White Terror
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
In a usage that may not be directly related, during the late 19th and 20th centuries in the United States, the term White Terror was applied to terrorist acts of violence committed by costumed nightriders, such as members of the Ku Klux Klan who masked their identity and used terror, including murder especially against African Americans to stop them from voting or participating in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" with the same civil rights other citizens enjoy. [White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction by Allen W. Trelease] It is not clear whether "white" in this use was originally intended to evoke the original meaning of "white terror" or was simply a reference to race.
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[edit] Historical origin
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.[citation needed] Throughout France, both real and suspected Jacobins were attacked and often murdered. [citation needed] 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. [citation needed] 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. [citation needed]
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 peoples were given prison sentences and some others exiled (Joseph Fouché, Lazare Carnot, Cambacérès).
[edit] White Terror directed against African Americans in the United States
Night-riding groups across the United States, especially the southern part of the country, terrorized black people and whites who supported civil rights efforts during Reconstruction and continuing, in one form or another, from the 1860s through to the 1960s. Beginning in 1867 after the American Civil War in the United States, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the most famous of the night-riding groups, "whipped, shot, hanged, robbed, raped and otherwise outraged Negroes and Republicans across the South in the name of preserving white civilization." [White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction by Allen W. Trelease]
While the KKK was the most famous of the night-riding groups whose members hid their identities beneath white sheets and pointy hats, there were many other groups of vigilantes made up of white racists who terrorized African Americans and white citizens who supported the struggle for civil rights.
During the 1860s, the Republican Party advocated civil rights for African Americans while the Democratic Party represented plantation owners who, before the Civil War ended the practice, had held large numbers of African Americans as their slaves.
[edit] Anti-communist White Terrors
[edit] Russian White Terror
After the October Revolution in Russia, counter-revolutionary forces 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.
[edit] 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 Leftists and Jews (mainly as a revenge for the Red Terror - see here for additional information). Horthy's personal moral culpability and responsibility for the White Terror is a matter of dispute among historians: Horthy did not command these atrocities—indeed, in words, he prohibited them—but he did not do a great deal to prevent them.
[edit] German White Terror
Thousands of civilians were killed by the Freikorps and German Army after the defeat of the German Revolution.[citation needed]
[edit] Finnish White Terror
After the Finnish Civil War 1918 the victorious White troops enclosed thousands of reds on prison camps. Diseases, hunger and executions after convictions for high treason were regarded as terror on remaining reds. The white terror created more victims than the pre-war red terror. [citation needed]
[edit] Bulgarian White Terror
The White Terror in Bulgaria occurred during the right-wing government of Aleksandar Tsankov (1923-1926). The Bulgarian Communist Party was mercilessly repressed and a 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.
[edit] 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 government. 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.
[edit] White Terror in Taiwan
Rooted in the 228 Incident on Taiwan in 1947, the "White Terror" describes the suppression of political dissents 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 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.
[edit] Reference
- Trelease, Allen W., White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction (Louisiana State University: 1971)
