White Terror
백색 테러
The violence and mass killings perpetrated by the White movement and anti-Bolshevik forces during the Russian Civil War (1917–1922). Unlike the Red Terror it was not launched by a single decree, but it unfolded under military dictatorships through courts-martial, summary executions by counter-intelligence bodies, and, most distinctively, large-scale pogroms targeting Jews. It remains a sharply contested historiographical subject, caught between characterizations of it as spontaneous excess and as organized ideological violence.
Related historical events
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) general definition, comparison with Red Terror, estimated death tolls (20,000–300,000 depending on inclusion of pogrom victims), historiographical debate between Pipes/Werth and Holquist/Sanborn
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian-language article confirming the term's scope: repressive acts by White governments, military counter-intelligence, field courts, and uncontrolled pogroms; notes that unlike Red Terror, no single decree initiated it
- sciencespo.fr Nicolas Werth (2008), Sciences Po: contextualizes White Terror alongside Red Terror within the civil war's broader mass violence; notes Denikin's forces' responsibility for 213 of the 1,236 recorded anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine