporary Chinese nationalism and transnationalism |publisher=Central European University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-963-7326-14-1 |editor-last=Pál Nyíri, Joana Breidenbach |edition=illustrated |page=90 |quote=Then there occurred another story which has become traumatic, this one for the Russian nationalist psyche. At the end of the year 1918, after the Russian Revolution, the Chinese merchants in the Russian Far East demanded the Chinese government to send troops for their protection, and Chinese troops were sent to Vladivostok to protect the Chinese community: about 1600 soldiers and 700 support personnel. |access-date=18 March 2012}}</ref>
| {{flag|French Third Republic|name= France}}
| {{flag| First Czechoslovak Republic|name= Czechoslovakia}}
| {{flag|Estonia}}
| {{flag|Kingdom of Greece|state|name= Greece}}
| {{flag| Kingdom of Italy|name= Italy}}
| {{flag| Kingdom of Romania|name= Romania}}
| {{flagdeco|Kingdom of Serbia}} [[Kingdom of Serbia|Serbia]]
| {{flagdeco|Kingdom of Yugoslavia}} [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]]}}
{{Collapsible list|
| title            = [[Central Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War|Central Powers intervention]]
| bullets          = yes
| {{flag|German Empire}} |{{flag|Austro-Hungarian Empire}}|| | {{flagicon|Ukraine|1918}} [[Ukrainian State]]
| {{flagicon image |Flag of Baltic Germans.svg}} ''[[Baltische Landeswehr|Landeswehr]]''
|{{flagdeco|Finland|1918}} [[Kingdom of Finland (1918)|Kingdom of Finland]]
| {{flagicon image |Flag of Don Cossacks.svg}} [[Don Republic]]
| {{flagicon image |Flag of Kuban People's Republic.svg}} [[Kuban People's Republic|Kuban PR]]}}
{{Collapsible list|
| title            = Other factions
| bullets          = yes
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Alash Autonomy.svg}} [[Alash Autonomy]]
| [[File:Flag of Bogd Khaanate Mongolia.svg|border|22px]] [[Mongolia (1911–24)|Mongolia]]}}
| opponents        = 
{{Collapsible list|
| title            = [[Bolsheviks]] and Soviet republics
| bullets          = yes
 | {{flagicon image |Flag of Russian SFSR (1918-1937).svg}} [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]]
 | {{flag |Far Eastern Republic}}
 | {{flagicon image| Flag_of_the_Ukrainian_SSR_(1919-1929).svg}} [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]]
 | {{flag| Soviet Union|1922}}
 | {{flagicon image |Flag of Latvian SSR 1919.svg}} [[Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic|Latvian SSR]]
 | {{Flagicon image |Flag of the Estonian Workers' Commune (1918-1919).svg}} [[Commune of the Working People of Estonia|Estonian Workers' Commune]]
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic]]
 | {{flagicon image |Flag of the People's Republic of Mongolia (1921-1924).svg}} [[Mongolian People's Party]]
 | {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Chinese in the Russian Revolution and in the Russian Civil War|Chinese volunteers]]}}
{{Collapsible list|
| title            = Separatists
| bullets          = yes
|{{flagicon|Ukraine|1918}} [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]]
|{{flagicon|Georgia|1918}} [[Democratic Republic of Georgia|Georgia]]
|{{flag|Lithuania}}
|{{flag|Latvia}}
|{{flagicon image|Flag of the Mountain Republic.svg}} [[Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus|Mountain Republic]]}}
{{Collapsible list|
| title            = Other factions
| bullets          = yes
 | {{flagicon image| Black flag.svg}} [[Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine|Makhnovschyna]]
 | [[Green armies]]
 | {{flagicon image| Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries|Left SRs]]
 | {{flagicon image| Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Right Socialist-Revolutionaries|Right SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]] (after 1918){{efn|Mensheviks and SRs made attempts to overthrow the White administrations and create their own such as the "Political Centre" in 1920<ref name="politicalcentre">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tDNKCgvJ9c4C | isbn=978-1-136-33959-2 | title=The Soviet High Command: A Military-political History, 1918-1941: A Military Political History, 1918-1941 | date=4 July 2013 | publisher=Routledge }}</ref>}}
}}
| war              = [[Russian Civil War]]
* [[Southern Front of the Russian Civil War|Southern]]
* [[Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919|Western]]
* [[Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War|Eastern]]
* [[North Russia intervention|North Russia]]
* [[Central Asian Front of the Russian Civil War|Central Asian]]
[[Ukrainian War of Independence]]<br />[[Lithuanian War of Independence]]<br />[[Latvian War of Independence]]<br />[[Estonian War of Independence]]<br />[[Sochi conflict]]<br />[[Mongolian Revolution of 1921|Mongolian Revolution]]
}}

The '''White movement''',{{efn|{{lang-rus|[[Reforms of Russian orthography#Post-revolution reform|pre–1918]] Бѣлое движеніе / post–1918 Белое движение|r= Beloye dvizheniye|p= ˈbʲɛləɪ dvʲɪˈʐenʲɪɪ}}. The old spelling was retained by the Whites to differentiate from the Reds.}} also known as the '''Whites''',{{efn|{{langx|ru|Бѣлые / Белые|''Belyje''}}.}} was one of the main factions of the [[Russian Civil War]] of 1917–1922. It was led mainly by the right-wing<ref name="right"/> and [[Conservatism|conservative]] 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 (1918–1920)|Russian State]], which functioned as a [[military dictatorship]]<ref name="md">{{Cite book |last=Suny |first=Ronald |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nm7nDwAAQBAJ&dq=Red+terror+consensus&pg=PT319 |title=Red Flag Unfurled: History, Historians, and the Russian Revolution |publisher=Verso |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-78478-566-6 |quote=White Terror, claims the late historian of the Whites, Viktor G. Bortnevski "was logically produced by a White political system of military dictatorship..."}}</ref> throughout the most of its existence, and military formations collectively referred to as the [[White Army]],{{efn|{{langx|ru|Бѣлая армія / Белая армия|Belaya armiya}}.}} or the White Guard.{{efn|{{langx|ru|Бѣлая гвардія / Белая гвардия|Belaya gvardiya}}.}}

Although the White movement included a variety of political opinions in Russia opposed to the Bolsheviks, from the [[Russian Republic|republican]]-minded [[Liberalism|liberals]] through [[monarchists]] to the [[ultra-nationalist]] [[Black Hundreds]],<ref name="osb"/><ref name="st"/> and lacked a universally-accepted doctrine,{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=59}} 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;{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=80}} in November 1918, the movement united on an [[Right-wing dictatorship|authoritarian-right]] platform around the figure of [[Alexander Kolchak]] as its principal leader.<ref name="shubinleader">{{cite web | title=Великая Российская революция. 10 вопросов|language=ru| url=https://historyrussia.org/images/documents/shubin-10-voprosov-revolution.pdf|author1=А. В. Шубин|author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin|quote=Authoritarian tendencies also prevailed in the territory occupied by the opponents of the Soviet Republic. The militarization of life, the growth of the influence of officers, and the strengthening of right-wing socio-political groups led to the evolution of the political system to the right. [...] On the night of November 18, 1918, the army overthrew the Directory, handing over power to the Supreme Ruler, Admiral A. Kolchak. His dictatorship was supported by other leaders of the White movement.}}</ref><ref name="rev">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4SuDQAAQBAJ | isbn=978-0-19-873482-6 | title=Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 | date=2017 | publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref> It generally defended the order of [[Russian Empire|pre-revolutionary Imperial Russia]],<ref name="st"/><ref name="shubinquote">{{cite book| title=1918 год. Революция, кровью омытая|language=ru|author1=А. В. Шубин|date=2019 |author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin|isbn=978-5-8291-2317-8|page=531|publisher=Akademicheskiĭ proekt |quote= ...with the ritual condemnation of reaction, the goal of the movement was to restore order, in its main features corresponding to the pre-revolutionary one.}}</ref><ref name="kenezquote">{{cite book|title=Red Advance, White Defeat: Civil War in South Russia 1919–1920|author1=Peter Kenez|author-link1=Peter Kenez|isbn=9781955835176|year=2008|publisher=New Acdemia+ORM |quote= Not all the participants in the White movement wanted to recreate tsarist Russia. [...] Nevertheless, the Civil War divided those who preferred tsarist Russia to the society which they feared their country was heading toward, and those who hated the old and had confidence that they could build a more just and rational society. After three years of struggle the Whites lost the war, proving that the traditional order had too few defenders... The defeat of the Whites was the final and conclusive defeat of Imperial Russia.}}</ref> although the ideal of the movement was a mythical "Holy Russia", what was a mark of its religious understanding of the world.<ref name="brovkin">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S_x7Za0ffUsC | isbn=978-0-300-14634-9 | title=The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and the Civil Wars | date=January 1997 | publisher=Yale University Press }}</ref> The positive program of the movement was largely summarized in the slogan of "{{ill|Great Russia, one and indivisible|lt=united and indivisible Russia|ru|Россия единая, великая и неделимая}}" which meant the restoration of imperial state borders,<ref name="un"/><ref name="un1"/><ref name="un2"/> and its denial of the [[right to self-determination]].<ref name="historyrussia_shubin-10">{{cite web | title=Великая Российская революция. 10 вопросов|language=ru| url=https://historyrussia.org/images/documents/shubin-10-voprosov-revolution.pdf|author1=А. В. Шубин|author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin|quote=The White movement fought for the "united and indivisible" Russia and did not recognize the right of nations to self-determination.}}</ref> The Whites are associated with [[Pogroms during the Russian Civil War|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 [[Jewish Bolshevism|a result of a Jewish conspiracy]].<ref name="budn">{{cite book|title=Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920|author1=Oleg Budnitskii|isbn=9780812208146|year=2012|page=3|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press }}</ref><ref name="suny">{{cite book |last1=Suny |first1=Ronald |title=Red Flag Unfurled: History, Historians, and the Russian Revolution |date=14 November 2017 |publisher=Verso Books |isbn=978-1-78478-566-6 |pages=1–320 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nm7nDwAAQBAJ&dq=Red+terror+consensus&pg=PT319 |language=en}}</ref>{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=79}} Antisemitism and more broad nationalism and xenophobia of the movement were manifested in the acts of the [[White Terror (Russia)|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 Socialist-Revolutionaries|Right SRs]] and the [[Mensheviks]] that adhered to the values of [[parliamentary democracy]] and maintained anti-Bolshevik governments ([[Komuch]], [[Ufa Directory]]) advocating for these values until November 1918,<ref>https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/abs/democratic-counterrevolution-of-1918-in-siberia/902F77B1E6F60CF8CC8EDFCB66A3894{{dead link|date=September 2025}}</ref><ref name="rev"/> 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.<ref name="politicalcentre"/>

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 [[Russian collaboration with Nazi Germany|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 [[Revolutions of 1989|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 [[House of Romanov|Romanov dynasty]].

== Origins of the name ==
In the Russian context after 1917, "White" had three main connotations which were:
# Reference to the [[French Revolution]], where the forces opposing the Revolution and supporting the restoration of [[House of Bourbon|Bourbon]] monarchy used white as their symbolic colour.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OBp-CwAAQBAJ | isbn=978-1-107-58738-0 | title=A/AS Level History for AQA Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia, 1917–1953 Student Book | date=4 February 2016 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>
# Historical reference to [[absolute monarchy]], specifically recalling Russia's first [[Tsar]], [[Ivan III]] (reigned 1462–1505),<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lehtovirta |first=Jaako |title=Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte des östlichen Europa |date=2002 |publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag |editor-last=von Gardner |editor-first=Johann |location=Wiesbaden |page=190 |trans-title=Essays on the intellectual history of eastern Europe |chapter=The Use of Titles in Heberstein's 'Commentarii'. Was the Muscovite Tsar a King or an Emperor? |issn=0340-6490 |quote=It was Ivan III (1462–1505) who is well known as the first one to present himself as a tsar to foreigners, though it must be accepted that his use of the title was very sparse. |access-date=31 July 2015 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=no-H_e18bAcC}}</ref> at a period when some styled the ruler of Russian Tsardom ''Albus Rex'' ("the White King").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lehtovirta |first=Jaako |title=Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte des östlichen Europa |date=2002 |publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag |editor-last=von Gardner |editor-first=Johann |location=Wiesbaden |page=189 |trans-title=Essays on the intellectual history of eastern Europe |chapter=The Use of Titles in Heberstein's 'Commentarii'. Was the Muscovite Tsar a King or an Emperor? |issn=0340-6490 |quote=[...] the brief mention that the Muscovite ruler is by some called 'the White King' ('albus rex'). |access-date=31 July 2015 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=no-H_e18bAcC}}</ref>
# The white uniforms of the [[Imperial Russian Army]] worn by some White Army soldiers.

==Ideology==
{{Anti-communism|History}}
{{Conservatism in Russia|History}}
[[File:Volunteer Army poster.jpg|thumb|left|Propaganda poster of the Russian Whites, contrasting its positive ideal of a "Holy" Christian Russia to Soviet Russia of the Bolsheviks; the Bolsheviks are marked with Jewish facial traits]]
Although the Bolsheviks had many opponents that ahered to the values of [[parliamentary democracy]], such as the [[Mensheviks]] and the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|SRs]], the main force of the White movement were the imperial army officers, since, unlike the moderate left politicians, they were able to organize an armed movement and had a necessary unity of common experience developed in the army and the wars the Russian Empire was involved in. Although the Whites were disunited by such factors as personal rivalries, distances between the military formations, and lack of a clearly formulated political program and doctrine and a leader with an absolute authority who could formulate those, they shared a common ideological military culture of officer corps of the Russian Empire, which included such key elements as conservatism, distrust of technology and industrial civilization, "faith in [[Élan vital|''élan'']]" as a key to victory, and conservative military [[anti-intellectualism]]. During the Civil War, the officers did not produce a political program and a critique of Bolshevism, but instead simply viewed the revolutionaries as inherently evil,{{sfn|Kenez|1980}} viewing their struggle as a fight of Good against Evil and God against Satan,<ref name="brovkin"/> and expected the people to realize this and turn to the conservative values of the Whites. The professional officers rejected "politics", understood primarily as party activities undermining the authority of the Tsar, and modern rational political thought promoting equality and social justice, as threats to the national spirit and the army. In such worldview, the army "stood above politics", while the defense of the autocracy was not a political act, but an article of faith. This stance was not consciously monarchist, and during the [[February Revolution]] the officers did not resist the overthrow of [[Tsarism]] in order to keep the military effort; in a similar way, they mainly abstained from defending the Provisional Government against the Bolsheviks. Most officers preferred not to engage in political struggle during initial period after October Revolution, while the organizers of the [[Volunteer Army]] represented only the most conservative minority.{{sfn|Kenez|1980}}

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.{{sfn|Kenez|1980}}

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.{{sfn|Kenez|1980}} The Whites had the stated aim to reverse the October Revolution and remove the Bolsheviks from power before a [[Russian Constituent Assembly|constituent assembly]], dissolved by the Bolsheviks in January 1918 could be convened.<ref name="Lazarski">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.</ref> 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,{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=69}} 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.{{sfn|Kenez|1980}} 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.<ref name="shubinquote"/><ref name="kenezquote"/> 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.{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=70}}

At the same time, the historian Vladimir Brovkin argues that it fought not "for a restoration of the prerevolutionary order, nor indeed for any mundane political goal, but rather for the mythical "Holy Russia." According to Brovkin, the Whites viewed the world primarily in religious categories, and they expressed their thinking in dense religious imagery. Yet, they were products of secular society, and their 'cult', the primary object of which was Russia, was shaped by World War I and the Revolution. The Whites often depicted the state of Russia after the Revolution in terms of "defilement," "impurity," and "blasphemy", opposite to the ideals of purity and of the triumph of the spirit over matter, derived from Christian and specifically Byzantine asceticism. The Revolution was seen as sacrilege and rape, and thus the Whites saw their goal as to purify Russia by means of self-sacrifice, similarly to the crucifixion of Christ, what was expressed in rendering the 'Great Siberian Ice March' as "walk[ing] the Way of the Cross" and its direct association with the crucifixion. Thus, the Revolution and the Civil War was understood through religious and extremely polar imagery, as a struggle of nobility and baseness, freedom and slavery, purity and defilement, light and darkness, life and death, and, ultimately, God and Satan. More to it, the Whites "believed that the epochal conflict between Good and Evil was coming to its summation and that Russia was its battleground."<ref name="brovkin"/>

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.{{sfn|Kenez|1980|pp=79, 81}} Among the members of the movement could be monarchists, republicans,{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=59}} rightists, and [[Kadet]]s.<ref name="Civil War">Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 90.</ref> The Kadets were one of the largest liberal parties in Russia, however, many of them shifted to conservatism during the Revolution{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=1970}} 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.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d6Pzj_dzxAwC | isbn=978-0-7618-4200-2 | title=The Lost Opportunity: Attempts at Unification of the Anti-Bolsheviks:1917-1919: Moscow, Kiev, Jassy, Odessa | date=15 September 2008 | publisher=University Press of America }}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite book| title=1918 год. Революция, кровью омытая|language=ru|author1=А. В. Шубин|date=2019 |author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin|isbn=978-5-8291-2317-8|page=531|publisher=Akademicheskiĭ proekt}}</ref> 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.<ref name="shubinleader"/><ref name="rev"/><ref name="RedTerror"/> Kolchak was a proponent of Russian nationalism and [[militarism]], while opposing democracy which he believed to be tied to pacifism, internationalism, and socialism.<ref>''White Siberia'', N.G.O. Pereira. McGill-Queens University Press, 1996. p. 109</ref>

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 [[Right-wing populism|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.{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=70-77}}<ref name="smele">{{cite book | title=The "Russian" Civil Wars, 1916-1926: Ten Years that Shook the World | date=2015 | publisher=Oxford University Press | isbn=978-0-19-023304-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jGyMCwAAQBAJ }}</ref>

The Whites rejected [[Political particularism|ethnic particularism]] and [[separatism]].<ref name="Lazarski2">Christopher Lazarski, "White Propaganda Efforts," 689.</ref> It proclaimed the slogan of "{{ill|Great Russia, one and indivisible|lt=united and indivisible Russia|ru|Россия единая, великая и неделимая}}" 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."<ref name="un"/><ref name="un1"/><ref name="un2"/><ref name="historyrussia_shubin-10"/><ref name="smele"/> 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 (World War I)|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.{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=69}}

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, [[Jewish Bolshevism|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. {{sfn|Kenez|1980|pp=78-79}}<ref name="budn"/><ref name="suny"/> 
[[File:Who Rules Moscow.png|thumb|Antisemitic White propaganda poster ''Who Rules Moscow? Here they are – Red Bolsheviks, Communists-Socialists, Proletarians'' (1919), caricature of senior Bolsheviks [[Yakov Sverdlov]] and [[Leon Trotsky]] with the [[Star of David]], depicting the Bolsheviks as Jews oppressing Russians and striving for money and power]]
The historian Peter Holquist describes the Russian nationalist and antisemitic underpinnings of the [[White Terror (Russia)|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."<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.history.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Holquist.2003.Violent_Russia.pdf | title=Violent Russia, Deadly Marxism? Russia in the Epoch of Violence, 1905–21 | website=www.history.upenn.edu}}</ref> Joshua Sanborn traces the antisemitic White Terror to state-supported antisemitism of the Russian Empire:<ref name="suny"/> {{quote|...in the case of the Jews, we see not only the development of terror practices (like hostage-taking, decimation, mass retribution, mass deportation, rape, robbery, and sadistic, spectacularly cruel violence), but of the social intent. Most notably, efforts on the part of [[Nikolai Yanushkevich|Ianushkevich]]’s ''Stavka'' to gather material on Jewish behavior in the army stressed that commanders were to gather this to prove all the “harm” that Jews posed to the army and to the nation. [...] These were processes that were justified by the war atmosphere, but whose vision extended well into the post-war period. As a result, the White Terror, like the Imperial Army's Terror campaign from 1914–1917, was revolutionary in its Terror against Jews, and who knows, might have taken this kernel even further had they prevailed in the Civil War.}}

The propaganda service of the Volunteer Army, the {{ill|Osvag|ru|ОСВАГ}}, made the claim that "the [[Jews]] must pay for everything: for the [[February Revolution|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 [[pogrom]]s (most of which were carried out by [[Ukrainian People's Army|Ukrainian nationalists]] or by rebel armies not affiliated with any side),{{dubious|date=August 2025}} "white" officers praise soldiers who commit anti-Semitic crimes, some of whom even receive bonuses.<ref>Rubenstein, Richard L., and John K. Roth. ''Approaches to Auschwitz: The Legacy of the Holocaust''. London: SCM, 1987, p. 138.</ref>

[[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 of the Russian Civil War|pogroms]] and persecutions against the Jews:
<blockquote>[M]y task in winning support in [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Joseph Cohen |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8TZ4mHjG5sIC |title=Churchill and the Jews |publisher=Psychology Press |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-7146-3254-4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160521230408/https://books.google.com/books?id=8TZ4mHjG5sIC&printsec=frontcover#PPA56,M1 |archive-date=2016-05-21 |url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>However, Denikin did not dare to confront his officers and remained content with vague formal condemnations.{{citation needed|date=August 2025}}

Some [[warlord]]s who were aligned with the White movement, such as [[Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov|Grigory Semyonov]] and [[Roman Ungern von Sternberg]], did not acknowledge any authority but their own.{{citation needed|date=August 2025}}

==Structure==

===White Army===
{{Main|White Army|White Terror (Russia)|Pogroms during the Russian Civil War}}
{{See also|Russian Army (1919)|Volunteer Army|Siberian Army|West Russian Volunteer Army}}
[[File:Denikin poster.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|"Why aren't you in the army?", [[Volunteer Army]] recruiting poster during the [[Russian Civil War]]]]
[[File:Kornilovzy.jpg|thumb|230px|Kornilov's Shock Detachment ([[8th Army (Russian Empire)|8th Army]]), later became the Volunteer Army's elite Shock Regiment]]

The [[Volunteer Army]] in South Russia became the most prominent and the largest of the various and disparate White forces.{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=}} Starting off as a small and well-organized military in January 1918, the Volunteer Army soon grew. The [[Kuban Cossacks]] joined the White Army and conscription of both peasants and Cossacks began. In late February 1918, {{formatnum:4000}} soldiers under the command of General [[Aleksei Kaledin]] were forced to retreat from [[Rostov-on-Don]] due to the advance of the Red Army. In what became known as the [[Ice March]], they traveled to [[Kuban]] in order to unite with the [[Kuban Cossacks]], most of whom did not support the Volunteer Army. In March, {{formatnum:3000}} men under the command of General [[Viktor Pokrovsky]] joined the Volunteer Army, increasing its membership to {{formatnum:6000}}, and by June to {{formatnum:9000}}. In 1919 the [[Don Cossacks]] joined the Army. In that year between May and October, the Volunteer Army grew from {{formatnum:64000}} to {{formatnum:150000}} soldiers and was better supplied than its Red counterpart.<ref name="Civil War2">Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 18–22.</ref> The White Army's rank-and-file comprised active anti-Bolsheviks, such as Cossacks, nobles, and peasants, as conscripts and as volunteers.

The White movement had access to various naval forces, both seagoing and riverine, especially the [[Wrangel's fleet|Black Sea Fleet]].

Aerial forces available to the Whites included the Slavo-British Aviation Corps (S.B.A.C.).<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1919 |title=The R.A.F. in Russia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zmQhAQAAMAAJ |url-status=live |journal=The Aeroplane |volume=17 |issue=1 |page=82 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140627162109/http://books.google.com/books?id=zmQhAQAAMAAJ |archive-date=27 June 2014 |access-date=9 February 2014 |quote=Soon after landing we started to recruit for the Slavo-British Aviation Corps (S.B.A.C.) [...].}}</ref> The Russian ace [[Alexander Kazakov]] operated within this unit.

===Administration===
The White movement's leaders and first members<ref name="Civil War3">Kenez, Peter, Civil War, 18.</ref> came mainly from the ranks of military officers. Many came from outside the nobility, such as generals [[Mikhail Alekseev|Mikhail Alekseyev]] and [[Anton Denikin]], who originated in serf families, or General [[Lavr Kornilov]], a Cossack.

The White generals never mastered administration;{{sfn|Kenez|1980|p=65}} they often utilized "prerevolutionary functionaries" or "military officers with monarchististic inclinations" for administering White-controlled regions.<ref name="Bortnevski2">Viktor G. Bortnevski, ''White Administration and White Terror,'' 360.</ref>

The White Armies were often lawless and disordered.<ref name="Lazarski" />  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|gold backing]].<ref name="Civil War4">Kenez, Peter, ''Civil War,'' 94–95.</ref>

===Ranks and insignia===
{{Main|Ranks and insignia of the White Movement}}

==Theatres of operation==
[[File:Russian civil war in the west.svg|thumb|Russian Civil War in the west]]

The Whites and the Reds fought the Russian Civil War from November 1917 until 1921, and isolated battles continued in the [[Russian Far East|Far East]] until June 1923. The White Army—aided by the Allied forces ([[Triple Entente]]) from countries such as [[Empire of Japan|Japan]], the [[United Kingdom]], [[French Third Republic|France]], [[Kingdom of Greece|Greece]], [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]] and the [[United States]] and (sometimes) the Central Powers forces such as [[German Empire|Germany]] and [[Austria-Hungary]]—fought in [[Siberia]], [[Ukraine]], and in [[Crimea]]. They were defeated by the Red Army due to military and ideological disunity, as well as the determination and increasing unity of the Red Army.

The White Army operated in three main [[Theater (warfare)|theatres]]:

===Southern front===
{{Main|Southern Front of the Russian Civil War|Southern Russia intervention}}
[[File:Volunteer Army Kharkiv 25 June 1919.jpg|thumb|In the summer of 1919, Denikin's troops captured [[Kharkiv]]]]

Organization of the White Army located in the South started on 15 November 1917, ([[Adoption of the Gregorian calendar#Adoption in Eastern Europe|Old Style]]) under General [[Mikhail Alekseyev]]. In December 1917, General [[Lavr Kornilov]] took over the military command of the newly named [[Volunteer Army]] until his death in April 1918, after which General [[Anton Denikin]] took over, becoming head of the [[Armed Forces of South Russia|"Armed Forces of the South of Russia"]] in January 1919.

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 [[Evacuation of Novorossiysk (1920)|evacuated from Novorossiysk]] to the Crimea, where they merged with the army of [[Pyotr Wrangel]].

===Eastern (Siberian) front===
{{Main|Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War|Siberian intervention|White movement in Transbaikal}}

The Eastern Front started in spring 1918 as a secret movement among army officers and right-wing socialist forces. In that front, they launched an attack in collaboration with the [[Czechoslovak Legion]]s, who were then stranded in [[Siberia]] by the Bolshevik Government, who had barred them from leaving Russia, and with the Japanese, who also intervened to help the Whites in the east. [[Alexander Kolchak|Admiral Alexander Kolchak]] headed the eastern White Army and a provisional Russian government. Despite some significant success in 1919, the Whites were defeated being forced back to Far Eastern Russia, where they continued fighting until October 1922. When the Japanese withdrew, the Soviet army of the [[Far Eastern Republic]] retook the territory. The Civil War was officially declared over at this point, although [[Anatoly Pepelyayev]] still controlled the [[Ayano-Maysky]] District at that time. Pepelyayev's [[Yakut revolt (1921)|Yakut revolt]], which concluded on 16 June 1923, represented the last military action in Russia by a White Army. It ended with the defeat of the final anti-communist enclave in the country, signalling the end of all military hostilities relating to the Russian Civil War.

===Northern and Northwestern fronts===
{{Main|North Russia intervention}}

Headed by [[Nikolai Yudenich]], [[Evgeni Miller]], and [[Anatoly Lieven]], the White forces in the North demonstrated less co-ordination than General Denikin's Army of Southern Russia. The [[Northwestern Army (Russia)|Northwestern Army]] allied itself with [[Estonia]], while Lieven's [[West Russian Volunteer Army]] sided with the [[Baltic nobility]]. Authoritarian support led by [[Pavel Bermondt-Avalov]] and [[Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz]] played a role as well. The most notable operation on this front, Operation [[Estonian War of Independence#Final battles and peace negotiations|White Sword]], saw an unsuccessful advance towards the Russian capital of [[Petrograd]] in the autumn of 1919.

==Post–Civil War==
{{Main|White émigré}}
[[File:Blagoveshchensky Temple in Harbin.JPG|thumb|Blagoveshchensky Temple, a [[Russian Orthodox Church]] in [[Harbin]]]]

The defeated anti-Bolshevik Russians went into exile, congregating in [[Belgrade]], [[Berlin]], [[Paris]], [[Harbin]], [[Istanbul]], and [[Shanghai]]. They established military and cultural networks that lasted through [[World War II]] (1939–1945), e.g. the [[Harbin Russians|Harbin]] and [[Shanghai Russians]]. Afterward, the White Russians' [[anti-communism|anti-communist]] activists established a home base in the United States, to which numerous refugees emigrated.

[[File:Thecristisrizenoldrussiancivilwarposter.jpg|thumb|upright|White propaganda poster]]
Moreover, in the 1920s and the 1930s the White movement established organisations outside Russia, which were meant to [[Deposition (politics)|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|Eurasianists]], 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 [[Russian collaboration with Nazi Germany|collaborated]] with [[Nazi Germany]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Beyda |first=Oleg |date=2014 |title='Iron Cross of the Wrangel's Army': Russian Emigrants as Interpreters in the Wehrmacht |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13518046.2014.932630 |journal=[[The Journal of Slavic Military Studies]] |language=en |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=430–448 |doi=10.1080/13518046.2014.932630 |s2cid=144274571 |issn=1351-8046|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The collaborators included some prominent figures of the White movement, like [[Pyotr Krasnov]], the leader of the White Don Cossacks during the civil war.

[[File:Emblem of White Émigré Volunteers (Spanish Civil War).svg|thumb|upright=0.5|Emblem used by white émigré volunteers in the [[Spanish 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 [[Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War)|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 (1937)|Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang in 1937]].

==Prominent people==
[[File:Kolchak decorating troops.jpg|thumb|[[Alexander Kolchak]] decorating his troops in Siberia]]
[[File:Government of South Russia 1920 cropped.JPG|thumb|The [[Government of South Russia]] created by [[Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel|Pyotr Wrangel]] in [[Sevastopol]], [[Crimea]] in April 1920]]
[[File:Homola Vojcechovský Svátek 1927.jpg|thumb|[[Sergei Wojciechowski|Sergei Voitsekhovskii]] (seated center), Major General in the White movement and later [[Czechoslovak Army]] general]]
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* [[Mikhail Alekseyev]]
* [[Vladimir Antonov (architect)|Vladimir Antonov]]
* [[Nicholas Savich Bakulin]]
* [[Pavel Bermondt-Avalov]]
* [[Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz]]
* [[Anton Denikin]]
* [[Mikhail Diterikhs]]
* [[Mikhail Drozdovsky]]
* [[Alexander Dutov]]
* [[Dmitrii Fedotoff-White]]
* [[Ivan Ilyin]]
* [[Nikolay Iudovich Ivanov]]
* [[Alexey Kaledin]]
* [[Vladimir Kantakuzen]]
* [[Vladimir Kappel]]
* [[Alexander Kolchak]]
* [[Lavr Kornilov]]
* [[Pyotr Krasnov]]
* [[Mikhail Kvetsinsky]]
* [[Alexander Kutepov]]
* [[Anatoly Lieven]]
* [[Konstantin Mamontov]]
* [[Sergey Markov]]
* [[Vladimir May-Mayevsky]]
* [[Evgeny Miller]]
* [[Najmuddin of Gotzo]]
* [[Konstantin Petrovich Nechaev]]
* [[Viktor Pokrovsky]]
* [[Leonid Punin]]
* [[Aleksandr Rodzyanko]]
* [[Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov|Grigory Semyonov]]
* [[Andrei Shkuro]]
* [[Roman von Ungern-Sternberg]]
* [[Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel]]
* [[Sergei Wojciechowski]]
* [[Nikolai Yudenich]]
* [[Boris Annenkov]]
{{div col end}}

==Related movements==
{{Main|Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War}}

After the [[February Revolution]], Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania declared themselves independent. However, they had a substantial Communist or Russian military presence within their newly proposed independent states at the time. Civil wars followed, wherein the anti-communist side may be referred to as White Armies, e.g. in Finland the [[White Guard (Finland)|White Guard]]-led, partially conscripted {{ill|White Army (Finland)|fi|Valkoinen armeija (Suomi)|lt=Finnish White Army}} ({{langx|fi|Valkoinen Armeija}}) who fought against [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Soviet Russia]]-sponsored [[Red Guard (Finland)|Red Guards]]. However, since they were nationalists, their aims were substantially different from the Russian White Army proper; for instance, Russian White generals never explicitly supported Finnish independence. The defeat of the Russian White Army made the point moot in this dispute. The countries remained independent and governed by non-Communist governments.

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* [[Russian State (1918–1920)]]
* [[1st Infantry Brigade (South Africa)#Volunteers to support the White Russians|1st Infantry Brigade (South Africa)]]
* [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]]
* [[Basmachi movement]]
* [[Czechoslovak Legions]]
* [[Estonian War of Independence]]
* [[Finnish Civil War]]
* [[Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples]]
* [[Great Siberian Ice March]]
* [[Italian Legione Redenta]]
* [[Russian All-Military Union]]
* [[Russian diaspora]]
* [[Russian nationalism]]
* [[Red Terror]]
* [[Soviet–Ukrainian War]]
* [[White Terror (Russia)]]
* [[Ukrainian War of Independence]]
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==

===Footnotes===
{{reflist}}

===Bibliography===
{{See also|Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War#White armies}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Kenez |first=Peter |year=1980 |title=The Ideology of the White Movement |journal=Soviet Studies |volume=32 |issue=32 |pages=58–83 |doi=10.1080/09668138008411280}}
* {{Cite book |last=Kenez |first=Peter |title=Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites |publisher=University of California Press |year=1977 |location=Berkeley}}
* {{Cite book |last=Kenez |first=Peter |title=Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army |publisher=University of California Press |year=1971 |location=Berkeley}}

==External links==
{{commons category|White movement}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110716234734/http://www.antibr.ru/albom/aa_0428.html Anti-Bolshevik Russia in pictures]
* [https://archive.today/20070927230003/http://www.anticom.ru/index_e.html Museum and Archives of the White Movement]
* [http://www.white-guard.ru/ Memory and Honour Association] {{in lang|ru}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051026032203/http://www.armymuseum.ru/bd_r.html History of the White Movement] {{in lang|ru}}

{{clear}}
{{Armies of Russia}}
{{White Armies and White Fleets of the Russian Civil War}}
{{Russian nationalism}}
{{Soviet Union–United States relations|state=collapsed}}
{{Russian Empire–United States relations|state=collapsed}}

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