Bolsheviks / Communists If You Don’t Understand This Lesson From History, You Need To Now. They are In The USA Now

stock here, I didn’t really understand this until the “pandemic” working on the Homestead with a History Professor. The Whites, not to be confused with Caucasian, were crushed until 1989.

The White movement (Russian: pre–1918 Бѣлое движеніе / post–1918 Белое движение, romanized: Beloye dvizheniye, IPA: [ˈbʲɛləɪ dvʲɪˈʐenʲɪɪ]),^[a] also known as the Whites (Бѣлые / Белые, Beliye), was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the communist Bolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923) and that to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations of rebels both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly World War II (1939–1945). The movement’s military arm was the White Army (Бѣлая армія / Белая армия, Belaya armiya), also known as the White Guard (Бѣлая гвардія / Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya) or White Guardsmen (Бѣлогвардейцы / Белогвардейцы, Belogvardeytsi).

During the Russian Civil War, the White movement functioned as a big-tent political movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the Bolsheviks—from the republican-minded liberals and Kerenskyite social democrats on the left through monarchists and supporters of a united multinational Russia to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds on the right.

Following the military defeat of the Whites, 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.

Contents

Structure and ideology

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In the Russian context after 1917, “White” had three main connotations which were:

1. Political contra-distinction to “the Reds”, whose Red Army supported the Bolshevik government.
2. Historical reference to absolute monarchy, specifically recalling Russia’s first Tsar, Ivan III (reigned 1462–1505),^[5] at a period when some styled the ruler of Muscovy Albus Rex (“the White King”).^[6]
3. The white uniforms of Imperial Russia worn by some White Army soldiers.

Ideology

edit  Female White officers in late 1917.

Above all, the White movement emerged as opponents of the Red Army.^[7] The White Army 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.^[8] They worked to remove Soviet organizations and functionaries in White-controlled territory.^[9]

Overall, the White Army was nationalistic^[10] and rejected ethnic particularism and separatism.^[11] The White Army generally believed in a united multinational Russia and opposed separatists who wanted to create nation-states.^[12]

The propaganda service of the Volunteer Army, the Osvag [ru] (Russian: ОСВАГ (ОСВедомительное АГентство), romanized: OSVAG (OSVedomitelnoe AGentstvo), lit. ‘Informing Agency’), 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 pogroms (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.^[13]

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:

[M]y 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.^[14]

However, Denikin did not dare to confront his officers and remained content with vague formal condemnations. Coat of Arms of the Kolchak government

Aside from being anti-Bolshevik and anti-communist^[15] and patriotic, the Whites had no set ideology or main leader.^[16] 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.^[17]

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.^[18] 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.^[19]

Some warlords 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,^[20] rightists, or Kadets.^[21] 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.^[22][23]