White émigré

Most émigrés initially fled from Southern Russia and Ukraine to Turkey and then moved to other Slavic countries in Europe (the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland).

[3] White émigrés were, generally speaking, anti-communist and did not consider the Soviet Union and its legacy to be representative of Russia but rather of an occupying force.

A significant percentage of white émigrés may be described as monarchists, although many adopted a position of being "unpredetermined" ("nepredreshentsi"), believing that Russia's political structure should be determined by popular plebiscite.

A religious mission to the outside world was another concept promoted by people such as Bishop John of Shanghai and San Francisco (canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad) who said at the 1938 All-Diaspora Council: To the Russians abroad it has been granted to shine in the whole world with the light of Orthodoxy, so that other peoples, seeing their good deeds, might glorify our Father Who is in Heaven, and thus obtain salvation for themselves.Many white émigrés also believed it was their duty to remain active in combat against the Soviet Union, with the hopes of liberating Russia.

This ideology was largely inspired by General Pyotr Wrangel, who said upon the White army's defeat "The battle for Russia has not ceased, it has merely taken on new forms".

White army veteran Captain Vasili Orekhov, publisher of the magazine Sentry (Chasovoy),[4] encapsulated this idea of responsibility with the following words: There will be an hour – believe it – there will be, when the liberated Russia will ask each of us: "What have you done to accelerate my rebirth."

As being temporarily deprived of our Motherland let us save in our ranks not only faith in her, but an unbending desire towards feats, sacrifice, and the establishment of a united friendly family of those who did not let down their hands in the fight for her liberationThe émigrés formed various organizations for the purpose of combating the Soviet regime such as the Russian All-Military Union, the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, and the NTS.

Tens of White Army veterans (numbers vary from 72 to 180) served as volunteers supporting Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

After 1933, there were attempts to copy the NSDAP and cozy up to the German National Socialists, thus the short-lived parties such as the ROND (Russian Popular Liberation Movement) came into existence in Germany.

In fact, a monument to Pushkin would have been built in Paris had not a dispute arisen with the Ministry of Fine Arts over its precise location.

[13] The fact that the crosses of the Russians buried in France were painted white-the color of the French war dead and allies-while the crosses of the German war dead were painted black was widely noticed within the Russian community in France as a sign that the French regarded them as allies.

[15] A planned Orthodox church to honor the Russian prisoners who died in an Austrian POW camp outside Osijek would have featured busts of the Emperor Nicholas II, King Peter I and King Alexander to emphasis how the Houses of Romanov and Karađorđević had been allied in the war, linking the Russian and Serbian experiences of the war.

[15] Between 1934 and 1936, an ossuary containing the bones of Russian soldiers killed all over the world was built in the Novo Groblje cemetery in Belgrade, which used to illustrate the theme of Serbian-Russian friendship, and which King Alexander contributed 5,000 dinars to meet the construction costs.

The main reason that pushed the Whites to support the German power with action was the concept of a "spring offensive", an armed intervention against the USSR that must be exploited in order to continue the civil war.

[28] During the war, the white émigrés came into contact with former Soviet citizens from German-occupied territories who used the German retreat as an opportunity to either flee from the Soviet Union, or were in Germany and Austria as POWs and forced labor, and preferred to stay in the West, often referred to as the second wave of émigrés (often also called DPs – displaced persons, see Displaced persons camp).

The church continues its existence to this day, acting as both the spiritual and cultural center of the Russian Orthodox community abroad.

[29] Although some of the White Russians arrived with their fortunes intact, most were penniless and due to ethnic prejudices and their inability to speak Chinese, were unable to find jobs.

A League of Nations survey in Shanghai in 1935 found that 22% of Russian women between 16 and 45 years of age were engaging in prostitution to some extent.

[30] The White Russian women mostly worked in the "Badlands" area adjoining the Beijing Legation Quarter on the east, centered on the alley of Chuanban Hutong.

[citation needed] By slow degrees, and despite the many difficulties, the community not only retained a good deal of cohesion but did begin to flourish, both economically and culturally.

An important part was also played by the local Russian Orthodox Church under the guidance of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco.

Having lost their livelihoods, and with most of them widowed, Doihara forced the women into prostitution, using them to create a network of brothels throughout China where they worked under inhuman conditions.

"[45] The children of these women were tested in ways similar to their parents, with specific emphasis on determining how longer infection periods affected the effectiveness of treatments.

Bodies were buried in the unit's cattle cemetery.Unit 100 staff poisoned and drugged Russians with heroin, castor oil, tobacco and other substances for weeks at a time.

When survivors were determined to no longer be useful for experimentation and were complaining of illness, staff told them they would receive a shot of medicine, but instead executed them with potassium cyanide injections.

[46]: 323 Approximately 150,000 White Russians, including princes, princesses, generals and senior officers, fled to the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Revolution.

[47] Tens of thousands of people who left their titles, money and palaces in Russia and came to Istanbul tried to hold on to life by dispersing all over the city.

The first arrivals found some jobs in the French and British representations, commissions, or alongside them in civil service, translator, or even military or security units in Istanbul.