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The designation White had two meanings. First, it stands in contradistinction to the Reds of the revolutionary Red Army of supporters of the Soviets and Communism. Second, the word "white" had monarchist associations: historically each Russian Tsar was solemnly called the white tsar, and the monarchist ideal during the civil war was known as the white idea.
Strictly speaking, no monolithic "White Army" existed; lacking central coordination, the White forces were never more than a loose confederation of counter-revolutionary forces. The officers who made up the core of the White Army mostly upheld monarchist ideals, but some elements of the White Army drew support from many other political movements, including democrats, social revolutionaries, and others who opposed the October Revolution; at other times and in other places, the same groups supported the Red Army instead. The rank-and-file troops of the White Army included both active opponents of the Bolsheviks (many cossacks, for example) and enlisted apolitical peasants. At times, the Western Allies of the Triple EntenteThe Triple Entente was the alliance formed in 1907 between the United Kingdom, France and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente. The UK had already entered into the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904, while France had concluded the Franc and interventionist foreign forces provided substantial assistance to White Army units. This prompted some people to see the White Army as representing the interests of foreign powers.
The Russian Civil War between Whites and Reds raged until 1921. The White Army, in intermittent collaboration with interventionist forces from outside Russia ( JapanJapan (, Nippon/Nihon literally "the origin of the sun") is a country in East Asia situated on a chain of islands east of the Asian continent on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. The largest of these islands are, from north to south, Hokkaido , Honshese, BritishThe word Britain is used to refer to the United Kingdom (UK): i. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (from 1927), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ( 1801- 1927) or the United Kingdom of Great Britain ( 1707- 1801)., FrenchThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents., AmericanThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in) held sway in some areas (especially Siberia, the Ukraine and the Crimea) for periods of time and put considerable bodies of troops into the field. But they failed to unite or to co-operate effectively amongst themselves, and the Bolshevik Red Army eventually gained the upper hand.
White activity re-concentrated in émigré circles. Considerable numbers of anti-Soviet Russians clustered in Berlin, Paris, Harbin and Shanghai, setting up cultural networks which lasted until the time of World War II. Thereafter White Russian activity found a new principal home in the United States.