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Born in the Baku Governorate, one of the guberniyas of the Russian Empire, Nikolai Alexander Kulev was a Russian orthodox man, a engineer that dreamed of a better future for his nation since it's descent after the war with Japan in 1905. As a young teen Nikolai worked in a factory, where he managed to become engineer for the machines and had soon archived a important role with a few workers under his command. All that changed with the beginning of the Great War in 1914. While Nikolai was unsatisfied with the monarchy like many in the working class, but he was still a patriot. As his motherland called in 1914 he joined the army to fight for his nation. As the Ottoman Empire opened a new front in the Caucasus in November 1914 he fought near his homeland against the Ottomans and became an Officer. In the Bergmann Offensive he was taken prisoner of war near Kopri-Keni and taken to a prison camp right outside of Erzingian. There he learned Arabic from some Arabian Muslim prisoner of war (Arabian rebels) and became interested in the Quran and mostly the story of Mohamed. Nikolai, not coming from a poor family was educated enough to read, but his father lost most of his money and property as he was younger. Interested in great historical figures and quiet religious Nikolai was eager to learn more from his fellow inmates about their own faith and culture, while telling them more about his. He also joined other revolutionary soldiers at the prison camp, dreaming of a better future for all of Russia.

As the Russian Revolution occurred and Nikolai heard of it he was overwhelmed with joy and hope that the autocracy of the Tsar would be finally ended. With the Russian Empire collapsing, Nicholas II. abdicated and his regime was replaced with the provisional government. Like so many other Nikolai hoped for change, but with the second revolution in October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a communist state. All this began, when the February Revolution (March 1917) around Petrograd, the capital of Russia began. In the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament (the Duma) assumed control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Gouvernment. The army leadership felt they did not have the means to suppress the revolution, resulting in Nicholas's abdication. The Soviets (workers' councils), which were led by more radical socialist factions, initially permitted the Provisional Government to rule, but insisted on a prerogative to influence the government and control various militias. The February Revolution took place in the context of heavy military setbacks during the Great War (1914–18), which left much of the Russian Army in a state of mutiny.

In a period of dual power, the Provisional Government held state power while the national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower classes and the political left. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies, protests and many strikes. When the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions campaigned for stopping the conflict. The Bolsheviks turned workers militias under their control into the Red Guards (later the Red Army) over which they exerted substantial control. In the October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd and established the Russian SFSR, eventually shifting the capital to Moscow in 1918. The Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end Russia’s participation in the First World War, the Bolshevik leaders signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918. Nikolai was freed after the treaty and send home, like many other prisoners of war. Despite this he was very unhappy with the Red leadership, as they had given the enemy Russian territory and land. It was then that the Bolsheviks (Reds) fought the Whites (counter-revolutionaries), independence movements and non-Bolshevik socialists.


Nikolai Alexander Kulev saw how the Soviets and Bolshevik turned his dream into a nightmare and joined the White movement, a military arm of the White Army, better known as the White Guard, or Whites. They were a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forced, that fought the Bolsheviks/Soviets (better known as the Reds) in the Russian Civil War (1917 – 1921/22). The Whites were united by three main connotations; first the political contra-distrinction against the Reds, including their Red Army and the Bolsheviks government, second a historical reference to absolute monarchy, the white uniforms of Imperial Russia worn by some of the White Army soldiers. Nikolai was sure that the White movement could stop the Red Army and aimed to bring about law and order and the salvation of Russia, fighting against traitors, barbarians, and murderers. They worked to remove Soviet organizations and functionaries in White-controlled territory. Overall, the White Army was nationalistic, rejected ethnic particularism and separatism. The White Army generally believed in a united multinational Russia, and opposed separatists who wanted to create nation-states instead of the Tsarist Russian Empire. 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 patriotic, the Whites had yet no set ideology or main leader. The White Armies did acknowledge a single provisional head of state, the so-called Supreme Governor of Russia, but this post was prominent only under the leadership (1918-1920) of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. The movement had no set plan for foreign policy; Whites differed on policies toward Germany, 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. Nikolai himself was not so sure about that and realized that maybe help from outside was needed, if they wished to defeat the Reds.

Just like other White-movement leaders such as Anton Denikin, Nikolai 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. Nikolai realized that the Reds would win the civil war, because they were united under Lenin and the White movement had warlords, just like Grigory Semyonov and Roman Ungern von Sternberg, who did not acknowledge any authority but their own. Consequently, the White movement had no set political leanings: members could be monarchists, republicans,rightists, Kadets or anything other. Among White Army leaders, neither General Lavr Kornilov nor General Anton Denikin were monarchists, yet General Pytor 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.

Nikolai saw no other option, but to gather with some other Whites who had similar ideas like him and they wrote the book “a peace without peace” to oppose the territorial losses of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, while supporting some of the major separatist or autonomous movements among the Whites. They gathered their enemies in Lugansk and allied themselves with the Germans to get supplies (mainly weapons and some helping troops). Then they blew up the meeting of their White opposition with a bomb and seized control of the Volunteer Army in South Russia. This army soon became the most prominent and the largest of the various and disparate White forces and thanks to the deal with the Germans, even the best equipped. Starting off as a small and well-organized military in January 1918, the Volunteer Army soon grew. The Kuban Cossaks joined the White Army, and conscription of both peasants and Cossacks began. In late February 1918, 4,000 soldiers under the command of General Aleksei Kaledin were forced to retreat from Rostov-on-Don due to the advance of the Red Army. In what became known as the Ice March, they traveled to Kuban in order to unite with the Kuban Cossacks (most of whom did not support the Volunteer Army.) In March, 3,000 men under the command of General Viktor Pokrovsky joined the Volunteer Army, increasing its membership to 6,000, and by June to 9,000. In 1919 the Don Cossacks joined and the Army began drafting Ukrainian peasants. In that year, between May and October, the Volunteer Army grew from 64,000 to 150,000 soldiers and was better supplied than its Red counterpart. The White Army's rank-and-file comprised active anti-Bolsheviks, such as Cossacks, nobles, and peasants, as conscripts and as volunteers. The White movement also had access to various naval forces, both sea-going and river-based, like the Black Sea Fleet. On January 23, 1919 the Volunteer Army under Denikin oversaw the defeat of the 11th Soviet Army and then captured the North Caucasus region. After capturing the Donbass, Tsaritsyn and Kharkov in June, Denikin's forces surrounded Moscow on July 3, 1919. Plans envisaged 40,000 fighters under the command of General Vladimir May-Mayevsk storming the city. The attack upon Moscow succeeded, the Armed Forces of the Soviets retreated to Petersburg. On March 26 and March 27, 1920 the remnants of the Soviet Army evacuated from Petersburg and from Astrakhan to the far east, were some of them continued fighting. The Whites had won the Russian Civil War, but some fighting against the Reds and some seperatists continued until 1921/22.
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