Black & White & Reds All Over

In the late hours of November 17th, 1918, the southern Siberian city of Omsk was suddenly abuzz with activity.  A key junction along the Trans-Siberian Railway and the meeting point between the railway’s northern and southern branches, Omsk had seen it’s fair amount of political activity for months as the Provisional All-Russian Government, informally known as The Directory, had established the city as it’s seat of governance.  Uniting many Socialist Revolutionary members (SRs) who had held power in the original Soviets and the elected Constituent Assembly, along with former Tsarist officers, the Directory appeared as the potential precursor for a unified White Russian political movement. 

The Directory even appeared on the verge of gaining international recognition as Vice-Admiral Alexander Kolchak, recently returned to Russia from various overseas diplomatic tours, had decided to join The Directory’s Council of Ministers as the Ministers of both War and the Navy.  Kolchak had originally returned to Russia via Japan with the intention of traveling to the other side of the empire to join the former Tsarist officer-led Volunteer Army.  Instead, the Vice-Admiral had cast his lot with militarily inferior, but politically more diverse Directory.  Kolchak was held in high esteem by the Allies, and the British in particular, with British Military Attaché General Alfred Knox saying of Kolchak that he had “more grit, pluck and honest patriotism than any Russian in Siberia.”

Omsk’s commotion this evening however wasn’t more would-be politicians but Cossack soldiers.  Moving throughout the city, one by one, many of the 14 ministers of the Directory were swooped up by the Cossacks and placed under arrest.  By the following morning, the few Directory members who were left understood what had occurred in the wee hours – Kolchak and his supporters had staged a coup, arresting most of the SR-aligned ministers and executives.  By a private vote, the remaining Ministers gave their consent to elect Kolchak the “Verkhovnyi Pravitel” or “Supreme Ruler” of Russia, consolidating all political and military authority under his office.

From the Caspian to the Pacific, the newly formed “Russian Republic” held one of the largest territorial empires on the globe.  And for better and for worse, the White Russian movement now had a singular leader.

Admiral Alexander Kolchak – he would be viewed as the defacto leader of the entire White Russian resistance, but in reality Kolchak was barely in charge of his own Siberian government and held little practical influence over the rest of the White armies or leaders


The end of the war in Europe meant nothing towards ending the growing Civil War in Russia.  Despite invoking fear across the former Russian Empire and in many capitals around the world, the ruling Bolsheviks controlled precious little territory.  In the west, Ukraine, Finland and the Baltic States had split away.  In the northern port cities, the Allies held sway, occupying large swathes of land that would be directly or in-directly governed by White Russian collaborators.  The Caucasus were losing some ground back to the Bolsheviks, but chunks of the region were still led by a loose confederation of ethnic governments, leftist Menshevik politicians and thuggish Cossack warlords.  And in the East, thanks to the Czechoslovak Legion and Allied intervention, the entire country from Azerbaijan to Vladivostok had been in the hands of the newly formed Provisional All-Russian Government.  The regions that lay in the hands of the Bolsheviks’ opponents were large – well more than half of the original Russian Empire – but the industrial base of the country and large population centers were mostly under Red control. 

It didn’t hurt the Bolsheviks that their domestic opponents were disorganized, often unpopular and increasingly lacking international support – especially with the Great War now finally over. 

German support – and in some cases, German opposition – had helped form many of the non-Bolshevik Eastern Europe governments now casting about for independence.  Ukraine had been treated as nearly a co-belligerent by the Central Powers, even being granted a seat at the negotiating table for the Treaty of Brest Litovsk that ended the Soviet participation in the war.  Ukraine had been under direct Bolshevik-supported assault in 1918, with the capital of Kiev even being taken by communist rebels.  But armed by the Central Powers, and backed with 450,000 German and Austro-Hungarian troops, the Ukrainians prevailed and the Germans helped place conservative dictator Pavlo Skoropadskyi in charge.  Similar governments arose in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, trying vainly to fill the political vacuum of Berlin’s withdrawal per the Armistice.  Some, like in Estonia and Lithuania, had briefly tried to gain independence before being crushed by German troops in early 1918, forming the backbone of the independence movements that would follow at the end of the war.  All were desperately attempting to secure German arms and support – whether in the form of purchased weapons, German military volunteers (the “Saxon Volunteers” in Lithuania) or direct military intervention as with German Republic soldiers in Latvia and Estonia.  The Bolsheviks had announced that as far as they were concerned, the end of the war also meant the end of the validity of Brest-Litovsk, and with it, Russia’s acknowledgement of the independence of the various provinces it had lost.  Without a strong military and/or international support, many newly formed Eastern European nations could easily fall back under Moscow’s control.

An armored car with White soldiers.  The Whites were rarely lacking in weapons or the latest technology, often provided by Western powers.  They simply lacked manpower, a direct result of their lack of popular support

Despite the sizable number of troops they had in Russia – and ample Bolshevik propaganda about their intentions – the Western Allies hardly appeared in a position to supplant Germany as any sort of regional protector or hegemon.  There were certainly strong voices in Western politics willing to denounce Bolshevism; Winston Churchill famously decried the “foul baboonery of Bolshevism” as a motivation to continue to support Russia; but even the most strenuous of voices weren’t arguing for an open-ended intervention.  Even Churchill’s most aggressive attributed comments on Bolshevism, that the movement should have “strangled in its cradle,” came decades later during the Cold War.  The world had just lost an estimated 20 million dead, with 21 million wounded and anywhere from 50-100 million more dead from the Spanish Flu.  No matter how afraid the West was of their own “Russian Revolution”, there was simply no appetite for more carnage.  Most Allied troops in Russia were securing arms shipments as in Arkhangelsk or attempting to make territorial grabs, such as Japan in Siberia.  Few Allied operations were carried out directly in support of the White Russian cause, with the notably exception of the French invasion of Odessa and southern Ukraine to help prop up the White armies of the Crimea and Don regions.

That didn’t mean that the Allies weren’t concerned about the outcome of the Russian Civil War – merely that they weren’t interested in intervening outside of small scale battles and had little idea of who to support.  


Alexander Kolchak’s life could be defined by the inscription on his Golden Sword of Saint George – “for bravery.”  Whether it was during artic expeditions in search of lost explorers (trips that earned him the nickname “Kolchak the Polar”) or his actions in the Russo-Japanese War where he was wounded, Kolchak usually found himself in the midst of some sort of danger.  Even during the Great War, now as a Vice-Admiral, Kolchak typically led from the front.  In an era and empire full of military dilettantes, Kolchak was held in high esteem for his willingness to share the dangers of combat equally with his men.  With his reputation preceding him, Kolchak found himself approached by a number of conservative and monarchist politicians in the wake of the February Revolution in hopes of assuming power.  The Provisional Government had little interest in keeping such a figure around St. Petersburg/Petrograd (then the capital) and Kerensky himself had Kolchak transferred to a diplomatic mission to the United States to get him out of the country.

Bolshevik propaganda – the Reds are sweeping out western and/or capitalist influence.  The large Western military presence in Russia certainly helped this line of thinking, but the West was torn on how and who to support

For nearly a year, Kolchak travelled the world as a sort of naval attaché, meeting prominent Western Allied figures such as British First Sea Lord John Jellicoe, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, and former American Secretary of State Elihu Root.  With the collapse of the Provisional Government, Kolchak initially volunteered to join the British Navy, but London saw his use as a rallying figure of whatever anti-Bolshevik, pro-Allied sentiments remained in Russia, aimlessly moving him around the globe from Baghdad to Beijing and other points in-between, vainly trying to find followers for this potential leader.  The attraction to Kolchak was in the vice-admiral’s passion, idealism and seeming lack of political ambition.  Kolchak may have egotistically viewed himself as Russia’s destiny-bound savior, but he didn’t view himself as another Tsar.  That may have been because ultimately, as those who had spent the most time with him had noticed, Kolchak was little more than “a big, sick child.”  As one contemporary wrote of him:

“He is kind and at the same time severe, responsive and at the same time embarrassed to show human feelings, concealing his gentleness behind make-believe severity. He is impatient and stubborn, loses his temper, threatens and then calms down, making concessions, spreads his hands in a gesture of helplessness. He is bursting to be with the people, with the troops, but when he faces them, has no idea of what to say.”

None of this was immediately apparent to the Provisional All-Russian Government when Kolchak arrived in the fall of 1918.  For the Directory, the Vice-Admiral gave the movement international relations with the British and credibility with what little military power this isolated pocket of White resistance held.  For the Allies, the Directory was a heaven-sent organization.  Politically liberal, albeit mostly with the kind of Socialist Revolutionaries that would have otherwise terrified London twelve months earlier, the Directory’s publicly stated priorities included defeating the Soviets, reuniting the Russian Empire – and most importantly for the West – continuing the war against Germany and repaying St. Petersburg’s debts.  In a war-ravaged Russia, struggling to feed itself, let alone fight anyone, it’s needless to say that the Directory’s message fell on deaf ears.

A White Russian postcard showing Kolchak – the admiral was a successful early rallying point for anti-Bolsheviks

The Directory struggled for authority and despite announcing a diversified 14-man council of ministers, the Directory couldn’t get other White-led movements to acknowledge them as the leader of whatever White coalition existed.  Few in the White movement outside of Omsk were willing to bend their knee to Socialist-Revolutionaries like the Directory’s Chairman Pyotr Vologodsky as days before the coup, Kolchak was approached to take over the government.  The Vice Admiral refused.  He would accept power, but he wouldn’t take actions to secure it for himself.  To what extent Kolchak knew the specifics of the coup is unknown, but he had no qualms about accepting the title of “Supreme Ruler” or exiling those arrested SR Ministers.  And weeks later, when elements of the SR People’s Army – the Socialist Revolutionary’s equivalent of the Bolshevik’s Red Guards – rebelled in Omsk, Kolchak would brutally repress the rebellion, executing 500 prisoners in response.


While the political, diplomatic and military ramifications of Kolchak’s coup were slow to evolve, the timing would come at a critical juncture for any resistance to Bolshevik rule.

Within weeks of the November Armistice, Bolshevik and Bolshevik-allied forces struck across Eastern Europe.  Ukraine’s once-German backed dictatorship was overthrown by the nation’s own Directory, leading to the leftist Ukrainian People’s Republic.  The new government’s political leanings didn’t matter to the Soviets, who promptly invaded on January 7th, 1919.  Latvia had been invaded a month earlier while at the same time Lithuania had to deal with a slow rolling Soviet invasion by proxy with the newly announced Communist Party of Lithuania.  Estonia had been hit even earlier, in late November of 1918, in part because the country’s fledging political leadership had seen the writing on the wall and attempted to mobilize a volunteer army before the Bolsheviks could strike.  Even in the greater Caucasus, where the small but experienced White Volunteer Army had been victorious, Cossack forces were being turned back and watching men abandon the fight.  By the beginning of the new year, the Bolsheviks were advancing on every front and quickly brushing aside their opponents.

Bolshevik anti-White literature.  Both sides terrorized the nation, with of course both sides highlighting the crimes of the other in their propaganda.  

Kolchak’s seizure of power was viewed as acceptable to the officer corps in the rest of the White movement, meaning a consolidation of authority and centralization of military planning might now finally emerge.  The leader of the largest White army in Russia, General Anton Denikin of the Armed Forces of South Russia in the Don and Caucasus regions, would ally himself with Kolchak, although strategically nothing would sizably change.  But now the White Russians could count on armies totaling around 450,000 men, to say nothing of the several hundred thousand Allied soldiers in the country.  By contrast, the various Red armies of the Bolsheviks facing them might have been around 200,000 men as the Soviet reliance on volunteers in a war-weary populace hindered their reach.  On paper, despite the initial Soviet victories of late 1918/early 1919, the White and other anti-Bolshevik forces held the advantage.

Britain alone would ship Kolchak’s army 600,000 rifles, 6,831 machine guns, and about 200,000 uniforms, provided that the new “Supreme Ruler” of Russia promised to meet every Allied demand on his new dictatorship, including paying the billions owed to the British and French.  Kolchak had little choice but to comply, even as the Allies withheld the one thing he desperately wanted – international recognition of his regime as the “official” government of Russia.  Even as other White Russians acknowledged Kolchak as the “leader” of the White government, Kolchak wielded little overall influence, watching other White commanders plan their own offensives as the Siberian government had no relationship with the Baltic or Ukrainian resistance to the Bolsheviks, and the Socialist Revolutionaries begin to defect over to their ideological brethren with the Reds.  Being granted recognition wouldn’t necessarily change any of this, but would in theory lead to more military and monetary support that would empower Kolchak’s position.  David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill were both open to such a declaration, but  Woodrow Wilson refused and George wasn’t about to go alone and make it look at though Britain were fighting a proxy war against the Bolsheviks by itself.  Wilson was being advised by Alexander Kerensky himself.  The former Provisional Government Prime Minister said Kolchak’s regime would be every bit as odious as the Bolsheviks, crushing any hopes of a unified Allied approach to the Russian Civil War.

British tanks in White Russian hands.  British leadership – and arms – were critical to the existent of the White Russian movement.  But the lack of support from other powers, and crumbling domestic support among Britons who wanted their men back home, eventually ended any large-scale backing of the Whites

By the spring of 1919, the Bolshevik advance had, for the most part, stopped.  The Soviets had been successful in Ukraine, but still had years of hard fighting left to do.  The Baltics had halted and reversed some of the offensives as Poland had been drawn into the larger war.  The Estonians were on the attack and had managed to push into Soviet territory, generating ill-proportioned dreams that they could take St. Petersburg/Petrograd.  General Denikin’s Armed Forces of South Russia had badly beaten the 11th Soviet Army, causing that army’s soldiers into a panicked retreat.  And the consolidation of Southern Russia under White leadership had progressed to the point that Denikin was beginning to plan a drive north with the eventual goal of the Bolshevik capital of Moscow.  Despite the long odds, perhaps the Whites might prevail after all.

 

4 thoughts on “Black & White & Reds All Over

  1. Yet ANOTHER reason to Wilson was the worst president. Well, maybe second worst, Jughead is not done yet destroying the country.

  2. nice piece… (and if I ever write a story about a dystopian future, I’m totally using “The Directory”)

  3. Pingback: White Out | Shot in the Dark

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.