White Terror (Russia)

During the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Civil War (1918-20), the White Armies, foreign forces, and other opponents of the Soviet Government carried out mass violence against the population, including those with alleged revolutionary sympathies, associations with the revolutionary underground and guerrilla movement, and those who served in the organs of the Soviet Government. The terror started as the Soviets moved to assume governmental authority in November 1917 and continued until the defeat of the White Armies and foreign intervention. Historians emphasize that the White terror was premeditated and systematic, as orders for terror came from high officials in the White movement, as well as legislative actions of the White regimes..

The beginning of the terror

Some historians trace the terror to 28 October 1917 (old calendar) when in Moscow, counter-revolutionary Cadets seized control of the Moscow Kremlin and captured soldiers of the 56th Reserve Regiment. The soldiers were ordered to line up, ostensibly to check the monument of Alexander II. The rebels proceeded to shoot on the unarmed captives, killing about 300 people.

Other historians trace the terror to the repression of the Tsarist regime against the revolutionaries, which began in 1866 with the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Alexander II.

White Terror in Southern and Western Russia

An important part of the White Terror was Lavr Kornilov, who who during the Ice Campaign in the south of Russia said: "I give you a very cruel order: do not take prisoners! I accept responsibility for this order before God and the Russian people." He promised promised, "the greater the terror, the greater our victories." He vowed that the goals of his forces must be fulfilled even if it was needed "to set fire to half the country and shed the blood of three-fourths of all Russians."

According to a participant in the Ice Campaign, N. Bogdanov,

After receiving information about the Bolsheviks, the commander of the captured detachment was shot. In Krukkovsky, there was some especially painful cruelty. I know of many cases when under the influence of hatred for the Bolsheviks, the officers assumed the duties of shooting the captured volunteers. The executions were necessary because under the conditions in which the Volunteer Army had to move, prisoners could not be taken.

Bands of Kornilov’s officers left behind more than 500 dead in a Don village in early 1918.

After Kornilov was killed in April 1918, the leadership of the so-called "Volunteer Army" passed over to Deinkin. The press of the Denikin regime regularly incited violence against Jews. For example, a proclamation by one of Denikin's generals incited people to "arm themselves" in order to extirpate "the evil force which lives in the hearts of Jew-communists." In the small town of Fastov alone, Denikin's Volunteer Army murdered over 1500 Jews, mostly elderly, women, and children. An estimated 100-150 thousand Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia were killed in pogroms perpetrated by Denikin's forces as well as Petlyura's nationalist-separatists. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were left homeless and tens of thousands became victims of serious illness.

In the Don Province, the Soviet government was displaced because of the German intervention and a puppet regime headed by Krasnov was formed in April 1918. More than 45,000 people would be shot or hanged by Krasnov's White Cossack regime, which lasted until the liberation of the region by the Red Army following the victory at Tsaritsyn. In one specific incident on 10 May 1918, captured by M. Sholokhov in his novel "Silent Don", the White Cossacks shot 78 men and hanged chairman of the Don Soviet Republic F. Podtelkov and secretary of the Don Military Revolutionary Committee M. Krovhoshlykov.

Mass executions happened in 1918 in other territories under White occupation. In one incident, commander of the 3rd Division of the Volunteer Army M. Drozdovsky gave order to shoot more than 1000 captured prisoners.

G. William noted in his memoirs:

In general, the attitude toward Red Army prisoners was awful. I remember one of Shkuro’s detachments’ officers, distinguished by a monstrous fury, telling me details over the victory of the Makhno gangs from Mariupol. I choked when he called the figure of unarmed opponents shot: four thousand!

In 1918 when the Whites controlled the Northern Territory with a population of about 400 thousand people, more than 38,000 were sent to prisons, of which about 8000 were executed while thousands more died from torture and disease.

In the city of Yaroslavl, a counter-revolutionary revolt broke out on 6-7 July 1967. The counter-revolutionaries arrested Communists, while Soviet leaders Nakhimson and Zakheim were captured and shot on the spot. They captured about 200 Soviet activists and interned them on a barge along the banks of the Volga. The 200 men, and women and children were crammed on top of each other in their floating prison, in which they spent thirteen days, exposed to the fire of the belligerent forces; they received nothing no food.

White Terror in Eastern Russia

The seizure of power by the right-wing SRs, Mensheviks, and others facilitated by the Czechoslovak invasion in the cities of the Volga in the summer of 1918 included the massacre of many revolutionaries and Soviet government officials and the prohibition of Bolsheviks and Left SRs in position of power. So-called “Komuch” was established.

In November 1918, after seizing power in Siberia, Admiral Kolchak pursued a policy of persecuting revolutionaries as well as Socialists of several factions. Kolchak’s “Government” issued a decree on 3 December 1918 stating, “In order to preserve the system and rule of the Supreme Ruler, articles of the criminal code of Imperial Russia were revised, Articles 99 and 100 of which established capital punishment for assassination attempts on the Supreme Ruler and for attempting to overthrow the authorities. “Insults written, printed, and oral, are punishable by imprisonment under Article 103. Bureaucratic sabotage under Article 329 was punishable by hard labor from 15 to 20 years.

On April 11, 1919, the Government of Kolchak adopted Regulation no. 428, “About the dangers of public order due to ties with the Bolshevik Revolt”. The legislation was published in the Omsk newspaper “Omsk Gazette” (no. 188 of 19 July 1919). It provided a term of five years of prison for “individuals considered a threat to the public order because of their ties in any way with the Bollshevik revolt.” In the case of unauthorized return from exile, there could be hard labor from 4 to 8 years. Articles 99-101 allowed the death penalty, forced labor and imprisonment, repression by military courts, and imposed no investigation commissions.

An excerpt from the order of the government of Yenisei county in Irkutsk province, General. S. Rozanov said:

“Those villages whose population meets troops with arms, burn down the villages and shoot the adult males without exception. If hostages are taken in cases of resistance to government troops, shoot the hostages without mercy

. A member of the Central Committee of the Right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries, D. Rakov wrote about the terror of Kolchak's forces:

Omsk just froze in horror. At a time when the wives of dead comrades, day and night looked in the snow for bodies, I was unaware of the horror behind the walls of the guardhouse. At least 2500 people were killed. Entire bodies of carts were carried to a city, like winter lamb and pork carcasses. Those who suffered were mainly soldiers of the garrison and the workers.

In Ekaterinburg region alone, more than 25,000 people were shot or tortured to death by Kolchak's forces. In March 1919 Admiral Kolchak himself demanded one of his generals to "follow the example of the Japanese who, in the Amur region, had decimated the local population." Kolchak's regime also used mass floggings, especially with rods. Kolchak issued orders to raze to the ground whole villages. In a few Siberian provinces, 20,000 farms were destroyed and over 10,000 peasant houses burned down. Kolchak's regime destroyed bridges and blew up water stations.

In the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East, there was extraordinary cruelty practiced by several Cossack warlords: B. Annenkov, A. Dutov, G. Semyonov, and J. Kalmykov. During the trial against Annenkov, there was testimony about the robbing peasants and atrocities under the slogan: “We have no restrictions! God is with us and Ataman Annenkov: slash right and left!”.. On September 1918, during the suppression of peasant uprisings in Slavgorod county, Annenkov tortured and killed up to 500 people. The village of Black Dole was burned down, after which peasants were shot, tortured, and hanged on pillars, including the wives and children of the peasants. Girls of Slavgorod and surrounding areas were brought to Annenkov’s train, who were raped and then shot. According to an eyewitness, Annenkov behaved with extraordinary cruelty: victims had their eyes gouged and tongues and strips of their back cut off, were buried alive, or tied to horses. In Semipalatinsk, Annenkov threatened to shoot every fifth resident of the city in case of a refusal to pay indemnities..

On May 9, 1918, after Ataman Dutov captured Alekasandrov-Gai village, nearly 2000 men of the Red Army were buried alive. More than 700 people of the village were executed. After capturing Troitsk, Orenburg, and other cities, a regime of terror was installed. One prison in Orenburg contained over 6000 people, of whom 500 were killed just during interrogations. In Chelyabinsk, Dutov’s men executed or deported Siberian prisons over 9000 people. In Troitsk, Dutov’s men in the first weeks after the capture of the city shot about 700 people. In Ileka they killed over 400. These mass executions were typical of the Cossack troops of Dutov. Executive order of Dutov on August, 4 1918 imposed on its territory the death penalty for even passive resistance to the authorities, as well as evasion of military service. In only district of the Ural region in January 1918, Dutov’s men killed over 1000 people. On April 3, 1919, the Cossack warlord ordered to shoot and take hostages for the slightest display of opposition. In the village of Sugar, Dutov’s men burned down a hospital with hundreds of Red Army patients..

The Semenov regime in in Transbaikalia was characterized by mass terror and executions. At the Adrianovki station in summer of 1919, more than 1600 people were shot. 11 permanent death houses were set up, where refined forms of torture were practiced. Semenov himself admitted in court that his troops burned villages. in court that resistance to this troops would be met with the burning of villages. Semyonov personally supervised the torture chambers, during which some 6500 people were murdered. .

Associate of Atman Semyonov, Major Vlasyevsky testified during an interrogation on August 13, 1945:

“White Cossack formations of Semyonov brought so much misery to the people. They shot people suspected of anything, burned villages, looted inhabitants, who were suspected of disloyalty to Semyonov’s troops. Especially distinguished was Ungern and its counter-intelligence service. The greatest atrocities were by the death squads of the military chiefs of Filshina, Chistokina, and others who were subordinate to Semyonov.”

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Memorials to victims of White Terror=

In Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and elsewhere, there are a significant number of monuments dedicated to victims of White Terror. Most monuments were planced on the mass graves of the terror.

In the central square in Volgograd since 1920 there is a "Square of Fallen Fighters", where the remains of 55 victims of white terror are buried. A monument established in 1957 in black and red cranite has an inscription: "To the freedom fighters of Red Tsaritsyn. Buried here are the heroic defenders of Red Tsaritsyn brutally tortured by White Guard butchers in 1919."

A monument to victims of White Terror in Vyborg was made in 1961 near the Leningrad highway. It is dedicated to the victims of 600 prisoners shot by machine gun by the White Guards on the ramparts of the city.

The "In Memory of Victims of White Terror" monument in Voronezh is located in a park near the regional Nikitinskaia libraries. The monument was unveiled in 1920 on the site of public executions in 1919 by the troops of Mamantov.

In Sevastopol on the 15th Bastion Street of December 1920, there is a "Communard Cemetery and victims of white terror". The cemetery is named in honor of the members of the Communist underground, murdered by Whites in 1919-20.

In the city of Slavgorad in Altai, there is a monument for participants of the Chernodolsky Uprising and their families who who fell victim to the white terror of Ataman Annekov.