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''For the use of the term in the context of race in the United States see White Terror (United States)''
In general, the term 'White Terror' refers to acts of violence carried out by reactionary (usually monarchist or conservative) groups as part of a counter-revolution. Often, such acts were carried out in response to (and/or followed by) similar measures taken by the revolutionary side in the conflict. In particular, during the 20th century, in several countries the term ''White Terror'' was applied to acts of violence against real or suspected socialists and communists.

Contents

Historical origin

Anti-communist White Terrors

Russian White Terror

Hungarian White Terror

German White Terror

Finnish White Terror

Bulgarian White Terror

Chinese White Terror

Spanish White Terror

Taiwanese White Terror

Notes

Historical origin

Main articles: The White Terror (France)

The original White Terror took place in 1794, during the turbulent times surrounding the French Revolution. It was organized by reactionary "Chouan" royalist forces in the aftermath of the Reign of Terror, and was targeted at the radical Jacobins and anyone suspected of supporting them.^[1] Throughout France, both real and suspected Jacobins were attacked and often murdered. Just like during the Reign of Terror, trials were held with little regard for due process. In other cases, gangs of youths who had aristocratic connections roamed the streets beating known Jacobins. These "bands of Jesus" dragged suspected terrorists from prisons and murdered them much as alleged royalists had been murdered during the September Massacres of 1792.
Again, in 1815, following the return of King Louis XVIII of France to power, people suspected of having ties with the governments of the French Revolution or of Napoleon suffered arrest and execution. Marshall Brune was killed in Avignon, and General J.P. Ramel was assassinated in Toulouse. These actions struck fear in the population, dissuading Jacobin and Bonapartist electors (48,000 on 72,000 total permitted by the census suffrage) to vote for the ultras. Of 402 members, the first Chamber of the Restoration was composed of 350 ultra-royalists; the king himself thus named it the ''Chambre introuvable'' ("the Unobtainable Chamber"). The Chamber voted repressive laws, sentencing to death Marshall Ney and Colonel Labédoyère, while 250 people were given prison sentences and some others exiled (Joseph Fouché, Lazare Carnot, Cambacérès).

Anti-communist White Terrors

Russian White Terror

After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, Anti-Communist grouped themselves loosely into the 'White Movement'. The color white was adopted as the symbol of the movement because it had been the traditional color of the Russian monarchy (the Russian Tsar was often called the "White Tsar"). In 1918, the White Movement started the Russian Civil War against the newly created Russian SFSR. Both sides carried out acts of violence against dissidents and suspected enemy agents within the territory they controlled. The mass arrests and summary executions carried out by the White Movement became known as the ''White Terror''.
By analogy, the term "White Terror" came to be used to refer to many different campaigns of violence carried out by various kinds of Anti-Communist forces against real or suspected Communist sympathizers, in different places and periods of the 20th century.

Hungarian White Terror

One of the first such White Terrors outside Russia was the Hungarian White Terror, the retaliation carried out by irregular and semi-regular detachments (most of them formally belonged to Miklós Horthy's ''"National Army"'') in Hungary in 1919-1920, after the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, against Communists, Socialists, and Jews. Horthy's personal moral culpability and responsibility for the White Terror is a matter of dispute among historians: some argue that Horthy did not command these atrocities—indeed, in words, he may have prohibited them. More convincingly, it has been shown that Horthy orchestrated these attacks in an attempt to galvanise power.

German White Terror

In the aftermath of the First World War, Germany tottered on the brink of chaos. Attempting to prevent a takeover by the Marxist Spartacist League, Germany's Socialist regime, which had taken power after the fall of the Monarchy, formed militias out of demobilized WWI veterans. The Freikorps, as they were called, were meant as a replacement for the Kaiser's Army, which had evaporated overnight due to desertion. In practice, however, they were drunken and undisciplined and obeyed only their company commanders. The Freikorps succeeded in defeating the Spartacist League on the streets of Berlin and later invaded and annexed the Marxist Bavarian Soviet Republic. A large number of people fell victim to the Freikorps, including Spartacist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, who were hunted down and murdered after the botched Spartacist Revolt of 1920.

Finnish White Terror

After the Finnish Civil War of 1918, the victorious White troops of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim shot thousands of Finnish leftwingers and put thousands of others, by no means only Communists, in internment camps. Diseases, hunger and numerous further executions after treason convictions were widely regarded as terror on the remaining leftwingers, whether Social Democrats, Communists or merely trade union functionaries. The executions only ended after official protests from Great Britain and the United States.

Bulgarian White Terror

The White Terror in Bulgaria occurred during the right-wing government of Aleksandar Tsankov (1923-1926). The Bulgarian Communist Party was repressed and martial law was declared. In 1925, after the Sofia bomb attack aimed to assassinate Tsar Boris III, the Communist Party was outlawed and persecution escalated, with many notable figures who had expressed Communist beliefs—for example, writer Geo Milev—being repressed, put on trial or even killed.

Chinese White Terror

Another anti-communist White Terror took place during the Chinese Civil War. It was an attempted suppression of Communists and Communist sympathizers by Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang regime. Beginning in April 1927, the White Terror spread through many major Chinese cities, most notably Shanghai.
Also known as Chiang's "Bloody Double Cross", this White Terror saw his armies turn against their former Communist allies. Death Squads patrolled the cities, on order to shoot anyone suspected of Communist leanings.
The formal name for the "Bloody Double Cross" is the Shanghai massacre.

Spanish White Terror

''Main Article:White Terror - Spain''
Durning and after the civil war in Spain the Nationalist side murder 200000 peoples.

Taiwanese White Terror

Rooted in the 228 Incident on Taiwan in 1947, the "White Terror" describes the suppression of political dissidents and public discussion of the massacre under the martial law from May 19 1949 to July 15 1987.
During the White Terror, around 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned or executed for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang (KMT) government led by Chiang Kai-shek, according to a recent report by the Executive Yuan of Taiwan. Some prosecuted Taiwanese were labeled by the Kuomintang as "bandit spies" (匪諜), meaning spies for Chinese communists, and punished as such. The "White Terror" left many native Taiwanese with a deep-seated bitterness towards the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek, and sometimes the mainlanders.
Fear of discussing the 228 Incident and the White Terror gradually decreased with the lifting of martial law in 1987, culminating in the establishment of an official public memorial and an apology by President Lee Teng-hui in 1995.

Notes

1. John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, First Baron Acton, ''Lectures on the French Revolution'', edited by John Neville Figgis, C.R., Litt.D. and Reginald Vere Laurence, M.A. (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1910). Chapter XXII: After the Terror. Accessed online 23 March 2007.