Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was a Russian navy officer and polar explorer who led the White movement in the Russian Civil War. As he assumed the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia in 1918, Kolchak headed a military dictatorship, which ruled over the territory of the former Russian Empire controlled by the Whites. He was a proponent of Russian nationalism and militarism, while he opposed democracy as a principle which he believed to be tied to pacifism, internationalism, and socialism. As the principal leader of the White movement, he was one of the key architects of the White Terror.