The Russian Whites and the Poles, 1918-1921

<p dir="ltr">This study analyzes the attitudes of the Russian Whites towards Poland and Poles between Poland’s declaration of independence in November 1918 to the Polish-Soviet peace at Riga in March 1921. These perspectives were complex and multi-faceted. They can be described as largely moderately sympathetic, albeit simultaneously often ambivalent and with numerous caveats. Most of the latter stemmed from the various, sometimes contradictory goals of the White movement itself, the foremost of which was the attempt to simultaneously defeat Bolshevism while defending Russia’s status as a great power. The Whites viewed Bolshevism as a period of anarchy and chaos – destructive but temporary – that undermined Russia’s great power status, led to the former empire’s territorial disintegration, and was foisted upon Russia by an enemy power, Germany. However, once the Bolsheviks were ousted and order was restored, the Whites were confident that Russia would return to its former great power status. In general, the Whites envisioned a return to the Russian Empire’s pre-1914 borders, albeit with East Galicia but without “ethnographic” Poland. Thus, even though the Whites recognized Poland’s independence, their ongoing claims to borderland territories (now located in modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania) and great power preoccupations and rhetoric clashed not only with the aspirations of the local nationalities – the Ukrainians in particular – but also countervailing, competing claims by the Poles to what they viewed as their historic Kresy. This fundamental disagreement and an unwillingness to offer concessions ultimately killed the prospects of Polish assistance to the Whites against the Bolsheviks – likely dooming Denikin’s chances to take Moscow in the summer-fall of 1919 – although the staunch hostility of Polish head of state Jόzef Piłsudski to the Whites also played an important role. However, due to their strongly anti-German views, the Whites generally supported Polish territorial claims vis-à-vis Germany and viewed Poland through a pan-Slavic lens. The Whites also saw Poland as an important part of a larger Slavic alliance against German power. In general, the Whites had the most sympathy for the Czechs and Serbs, but their views of Poland were still much more sympathetic than towards Germans, Romanians, or Ukrainian nationalists.</p>