The White movement (Russian: Бѣлое движеніе/Белое движение, tr. Beloye dvizheniye, IPA: [ˈbʲɛləɪ dvʲɪˈʐenʲɪɪ]) and its military arm the White Army (Бѣлая Армія/Белая Армия, Belaya Armiya), also known as the White Guard (Бѣлая Гвардія/Белая Гвардия, Belaya Gvardiya), the White Guardsmen (Белогвардейцы, Belogvardeytsi) or simply the Whites (Белые, Beliye), was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces that fought the communistBolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1922/3) and, to a lesser extent, continued operating as militarized associations insurrectionists both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly the Second World War (1939-1945).

During the Russian Civil War, the White movement was a big tent political movement, representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the communist Bolsheviks, from the republican-minded bourgeois liberals and Kerenskyite social democrats who had profited from the February Revolution of 1917, to the champions of Tsarism and the Russian Orthodox Church of Eastern Orthodox Christianity on the right.

Following their defeat, there were remnants and continuations of the movement in several organizations, some of which only had narrow support, enduring within the wider White émigré overseas community until after the fall of Communism in the Eastern European Revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-1991. This community-in-exile of anti-communists was often divided between the liberals and the more conservative segments, with some still hoping for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty including several claimants to the empty throne like Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia (1924-2014) living in Italy and Prince Andrew Romanov (b. 1923) in the United States and other exiles still hoping for a true constitutional democratic republic in Russia.

in the Russian context after 1917 "White" had three main connotations:

1. political contra-distinction to the Reds, whose revolutionary Red Army supported the Bolshevik government
2. historical reference to absolute monarchy, specifically recalling Russia's first Tsar, Ivan III (reigned 1462–1505), at a period when some styled the ruler of Muscovy Albus Rex ("the White King")
3. the white uniforms of Imperial Russia worn by some White Army soldiers

The White movement emerged as, above all, opponents of the Red Army. The White Army had the stated aim to keep law and order in Russia as the Tsar's army before the civil war, and the salvation of Russia. They worked to remove Soviet organizations and functionaries in White-controlled territory.

Overall, the White Army was nationalistic, and rejected ethnic particularism and separatism. The White Army generally believed in a united multinational Russia and opposed separatists who wanted to create nation-states.American historians Richard L. Rubenstein and John K Roth state that 60,000 Russian Bolshevik Red Army Jews were killed in combat (with 240,000 wounded) against White forces during the Civil War of 1917 to 1923. British parliamentary influential leader Winston Churchill (1874-1965) personally warned General Anton Denikin (1872-1947) formerly of the Imperial Army and later a major White military leader, whose forces effected pogroms and persecutions against the Jews, that

my task in winning support in Parliament for the Russian Nationalist cause will be infinitely harder if well-authenticated complaints continue to be received from Jews in the zone of the Volunteer

Many of the White leaders were conservative, accepting autocracy while remaining suspicious of "politics" (which they characterized as consisting of speeches, elections, and party activities). Aside from being anti-Bolshevik and anti-Communist and patriotic, the Whites had no set ideology or main leader. The White Armies did acknowledge a single provisional head of state in a Supreme Governor of Russia in a Provisional All-Russian Government, but this post was prominent only under the leadership in the war campaigns during (1918-1920) of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, formerly of the previous Russian Imperial Navy.

The movement had no set plan for foreign policy; Whites differed on policies toward the German Empire (Germany) in its extended occupation of western Russia, the Baltic states, Poland and the Ukraine on the Eastern Front in the closing days of the World War, debating whether or not to ally with it. The Whites wanted to keep from alienating any potential supporters and allies, and thus saw an exclusively monarchist position as a detriment to their cause and recruitment. White-movement leaders such as Anton Denikin advocated for Russians to create their own government, claiming the military could not decide in Russians' steads. Admiral Alexander Kolchak succeeded in creating a temporary wartime government in Omsk, acknowledged by most other White leaders, only for it to fall with the loss of his armies.

Some warlords who were aligned with the White movement, such as Grigory Semyonov and Roman Ungern von Sternberg, did not acknowledge any authority but their own. Consequently, the White movement had no set political leanings: members could be monarchists, republicans, rightists, Kadets, etc. Among White Army leaders, neither General Lavr Kornilov nor General Anton Denikin were monarchists, yet General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was a monarchist willing to soldier for a republican Russian government. Moreover, other political parties supported the anti-Bolshevik White Army, among them the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and others who opposed Lenin's Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917. But depending on the time and place, those White Army supporters might also exchange right-wing allegiance for allegiance to the Red Army.

The White movement's leaders and first members^. came mainly from the ranks of military officers. Many came from outside the nobility, such as generals Mikhail Alekseev and Anton Denikin (who originated in serf families) or General Lavr Kornilov (a Cossack).

The White generals never mastered administration; they often utilized "prerevolutionary functionaries" or "military officers with monarchististic inclinations" for administering White-controlled regions.

The White Armies were often lawless and disordered. Also, White-controlled territories had multiple different and varying currencies with unstable exchange-rates. The chief currency, the Volunteer Army's ruble, had no gold backing^.

Moreover, in the 1920s and the 1930s, the White Movement established organisations outside Russia, which were meant to depose the Soviet Government with guerrilla warfare, e.g., the Russian All-Military Union, the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, and the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, a far-right anticommunist organization founded in 1930 by a group of young White emigres in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Some white émigrés adopted pro-Soviet sympathies and were termed "Soviet patriots". These people formed organizations such as the Mladorossi, the Eurasianists, and the Smenovekhovtsy. A Russian cadet corps was established to prepare the next generation of anti-Communists for the "spring campaign"—a hopeful term denoting a renewed military campaign to reconquer Russia from the Soviet Government. In any event, many cadets volunteered to fight for the Russian Corps during the Second World War, when some White Russians participated in the Russian Liberation Movement.

After the war, active anti-Soviet combat was almost exclusively continued by the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists: other organizations either dissolved, or began concentrating exclusively on self-preservation and/or educating the youth. Various youth organizations, such as the Russian Scouts-in-Exteris became functional in raising children with a background in pre-Soviet Russian culture and heritage.

Some supported Zog I of Albania during the 1920s, and a few independently served with the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. White Russians also served alongside the Soviet Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang and the Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang in 1937.