The White International: Sources of Counter-Revolutionary Thinking about a New Central European Order around 1920

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the political worldview and transnational practices of the “White International,” the loose network of counterrevolutionary paramilitary actors operating across Munich, Vienna, and Budapest after 1919. It argues that the Central European upheavals of 1919–1923 constituted a diachronic, ideology-driven civil war in which both left- and right-wing movements perceived the Other as an ontological threat. Drawing on cases from the three capitals, the study shows how a civil-war habitus, shared myths of defeat, and the spectre of Bolshevism produced a reactionary, conspiratorial internationalism on the radical right. These networks envisioned coordinated action, regime change in Vienna, and even broader geopolitical reordering. By analysing their strategies and foreign-policy imaginations, the paper highlights how counterrevolutionary actors mirrored the transnational logic of their revolutionary enemies.