The composition of the White Army was a worker-peasant. It is not even possible to officially label the White officers as "world eaters", "descendants of landowners who beat peasants in stables", the infamous "barchuks and sons of factory owners". The overwhelming majority of white officers are people who advanced during the First World War thanks to courage and personal abilities Doctor of historical sciences Sergey Volkov created and maintains a unique database on officer ranks of the early 20th century. As a result of enormous work, information on hundreds of thousands of people was collected in the archive. Such a huge amount of information that has become available to the scientist makes it possible to answer a number of questions that have been discussed for many years. One of them is the social composition of the White Army. Research on the database produced such a striking result that it sometimes causes distrust, but attempts to challenge Volkov's figures fail, since behind every name there is an archival document. Help As of October 1917, there were about 320 thousand officers in our country. Not all of them participated in the civil war - 50 thousand were recruited into the Red Army, and 170 thousand fought in the ranks of the White Army. Three thousand lieutenant colonels (and higher ranks) served in the Red Army, 15 thousand in the White Army. On the eve of the First World War, a little more than half of the officers were nobles, and only 3% of the officers had at least real estate. During the war, 260,000 people became officers (minimum estimate): 70% were farmers, 25% were workers and city dwellers. They constituted the absolute majority of the officers of the White Army. This is how the well-known cliché of Red propaganda collapses, according to which "the exploiting class decided to suppress the achievements of the October Revolution" and rushed to fight for "their factories, factories and ships". It is impossible, even officially, even at the level of propaganda demagoguery, to label the white officers as "world eaters", "descendants of the landowners who beat the peasants in the stables", the infamous "barchuks and sons of factory owners".

The composition of the White Army was a worker-peasant. It is not even possible to officially label the White officers as "world eaters", "descendants of landowners who beat peasants in stables", the infamous "barchuks and sons of factory owners". The overwhelming majority of white officers are people who advanced during the First World War thanks to courage and personal abilities Doctor of historical sciences Sergey Volkov created and maintains a unique database on officer ranks of the early 20th century. As a result of enormous work, information on hundreds of thousands of people was collected in the archive. Such a huge amount of information that has become available to the scientist makes it possible to answer a number of questions that have been discussed for many years. One of them is the social composition of the White Army. Research on the database produced such a striking result that it sometimes causes distrust, but attempts to challenge Volkov's figures fail, since behind every name there is an archival document. Help As of October 1917, there were about 320 thousand officers in our country. Not all of them participated in the civil war - 50 thousand were recruited into the Red Army, and 170 thousand fought in the ranks of the White Army. Three thousand lieutenant colonels (and higher ranks) served in the Red Army, 15 thousand in the White Army. On the eve of the First World War, a little more than half of the officers were nobles, and only 3% of the officers had at least real estate. During the war, 260,000 people became officers (minimum estimate): 70% were farmers, 25% were workers and city dwellers. They constituted the absolute majority of the officers of the White Army. This is how the well-known cliché of Red propaganda collapses, according to which "the exploiting class decided to suppress the achievements of the October Revolution" and rushed to fight for "their factories, factories and ships". It is impossible, even officially, even at the level of propaganda demagoguery, to label the white officers as "world eaters", "descendants of the landowners who beat the peasants in the stables", the infamous "barchuks and sons of factory owners".