Leave the White Army to me.

>>2784114
What was even the purpose of the White movement during the civil war? The Tsar was dead so they couldn't have restored the monarchy.

>>2784131
Stopping the red and black menace. Sadly they could not

>>2784131

>The Tsar was dead so they couldn't have restored the monarchy.

Why not? He had living relatives, and even if he didn't, it's not unheard of for some other aristocrat with some fleeting lineage to be placed on the throne.

>>2784131
Because the Whites contained every ideological position between and including Republicans and Absolute Theocratic Monarchy.

>>2784131
nothing united them other than a vague opposition to Bolshevism

>>2784131
The vast majority of the Whites didn't want to restore the monarchy.
The Whites weren't really a united front, they were divided up among various warlords and many had competing interests. They were united by hatred of the Bolsheviks. You basically had:
-Admiral Kolchak's Provisional Government of Russia. This was probably the most powerful faction and was recognized by the Western Allies as the legitimate government of Russia after October 1917 for a time. With the help of the British he overthrew a variety of smaller and weaker white groups and proclaimed himself dictator. Kolchak was basically aiming to become the successor of Kerensky and the earlier provisional government that the Bolsheviks overthrew. He was not going to resurrect the Tsar but rather rule as a military dictator with Western support. An admiral with little army command experience and inept administrator whose forces pillaged and pogrom’d their way through Russia, Kolchak’s forces were comprehensively defeated in summer 1919 and he was captured/executed.
-The Komuch. This was made up of socialists and liberals from the Russian Constituent Assembly that the Bolsheviks had abandoned. They were allied with the Czech Legion and sought to create a westernized-liberal democratic regime. They were eventually taken over by Kolchak

>>2784698
-The Provisional Siberian Government. It was supported by the Japanese (who were occupying Vladivostok) and consisted of ex-provisional government socialists. Like the Komuch it was eventually folded into Kolchak’s regime.

-The Forces of South Russia. This included the famous Volunteer Army which was the closest to reach Moscow of any other white forces. It also consisted of many Ukrainian/Don region Cossacks who were (probably falsely) promised autonomy by Kornilov. Leadership went through a variety of generals: the charismatic Lavr Kornilov (who was killed by artillery in 1918) who was succeeded by General Alexkseev (who died of heart failure shortly after) and most famously General Denikin. After a series of disasters in 1920 Denikin resigned and replaced by General Wrangel, This force engaged in the largest and fiercest fighting with the Bolsheviks, but was bloated with lots of officers and little fighting men. These forces were the closet you got to genuine monarchists, but while Alexkseev flirted with it Denikin/Wrangel were against it as he knew it'd doom them

-General Yudenich's Northern Russian forces. He was heavily supported by the British and newly independent Baltic states, though after a peace deal with the Bolsheviks the Estonians disarmed and detained his forces. Like Kolchak and the Southern Army, there's no indication Yudenich wanted to restore the Tsar and had cooperated with the provisional government that had overthrown him

>>2784704
-The forces of Ungern Sternberg. This guy was a loon and is fun to read about, but long story short he was a Russian general that converted to Buddhism and tried to revive the Mongol Empire with the deposed Khan (Bogd) as a type of spiritual leader/proxy. His forces conquered much of Mongolia before he moved into Siberia, where he was captured and executed.

-The West Russian volunteer army. Though officially an anti-bolshevik force it was a Germans-supported proxy force that fought against primarily Baltic nationalists in the Baltic states. The group tacitly cooperated with the Bolsheviks despite its affiliation with the white movement, and hindered the Estonian attempt to advance on Petrograd in summer 1918. Their main goal was to protect Baltic German interests in the region. They did not have Allied support and were defeated by Baltic nationalists by 1920.

-Various independent Cossack armies such as the Don Repubic and Orenburg host

-The Finnish White Movement, which was backed by Germany, Sweden, Baltic states, and newly independent Poland. They were internally-focused and sought to defeat the Finnish Bolsheviks. They were the only successful white army.

-The Bashmachi Army. A pan-Turkish army in Central Asia that flirted with Islamism as well as Ataturk’s model of Turkic secularism. It was also allied with a variety of other Central Asian factions such as the Kihvan Khanate and Bukharan Emirate. Their de facto leader was Ottoman Minister of War during WW1 Enver Pasha who died commanding them against the Bolsheviks. Enver was a bit of outcast from Turkey during this time so his only support came from Afghanistan.

>>2784710

-The “Black Hundreds”. The only true Tsarist force, they a formerly tsarist-sponsored orthodox religious movement that conducted pogroms. They achieved very little during the Civil War, killing Jewish civilians before being wiped out by both Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionarities early in the conflict.

The Bolsheviks weren’t their only opponents either. The “Black” Ukrainian anarchists, Peasant “Green” armies, anti-bolshevik leftists (such as the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks), and newly independent Ukraine and Polish forces also clashed with the Whites, who wished to retain the territories of the former Russian Empire. The Ataturks Turks formed a bit of an unofficial alliance with the Bolsheviks in 1919, and opposed then as well. The Whites as a whole were in turn were supported by the Western Allies, Armenia, Germany, Japan, Yuan Shikai’s China, Japan, and Romania.

Overall the Russian Civil War is a clusterfuck that I don’t think will ever be topped.

>>2784131

This was actually a persistent problem for the Whites that led to their downfall. They didn't really have cohesive endgame, which made recruiting hard. Some of them wanted a Christian Theocracy. Some wanted a new Monarchy. Some wanted a democracy. The Bolsheviks were much more unified and organized in contrast.