Diplomacy of the White Movement during the Civil War in Russia: Organizational Aspect

The management of the international relations of the White Movement during the Russian Civil War took on a complex and multifaceted character for objective reasons. An analysis of diplomatic correspondence, both published and preserved in national archives, has made it possible to identify the institutions involved in this work, to clarify the extent of their contribution to policy-making and influence on affairs, and to shed light on the reasons for the fundamental differences between the two most important centres of diplomacy in anti-Bolshevik Russia. The White movement failed to establish an effective vertical structure for managing foreign relations. All four fronts of the anti-Bolshevik struggle had their own foreign policy organs. The most professional staff in the country was employed by the Foreign Relations Bureau of South Russia. However, its communication with foreign countries was not well established throughout the year. The central policy-making bodies were the Omsk government and the Russian diplomatic corps abroad, which had survived from the imperial period. Although outwardly they were subordinate to each other, there were relations of parity: there were cases of unauthorized actions of representatives abroad. The contradictions between the two centres were objective in nature as they were caused by their existence in different political realities. The civil war in the homeland, the inefficiency of telegraph communications, and the minister’s stay in Paris, where he could not rely on the work of the central department due to the circumstances of the international situation, contributed to the increased independence of embassies and missions. In the context of the defeat of the White fronts and the change in the movement’s leadership, the independence of the Foreign Corps continued to develop. In 1920, under the leadership of its elder, M. N. Giers, the Corps subordinated its activities to the Sevastopol government of General Baron P. N. Wrangel as an independent structure.