We continue our column dedicated to the figures of the Civil War of 1917-1922. Today we’ll talk about Anton Ivanovich Denikin, perhaps the most famous figure of the so-called “white movement”. This article will analyze the personality of Denikin and the white movement during the era of his leadership.

To begin with, let's give a brief biographical information. The future white dictator of the South of Russia was born on December 4 (16 old style) 1872 in the village of Shpetal Dolny, a Zavisla suburb of the city of Wloclawek, in the Warsaw province, which already belonged to the then decaying Russian Empire. The father of the future general was a retired border guard major, Ivan Denikin, a former serf, and his mother Elizaveta Wrzhesinskaya was from an impoverished Polish family of landowners.

Young Anton wanted to follow the example of his father to make a military career and at the age of 18, after graduating from the Łovichi Real School, he was enrolled as a volunteer in the 1st Infantry Regiment, lived for three months in a barracks in Plock and in June of the same year was accepted into the Kiev Infantry Junker School for a military school course. After completing this course, Denikin was promoted to second lieutenant and assigned to the 2nd artillery brigade, which was stationed in the provincial town of Bela, in the Siedlce province of the Kingdom of Poland.

After several preparatory years, Denikin went to St. Petersburg, where he passed a competitive exam at the Academy of the General Staff, but at the end of the first year he was expelled for failing an exam in the history of military art. After 3 months, he retook the exam and was again accepted into the academy. On the eve of young Denikin's graduation, the new head of the Academy of the General Staff, General Nikolai Sukhotin, adjusted at his own discretion the lists of graduates who were to be assigned to the General Staff and... Denikin was not included in their number. Anton Ivanovich filed a complaint, but they tried to hush up the matter, inviting him to apologize - “to ask for mercy,” to which Denikin did not agree and his complaint was rejected for his “violent temper.”

After this incident, in 1900, Anton Ivanovich Denikin returned to Bela, to his native 2nd Artillery Brigade, where he stayed until 1902, when he wrote a letter to Minister of War Kuropatkin, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Far East, in order to ask to consider the long-standing situation. This action was a success - already in the summer of 1902 Anton Denikin was enrolled as an officer of the General Staff, and from that moment the career of the future “white general” began. Now let’s digress from a detailed biography and talk about his participation in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars.

In February 1904, Denikin, who by this time had become a captain, received a secondment to the active army. Even before arriving in Harbin, he was appointed chief of staff of the 3rd brigade of the Zaamur district of the Separate Border Guard Corps, which stood in the rear and clashed with the Chinese robber detachments of Honghuz. In September, Denikin received the post of officer for assignments at the headquarters of the 8th Corps of the Manchurian Army. Then, upon returning to Harbin, he accepted the rank of lieutenant colonel and was sent to Qinghechen to the Eastern Detachment, where he accepted the post of chief of staff of the Transbaikal Cossack Division of General Rennenkampf.

Denikin received his first “baptism of fire” during the Battle of Tsinghechen on November 19, 1904. One of the hills in the battle area went down in military history under the name “Denikin” for repelling the Japanese offensive with bayonets. Afterwards he took part in intensive reconnaissance. Then he was appointed chief of staff of the Ural-Transbaikal division of General Mishchenko, where he proved himself to be a capable officer, and already in February-March 1905 he took part in the Battle of Mudken.

His fruitful activity was noticed by the highest authorities and “for distinction in cases against the Japanese” he was promoted to colonel and awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree with swords and bows, and St. Anne, 2nd degree with swords. After the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, he departed back to St. Petersburg in turmoil.

But the real “test” of his qualities came with the First World War. Denikin met her as part of the headquarters of the 8th Army of General Brusilov, for which the beginning of the war went well: it continued to advance and soon captured Lvov. After this, Denikin expressed a desire to move from a staff position to a field position, to which Brusilov agreed and transferred him to the 4th Infantry Brigade, unofficially called the “iron” brigade for its exploits in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78.

Under the leadership of Denikin, it won many victories over the Kaiser and Austro-Hungarian armies and was renamed “iron”. He particularly distinguished himself in the battle at Grodek, receiving the St. George's Arms for this. But these were only local successes, because the Russian Empire was not ready for war: the collapse of the army was observed everywhere; corruption simply flourished on a titanic scale, starting from the generals of the main Headquarters and ending with minor military officials; food did not reach the front, and cases of sabotage were frequent. There were also problems with the military-patriotic spirit. Inspiration was observed only in the first months of the war, and that was due to the fact that government propaganda widely used the patriotic feelings of the population, but as the supply situation worsened and losses grew, pacifist sentiments spread more and more.

At the beginning of 1915, the Russian Empire was suffering defeats on all fronts, maintaining a timid balance only on the border with Austria-Hungary, while German troops boldly advanced on the western borders of the Republic of Ingushetia, defeating the armies of Samsonov and Rennenkampf, one of the reasons for which was long-standing rivalry and mutual distrust between these generals.

Denikin at this time went to help Kaledin, together with whom he threw the Austrians behind a river called San. At this time, he received an offer to become the head of a division, but did not want to part with his “eagles” from the brigade, for which reason the authorities decided to deploy his brigade into a division.

In September, with a desperate maneuver, Denikin took the city of Lutsk and captured 158 officers and 9,773 enemy soldiers, for which he was promoted to lieutenant general. General Brusilov wrote in his memoirs that Denikin, “without any difficulties as an excuse,” rushed to Lutsk and took it “in one fell swoop,” and during the battle he himself drove a car into the city and from there sent Brusilov a telegram about the capture of the city by the 4th Infantry division. But, soon, Lutsk had to be abandoned to level the front. After this, relative calm established at the front and a period of trench warfare began.

The entire year of 1916 for Denikin was spent in constant battles with the enemy. On June 5, 1916, he re-took Lutsk, for which he was again awarded. In August, he was appointed commander of the 8th Corps and, together with the corps, was sent to the Romanian Front, where Romania, which had gone over to the Entente side, suffered defeats from the Austrians. There, in Romania, Denikin was awarded the highest military order - the Order of Michael the Brave, 3rd degree.

So, we have come to the most significant period of Denikin’s life and the beginning of his involvement in the political game. As you know, in February 1917, the February Revolution took place and a whole chain of events took place, as a result of which the tsar was overthrown, and a noisy bourgeoisie, but completely incapable of active action, came to power. We have already written about these events in “Politsturm”, therefore, we will not deviate from the given topic and return to Denikin.

In March 1917, he was summoned to Petrograd by the Minister of War of the new revolutionary government, Alexander Guchkov, from whom he received an offer to become chief of staff under the newly appointed Supreme Commander of the Russian Army, General Mikhail Alekseev. Denikin accepted this offer and on April 5, 1917, he assumed his new position, in which he worked for about a month and a half, working well with Alekseev. Then, when Brusilov replaced Alekseev, Denikin refused to be his chief of staff and on May 31 was transferred to the post of commander of the armies of the Western Front. In the spring of 1917, at a military congress in Mogilev, he was marked by sharp criticism of Kerensky's policies, the essence of which was the democratization of the army. At a meeting of Headquarters on July 16, 1917, he advocated the abolition of committees in the army and the removal of politics from the army.

As commander of the Western Front, Denikin provided support for the Southwestern Front. On the way to his new destination in Mogilev, he met with General Kornilov, in a conversation with whom he expressed his consent to participate in the uprising. The February government found out about this and already on August 29, 1917, Denikin was arrested and imprisoned in Berdichev prison (primarily because he expressed solidarity with General Kornilov in a rather harsh telegram to the Provisional Government). The entire leadership of his headquarters was arrested along with him. A month later, Denikin is transferred to Bykhov to an arrested group of generals led by Kornilov, along the way almost becoming a victim of soldier lynching.

The investigation into the Kornilov case dragged on due to the lack of substantiated evidence of the generals’ guilt, so they met the Great October Socialist Revolution while in custody.

The new government forgets about the generals for a while, and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Dukhonin, taking advantage of the opportune moment, releases them from the Bykhov prison.

At this moment, Denikin changed his appearance and moved to Novocherkassk under the name of “assistant to the head of the dressing detachment Alexander Dombrovsky,” where he began to take part in the formation of the Volunteer Army and became, in fact, the organizer of the so-called. "volunteer movement" and, accordingly, the first anti-Bolshevik movement in Russia. There, in Novocherkassk, he began to form an army, which initially consisted of 1,500 people. In order to get weapons, Denikin’s people often had to steal them from the Cossacks. By 1918, the army numbered about 4,000 people. Since then, the number of participants in the movement began to grow.

On January 30, 1918, he was appointed commander of the 1st Infantry (Volunteer) Division. After volunteers suppressed the workers' uprising in Rostov, the army headquarters moved there. Together with the Volunteer Army, on the night of February 8 to February 9, 1918, Denikin set out on the 1st Kuban Campaign, during which he became deputy commander of the Volunteer Army of General Kornilov. He was one of those who suggested that Kornilov send an army to the Kuban region.

An important moment for the volunteers was the assault on Yekaterinodar. They suffered heavy losses, ammunition was running out, and on top of that, Kornilov was killed by a shell. Denikin was appointed head of the volunteer army, who curtailed the offensive and withdrew the troops.

After the retreat, Denikin reorganizes the army, increases its strength to 8-9 thousand people, receives a sufficient amount of ammunition from allies abroad and begins the so-called. “2nd Kuban Campaign”, as a result of which the capital of the Kuban nobility, Ekaterinodar, where the headquarters was located, was taken. After the death of General Alekseev, supreme power passes to him. Autumn 1918 - winter 1919 General Denikin's troops recaptured Sochi, Adler, Gagra, and the entire coastal territory captured by Georgia in the spring of 1918.

On December 22, 1918, the troops of the Southern Front of the Red Army went on the offensive, which caused the collapse of the front of the Don Army. In such conditions, Denikin had a convenient opportunity to subjugate the Cossack troops of the Don. On December 26, 1918, Denikin signs an agreement with Krasnov, according to which the Volunteer Army merges with the Don Army. This reorganization marked the beginning of the creation of the AFSR ((Armed Forces of the South of Russia). The AFSR also included the Caucasian Army and the Black Sea Fleet.

The Denikin movement achieved its greatest success in 1919. The size of the army was, according to various estimates, about 85 thousand people. Entente reports for March 1919 drew conclusions about the unpopularity and poor moral and psychological state of Denikin’s troops, as well as their lack of their own resources to continue the fight. Therefore, Denikin is personally developing a military action plan for the spring-summer period. This was precisely the period of greatest success of the White Movement. In June 1919, he recognized the supremacy of the “Supreme Ruler of Russia” Admiral Kolchak over himself.

Denikin came to wide fame within Soviet Russia in connection with the offensive of his armies in June 1919, when “volunteer troops” took Kharkov (June 24, 1919) and Tsaritsyn (June 30, 1919). The mention of his name in the Soviet press became ubiquitous, and he himself was subjected to the most fierce criticism. In July 1919, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote an appeal with the title “Everyone to fight Denikin!”, which became a letter from the Central Committee of the RCP (b) to the party organizations, in which Denikin’s offensive was called “the most critical moment of the socialist revolution.” On July 3 (16), 1919, Denikin, inspired by the successes of previous campaigns, issued a Moscow Directive to his troops, providing for the ultimate goal of capturing Moscow - the “heart of Russia” (and at the same time the capital of the Bolshevik state). The troops of the All-Soviet Union of Socialists under the general leadership of Denikin began their famous “march against Moscow.”

September and the first half of October 1919 were the times of greatest success for Denikin’s forces in the central direction; in October 1919 they took Orel, and the advanced detachments were on the outskirts of Tula, but this was where luck stopped smiling on the White Guards.

A special role in this was played by the policy of the “whites” in the controlled territories, which included all sorts of anti-Soviet activities (“fighting the Bolsheviks to the end”), praising the ideals of “United and Indivisible Russia,” as well as the widespread and harsh restoration of the old landowner orders. Let’s add to this that Denikin acted as a person who was strongly opposed to the creation of national outskirts - and this caused discontent on the part of the local population; also, the “white general” assumed the liquidation of the Cossacks (his own allies) and pursued a policy of active intervention in the affairs of the Verkhovna Rada.

The peasants, realizing the insignificance of the ideas and plans of the “whites”, the goal of which was not to improve the life of a simple worker, but to restore the old order and oppression, began, if they did not enroll en masse in the ranks of the Red Army, then to offer fierce resistance to “Denikinism” everywhere. By that time, Makhno's rebel army had inflicted a number of serious blows on the rear of the AFSR, and the troops of the Red Army, having created quantitative and qualitative superiority over the enemy in the Oryol-Kursk direction (62 thousand bayonets and sabers for the Reds versus 22 thousand for the Whites), in October 1919 went on a counter-offensive.

By the end of October, in fierce battles that went on with varying success south of Orel, the troops of the Southern Front (commander A.I. Egorov) defeated small units of the Volunteer Army, and then began to push them back along the entire front line. In the winter of 1919-1920, Denikin’s troops abandoned Kharkov, Kyiv and Donbass. In March 1920, the retreat of the White Guards ended in the “Novorossiysk disaster”, when the White troops, pressed to the sea, were evacuated in panic, and a significant part of them were captured.

Lack of unity within the southern counter-revolution, heterogeneity of goals of the struggle; the sharp hostility and heterogeneity of the elements that made up the body of the white power of the South of Russia; vacillation and confusion in all areas of domestic policy; inability to cope with issues of establishing industry, trade and foreign relations; complete uncertainty in the land issue - these are the reasons for the complete defeat of Denikinism in November - December 1919

Shocked by the defeat, Denikin resigns from the post of commander-in-chief, and Baron Wrangel takes his place, immediately criticizing Denikin’s “Moscow Directive”. But Wrangel is no longer able to return the previous success to the “white movement,” which from now on is doomed to defeat. On April 4, 1920, General Denikin ingloriously left Russia on an English destroyer, never to return to it again.

DENIKIN Anton Ivanovich(1872-1947), Russian military leader, lieutenant general (1916). In the First World War he commanded a rifle brigade and division, an army corps; from April 1918 commander, from October commander-in-chief of the Volunteer Army, from January 1919 commander-in-chief of the “Armed Forces of the South of Russia” (Volunteer Army, Don and Caucasian Cossack Armies, Turkestan Army, Black Sea Fleet); simultaneously from January 1920 "Supreme Ruler of the Russian State". Since April 1920 in exile. Works on the history of the Russo-Japanese War; memoirs: “Essays on Russian Troubles” (vol. 1-5, 1921-23), “The Path of a Russian Officer” (1953).

DENIKIN Anton Ivanovich(December 4, 1872, the village of Shpetal-Dolny Włoclaw, Warsaw province - August 7, 1947, Ann Arbor, USA), Russian military leader, one of the leaders of the white movement, publicist and memoirist, lieutenant general (1916).

Beginning of a military career

Father, Ivan Efimovich Denikin (1807-1855), came from serfs. In 1834 he was recruited by the landowner. In 1856 he passed the exam for the officer rank (he was promoted to ensign). In 1869 he retired with the rank of major. Mother, Elizaveta Fedorovna, nee Vrzhesinskaya (1843-1916), was Polish by nationality, and came from a family of small landowners.

He graduated from the Lovichi Real School, the military school course of the Kyiv Infantry Junker School (1892) and the Imperial Nicholas Academy of the General Staff (1899). He served in the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade (1892-95 and 1900-02), and was senior adjutant at the headquarters of the 2nd Infantry Division (1902-03) and the 2nd Cavalry Corps (1903-04). During the Russo-Japanese War in March 1904, he submitted a report on transfer to the active army and was appointed as a staff officer for special assignments at the headquarters of the 8th Army Corps; At the theater of military operations, he served as chief of staff of the Trans-Baikal Cossack, then the Ural-Trans-Baikal division, and in August 1905 he took the post of chief of staff of the Consolidated Cavalry Corps (at the same time promoted to the rank of colonel “for military distinction”). Awarded the Order of St. Stanislav and St. Anna 3rd degree with swords and bows and 2nd degree with swords.

In 1906-10 - in various staff positions in the General Staff; in 1910-14 - commander of the 17th Arkhangelsk Infantry Regiment. In March 1914 he was appointed acting general for assignments from the headquarters of the Kyiv Military District, and in June he was promoted to major general.

Back in the 1890s, Denikin’s political worldview took shape: he perceived Russian liberalism “in its ideological essence, without any party dogmatism,” sharing its three positions: “constitutional monarchy, radical reforms and peaceful ways to renew Russia.” From the late 1890s, under the pseudonym Ivan Nochin, he published a lot in the military press, mainly in the most popular magazine "Razvedchik", in which in 1908-14 he published a series of articles "Army Notes". He advocated improving the system of selection and training of command personnel, against bureaucracy, suppression of initiative, rudeness and arbitrariness towards soldiers; He devoted a number of articles to the analysis of the battles of the Russo-Japanese War, in which he personally participated. He pointed to the German and Austrian threat, in light of which he considered it necessary to carry out speedy reforms in the army; in 1910 he proposed convening a congress of General Staff officers to discuss the problems of the army; wrote about the need to develop motor transport and military aviation.

During the First World War

Having learned about the beginning of the war, Denikin submitted a report with a request to send him into service. In September 1914 he was appointed commander of the 4th Brigade of the Iron Rifles. The "Iron Riflemen" distinguished themselves in many battles of 1914-16, they were thrown into the most difficult areas; they received the nickname "fire brigade". For his distinction in battles, Denikin was awarded the Arms of St. George, the Order of St. George 4th and 3rd degrees. For breaking through enemy positions during the offensive of the Southwestern Front in 1916 and the capture of Lutsk, he was again awarded the St. George's Arms, decorated with diamonds, and promoted to lieutenant general. In September 1916 he was appointed commander of the 8th Army Corps.

February Revolution

Denikin's military career continued to rise even after the February Revolution. In April 1917, he was appointed chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, then in May - commander-in-chief of the armies of the Western Front, in July - commander-in-chief of the armies of the Southwestern Front. He sharply criticized the policies of the Provisional Government, leading to the collapse of the army, at the officers' congress in May 1917. At a meeting at Headquarters on July 16, in the presence of members of the Provisional Government, he made a speech in which he formulated an 8-point program for strengthening the army, which actually contained a demand the abolition of democratic gains in the army. On August 27, 1917, having received news of the speech of General L. G. Kornilov, he sent a telegram to the Provisional Government in support of its demands - bringing the war to a victorious end and convening the Constituent Assembly. On August 29, he was arrested and placed in a guardhouse in Berdichev, then transferred to Bykhov, where Kornilov and his associates were imprisoned. On November 19, 1917, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General N. N. Dukhonin, he was released from arrest, like some others arrested in the Kornilov case; with documents in someone else's name he made his way to the Don.

At the head of the Volunteer Army

In the late autumn of 1917 he arrived in Novocherkassk, where he took part in the organization and formation of the Volunteer Army. He sought to smooth out differences between generals M.V. Alekseev and Kornilov, initiated the division of powers between them, as well as the Don ataman A.M. Kaledin. On January 30, 1918, he was appointed head of the 1st Volunteer Division. In the 1st Kuban (“Ice”) campaign - deputy commander of the Volunteer Army of General Kornilov. On March 31 (April 13), 1918, after the death of Kornilov near Yekaterinodar, he took command of the Don Army. He abandoned Kornilov's plan to storm Yekaterinodar, considering it suicidal, which allowed him to save the army. In June 1918 he undertook the 2nd Kuban campaign, during which Ekaterinodar was captured on July 3, 1918. On September 25 (October 8), 1918, after the death of General Alekseev, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army. Since January 1919, after the consent of the Don Ataman General P. N. Krasnov to create a unified command and subordination of the Don Army to Denikin, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR). Not wanting to cause a split in the anti-Bolshevik movement, in May 1919 he recognized Admiral A.V. Kolchak as the “supreme ruler” of Russia; in January 1920 the powers of the “supreme ruler” were transferred by Admiral Denikin.

The greatest successes of Denikin’s troops occurred in the summer and early autumn of 1919. On June 20, in the newly captured Tsaritsyn, Denikin signed the “Moscow Directive” on an attack on Moscow. However, the general did not take into account the specifics of the civil war, as well as the specifics of the areas where his troops were mainly deployed. Denikin failed to put forward an attractive program, settling on the doctrine of “non-decision” (refusal to decide on the form of government until the expulsion of the Bolsheviks), and a program of agrarian reform was not developed. The Whites failed to organize the work of the rear, in which profiteering and corruption flourished, and the army supply system, which led to “self-supply” and a decline in discipline, the degeneration of the army into a gang of robbers and pogromists, which was especially evident in Ukraine, where the Whites carried out pogroms against Jews . Denikin was accused of a strategic miscalculation - the “march against Moscow” led to the fact that the front was stretched, supplies were difficult, and the Whites occupied vast territories that they were unable to hold. The attack on Moscow in two directions led to a scattering of forces and made the troops extremely vulnerable to Red counterattacks. In response to these accusations, Denikin reasonably pointed out that civil war has special laws and it is impossible to approach operations only from the point of view of military strategy. But Denikin's undoubtedly achieved great success compared to other anti-Bolshevik fronts; in October 1919 they took Oryol, and their advanced detachments were on the outskirts of Tula.

However, the offensive stalled and Denikin was forced to rapidly retreat. In March 1920, the retreat ended in the “Novorossiysk disaster.” When the white troops, pressed to the sea, evacuated in panic, and a significant part of them were captured. Shocked by the disaster, Denikin resigned and after transferring command to General P. N. Wrangel on April 4, 1920, he left Russia forever.

In exile

In Europe, Denikin experienced all the hardships associated with his forced emigration. First, in the spring of 1920, he ended up in Constantinople, soon ended up in London, and in August he left for Brussels. Being extremely scrupulous in financial matters, Denikin did not provide himself with a means of subsistence; primarily due to financial circumstances, his family moved to Hungary in June 1922, eventually settling in a place near Lake Balaton (it was in Hungary that his most famous book, “Essays on Russian Troubles,” 1921-1926) was written. In 1925 the Denikins returned to Brussels, and in 1926 they moved to Paris.

“Essays on Russian Troubles,” published in Paris, combined elements of memoirs and research. Denikin relied not only on memory and materials from his archive; at his request, various documents were sent to him, participants in the white movement put their unpublished memories at his disposal. "Essays" to this day are the most complete and valuable source on the history of the white movement in the south of Russia; read with growing interest and written in expressive Russian.

His books “Officers” (1928) and “The Old Army” (1929) were also published in Paris.

Literary earnings and fees from lecturing were his only means of subsistence. In the 1930s, as the military threat grew, he wrote a lot and gave lectures on problems of international relations; took an anti-Nazi position, which in no way meant his reconciliation with the Soviet regime. In Paris he published books and brochures “The Russian Question in the Far East” (1932), “Brest-Litovsk” (1933), “Who Saved Soviet Power from Death?” (1937), "World events and the Russian question" (1939). In 1936-38 he was published in the newspaper "Volunteer" and some other Russian-language publications. After the surrender of France in June 1940, the Denikins moved to the south of France to the town of Mimizan, near Bordeaux. The former general was very upset by the defeats of the Red Army and rejoiced at its victories, however, unlike many emigrants, he did not believe in the degeneration of Soviet power.

In May 1945 he returned to Paris, but, fearing forced deportation to the USSR, six months later he left for the USA. In May 1946 he wrote in a private letter: “The Soviets are bringing a terrible disaster to the peoples, striving for world domination. Their insolent, provocative, threatening former allies, raising a wave of hatred, their policy threatens to turn into dust everything that has been achieved by the patriotic upsurge and blood of the Russian people.” In the USA he continued working on the memoirs he had begun in France. Died of a heart attack. Buried with military honors at Evergreen Cemetery (Detroit); On December 15, 1952, Denikin's ashes were transferred to St. Vladimir's Russian Cemetery in Jackson (New Jersey).

Denikin's archive is kept in the library of the Institute for the Study of Russian and East European History and Culture at Columbia University in New York.

According to the dictionary and encyclopedic department, Lieutenant General Anton Ivanovich Denikin is listed as one of the main active leaders of the White movement during the Russian Civil War. But honor and praise to this man, who, being in poverty in exile, refused any offers of cooperation with the Nazis.

Biography and activities of Anton Denikin

He was born on December 4 (16), 1872, in the family of an officer, in a small county town near Warsaw. His father was the son of a serf peasant who was recruited and rose to the rank of major. Anton was a late child in the family. Studied at a real school. Even as a child, he dreamed of a military life, and therefore he helped the lancers bathe their horses, went to the shooting range with a rifle company, and also took out gunpowder from live cartridges and filled landmines with it. He was a good gymnast and swimmer.

In the book “Let the Russian Officer” he called his childhood joyless - due to poverty and hopeless need. He grew up a truly Russian, deeply religious person. He graduated from the Kiev Infantry Junker School, then from the General Staff Academy. Spiritually and intellectually, Denikin far exceeded the average level of Russian officers. Among his peers he was not particularly talkative, but he gained respect and authority. Contemporaries considered him an analyst and a brilliant speaker.

Magazines of that time repeatedly published Denikin's stories telling about military life and documentary essays. The author hid behind the pseudonym Nochin. He avoided fiction in every possible way and strove for documentary presentation. Ksenia Chizh became Anton Ivanovich's wife. In 1901 he entered the elite of Russian officers - the Academy of the General Staff.

Denikin successively commanded first a brigade, then a division and an army corps. Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in April-May 1917. Commander of the troops of the Western and Southwestern Fronts. In November 1917, together with General Kornilov, he escaped from prison and rushed to the Don. There he takes an active part in the formation of the Volunteer Army. After his death he leads it.

Thanks to the financial support of the Entente, in the fall of 1918 Denikin became the head of all armed forces in southern Russia. He is the deputy of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak. As commander in chief, he was unable to cope with the bacchanalia of outrages and murders against the local population. The White Guards sometimes behaved worse than the occupiers. Denikin paid great attention to intelligence. He well understood the importance of cavalry in the main attack. He was demanding with his subordinates. He harshly punished the guilty soldiers, but always within the framework of the regulations. Officers were brought before the court of honor only as a last resort.

In 1919, Denikin launched a campaign against Moscow. In March 1920, together with the remnants of the army, he ended up in. Here he handed over command to General Wrangel. On an English destroyer, Denikin left Russia forever. Denikin's political views characterize him as a supporter of a bourgeois parliamentary republic. He was close to the cadets. Until the end of his life he remained a determined opponent of the Bolsheviks. However, in 1939 he made an appeal to the white emigration to refuse support for Nazi Germany in the event of its war with the Soviet Union.

For just one signature agreeing to cooperate, the Nazis offered him a whole range of material benefits. He preferred poverty and a good name. He wrote several books, the most significant of which is the five-volume “Essays on Russian Troubles.” From time to time he gave public lectures on the international situation. He spent the last years of his life in the USA. Before his death, he regretted that he would not see how Russia would be saved from the yoke of Bolshevism. The white general died on August 7, 1947.

• Denikin’s daughter, Marina Gray, lived in exile for 86 years and waited until her father’s ashes were transferred and buried in Russia. She is a brilliant journalist and the author of 20 monographs on the history of Russia.

08/07/1947. – General Anton Ivanovich Denikin died in the USA

(December 4, 1872–August 7, 1947) – Lieutenant General, founder of the White Volunteer Army. Born in the Warsaw province in the family of a major, who had risen from the serfs. Mother is Polish. He graduated from the Lovichi Real School, military school courses at the Kiev Infantry Junker School (1892) and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff (1899).

He began his service at the military headquarters of the Warsaw Military District. While serving as senior adjutant at the headquarters of the 2nd Cavalry Corps in March 1904, he submitted a report on transfer to the active army and was appointed staff officer for special assignments at the headquarters of the 8th Army Corps. Awarded the Order of St. Stanislav and St. Anne, 3rd degree with swords and bows and 2nd degree with swords. Promoted to the rank of colonel - “for military distinction.” In March 1914 he was promoted to major general.

He threw out the slogan: “Everyone to fight Denikin!” All the forces of the Southern and part of the forces of the South-Eastern fronts were concentrated against him. At the same time, by agreement with the Bolsheviks, Makhno, with his raid across Ukraine, destroyed the white rear there, and troops against the Makhnovists had to be withdrawn from the front. Both the Petliurists and the Poles helped the Bolsheviks by agreeing to a truce and allowing them to free up their forces to fight Denikin. Having created a threefold superiority over the Whites in the main, Oryol-Kursk, direction (62 thousand bayonets and sabers for the Reds versus 22 thousand for the Whites), in October the Red Army launched a counteroffensive. Denikin's army suffered heavy losses and was forced to retreat. In the winter of 1919-1920, she left Kharkov, Kyiv, Donbass, Rostov-on-Don.

The military failure undermined the morale of the army and was accompanied by disintegration in the rear. “Every day is a picture of theft, robbery, violence throughout the entire territory of the armed forces,” Denikin wrote to his wife. “The Russian people have fallen so low from top to bottom that I don’t know when they will be able to rise out of the mud.” The commander-in-chief was unable to take decisive measures to restore order. Bolshevik propaganda also contributed to the decomposition, especially of the peasantry.

In February-March 1920, there was a defeat in the battle for Kuban, due to the disintegration of the Kuban Army, as the Kuban Rada sought to establish the Kuban Army as an independent state by concluding an alliance with the highlanders. After which the Kuban Cossack units of the AFSR completely disintegrated, which led to the collapse of the White front, the retreat of the remnants of the White Army to Novorossiysk, and from there on March 26-27, 1920, a retreat by sea to the Crimea.

Before this decree of Admiral Kolchak, on January 05, 1920, General Denikin was declared the successor to the official Russian government, that is, the Supreme Ruler of Russia, but this could not change anything. Failures, criticism from General Wrangel and other military leaders who had lost faith in their Commander-in-Chief, and the catastrophic evacuation from Novorossiysk forced Denikin to resign, and by decision of the Military Council on March 22, transfer the post of Commander-in-Chief to General Wrangel.

On April 4, 1920, General Denikin, on an English destroyer, left with his family for England, and from there soon to Belgium, out of protest against the negotiations on trade with the Bolsheviks begun by the British government. In Brussels, Denikin began work on his five-volume work "Essays on the Russian Troubles", which he continued in Hungary (1922-1926) and finished in 1926. Then Denikin moved to France and began work on other books: "Officers" (1928) and “The Old Army” (1929), communicated with the writer, but avoided participation in other white emigrant organizations. He often gave presentations on political topics, and in 1936 he began publishing the newspaper “Volunteer”.

At this time, in anticipation of what was brewing in Russian emigration, the question was discussed: who to be with when it begins. A small group of fellow patriots promoted support for the “Russian people,” that is, the USSR. The bulk of the white emigration hoped for the Anti-Comintern (Berlin-Rome-Tokyo). Denikin believed that “it is completely groundless to attribute ideological foundations to the Rome-Berlin axis and the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo triangle”; their goals are the redivision of the world, because Hitler “trades with Moscow to the fullest.” Therefore, Denikin sharply criticized pro-German sentiments; as in the civil war, he remained a supporter of an alliance with France. But, on the other hand, he regretted that France made a bet on Poland, and then entered into an alliance with the USSR and “threw National Russia completely off the table.” Therefore, Denikin noted with disappointment the lack of ideological motives in democracies, which also pursue their colonial geopolitical interests, and even the “greatest” democracy, the USA, “has a weakness for the regimes of Moscow and Barcelona”... Emphasizing that Russia in general has no friends, Denikin formulated a double task: it is necessary to overthrow Soviet power and defend Russian territory, but the participation of emigrants in a foreign invasion of Russia is unacceptable ("The Russian Question in the Far East", 1939, 2nd ed.).

More numerous right-wing circles of the EMRO considered such a position to be theoretically correct, but practically unfeasible. They called it “chasing two hares,” arguing that “the only hare that should now be chased is the fall of the Bolsheviks throughout Russia.”

The beginning of September 1, 1939 found General Denikin in the south of France in the village of Montay-au-Vicomte, where he had left Paris to work on his autobiographical book “The Path of the Russian Officer.” At the beginning of the German occupation of France in May-June 1940, Denikin tried to drive his car towards the Spanish border, but the Germans beat him to it. I had to stay near Biarritz under German occupation in difficult material conditions.

In May 1945, Denikin returned to Paris and in November, taking advantage of the invitation of one of his comrades, he moved to the United States. There he addressed letters to General Eisenhower and American politicians with an appeal to stop the “second emigration”). In particular, in October 1946, in a letter to Senator Arthur Vanderberg, Denikin wrote: “Now that so much of what is happening behind the Iron Curtain has become clear, when there have already been so many living witnesses to the indescribable cruelty with which the communist dictatorship treats with a person, US public opinion should understand why these Russian people are most afraid of... returning to their homeland. Has history ever known such a phenomenon, that tens, hundreds of thousands of people, taken from their native country, where their whole life was spent, and where, therefore, all their interests were concentrated, where their families and loved ones remained, would not only resist with all their might their return, but the mere possibility of it would drive them to madness, to suicide...”

Frequent praise of Denikin by Red patriots supposedly for his “approval of the victories of the Red Army” distorts the real attitude of the white general to this issue (see below an excerpt from his “Address”). In May 1946, in one of his letters to his long-time assistant, Colonel Koltyshev, Anton Ivanovich wrote: “After the brilliant victories of the Red Army, many people began to have an aberration... somehow faded, the side of the Bolshevik invasion and occupation of neighboring states faded into the background, which brought them ruin, terror, Bolshevisation and enslavement... You know my point of view. The Soviets are bringing a terrible disaster to the peoples, striving for world domination. Brazen, provocative, threatening former allies, raising a wave of hatred, their policies threaten to turn into dust everything that has been achieved by the patriotic upsurge and blood of the Russian people... and therefore, true to our slogan - “Defense of Russia”, defending the inviolability of Russian territory and the vital interests of the country , we do not dare in any form to identify ourselves with Soviet policy – ​​the policy of communist imperialism.”

Anton Ivanovich died of a heart attack on August 7, 1947 at the University of Michigan Hospital and was buried in a cemetery in Detroit. On December 15, 1952, the remains of General Denikin were transferred to St. Vladimir Orthodox Cemetery in Cassville, New Jersey.

As for Anton Ivanovich’s family, in 1918 in Novocherkassk, 45-year-old Denikin married Ksenia Vasilyevna Chizh, who came to him from Kyiv, where in 1914 they first met. His wife accompanied him all subsequent years, supporting him in all the trials of fate. Their daughter Marina (born 1919) became a French writer under the pseudonym Marina Gray, but, unfortunately, without having the necessary knowledge or spiritual and political qualities to act as a historian or politician. She tried to highlight precisely the worst, liberal-Februaryist features of her father’s worldview for the Western public.

On October 3, 2005, the ashes of General Anton Ivanovich Denikin and his wife, along with the remains of the philosopher and his wife, were transported to Moscow as part of V.V.’s propaganda campaign. Putin for a demonstrative burial in the Donskoy Monastery. The reburial was carried out with the consent of Denikin’s daughter. One of the deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation (V.R. Medinsky) correctly called this “a sign of mercy of the victors towards defeated enemies.”

Graves of Denikin and his wife, and his wife
on the territory of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow

From the "Address" of Gen. Denikin (1946)

...Nothing has changed in the basic features of the psychology of the Bolsheviks and in their practice of governing the country. Meanwhile, in the psychology of Russian emigration, unexpected and very abrupt shifts have recently occurred, from non-condemnation of Bolshevism to its unconditional acceptance... To our deepest regret, our emigrant church, under the leadership of Metropolitan Eulogius, overshadowed the change of leadership with spiritual authority...

The first period of the war... Defense of the Fatherland. Brilliant victories of the army. The increased prestige of our Motherland... The heroic epic of the Russian people. In our thoughts and feelings we were one with the people.

With the people, but not with the authorities.

Both “Soviet patriots” and Smenovekhites play on this chord, glorifying the Soviet government in a friendly chorus, which supposedly “prepared and organized the victory” and therefore “must be recognized by the national government...”. But the Soviet government set itself the goal not of the good of Russia, but of the world revolution, even introducing a corresponding provision into the regulations of the Red Army... The Soviets, just like Hitler, were going to “blow up the world” and for this purpose they created such colossal weapons. Meanwhile, if there had been a national Russia, with an honest policy and strong alliances, there could not have been a “Hitler danger”; there would have been no World War II itself.

But when the Red Army went beyond the Russian lands, the Bolshevik Janus turned his true face to the world. And then a split began in the emigrant psychology. For, as Soviet strategy on Russian bayonets brought to the peoples liberation, Soviet policy translated it into enslavement. It is absurd to apply such terms as “the historical task of Russia”, “Slavophilism”, “unification of the Slavs” to the enslaving agreements concluded by the Soviets with the communist and communism governments, which they forcibly installed, under the dull murmur of the peoples. On the contrary, the Soviet occupation discredits the idea of ​​Slavic unity, arousing bitterness, disappointment, even hostility against the USSR, alas, identified with Russia.

Finally, the third stage: the war is over, the struggle for peace is underway. Instead, the Soviets are pursuing a defiant policy that threatens to turn the outside world against them, threatening our homeland with new innumerable disasters of the 3rd World War, with unprecedented horrors. Hatred towards the USSR, which has been muted for now, is growing more and more...

In my opinion, a historical paradox occurred - the whites, who wanted a “united and indivisible Russia,” did everything to ensure that vast territories were lost to it. The British, French, Americans and others like them helped the White Guards without thanks, pursuing their own interests in separating Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Kola Peninsula, Central Asia, the Far East from Russia and bringing these territories under their control. With the victory of the white army, the “allies” would be able to firmly gain a foothold in these territories and neither Kolchak, nor Denikin, nor Yudenich would simply have enough strength to expel them. The Reds, often considering Russia as a bundle of brushwood for fueling the fire of the world revolution, like not paradoxically, they did everything to preserve the unity of the country, which they generally succeeded in doing.

<<Даже такой либеральный деятель, как кн. Г.Н. Трубецкой, высказал Деникину «убеждение, что в Одессе, так же, как и в Париже, дает себя чувствовать настойчивая работа масонов и евреев, которые всячески хотят помешать вмешательству союзников в наши дела и помощи для воссоздания единой и сильной России. То, что прежде казалось мне грубым вымыслом, либо фантазией черносотенников, приписывавших всю нашу смуту работе "жидо-масонов", – с некоторых пор начало представляться мне имеющим несомненно действительную почву».>>

Underestimation of the “Zionist Freemasonry” proclaimed by Herzl in 1897. and funded
clans of the Rothschilds and Rockefellers and became the reason for the death of the “white movement” in Russia, where the rabid clique of Zionists was led by Lenin and Trotsky. Stalin, who built state capitalism - socialism after the abolition of the NEP, proclaimed by Lenin, was unable to completely destroy its members, who hid mainly in the Caucasus and the south of Ukraine among the Khazar and Karaite Jews. Moreover, a Jew
Hitler managed to deceive Stalin with his opus “Mein Kampf”, which he created on the advice of
Rothschilds. This explains Stalin’s confusion during the first days of the war. At the beginning of hostilities, the Zionist creatures of the western part of the USSR, who did not have their own historical homeland, fled to Alma-Ata and Tashkent and sat out there.
Nowadays, do not notice this trash, hiding behind the screen of the Holocaust and tearing
to control the world economy is extremely dangerous.

Talent will repaint the army red and white and destroy it. The Russians are still being persecuted by the Jewish authorities in Russia.

Very important material for me in the matter of learning the historical truth and changing my psychological feeling in relation to the past of Russia. Thank you.

I read the memoirs of the civil war by Wrangel, Krasnov, and Deninkin himself, and I got the impression that it was Denikin who turned out to be the gravedigger of the white movement.
And I also got the impression that Denikin had similar strategic thoughts with Tukhachevsky about “expanding the basis of war,” i.e. the desire to seize as many territories as possible to increase military potential. For Tukhachevsky this desire ended in defeat near Warsaw, for Denikin in the defeat of the White Army

The most famous leader of the White movement during the Civil War was born on December 4, 1872 in the small town of Wloclawek near Warsaw. He was one of the few White Guard generals who came from the lower classes. His father, a former military man, came from the serf peasants of the Saratov province, and his mother from the impoverished small-scale Polish gentry. After graduating from the Lovichi Real School, Denikin followed in his father’s footsteps, entering the Kiev Infantry Junker School in 1890. Two years later, upon graduation, he was promoted to second lieutenant and went to serve in the 2nd Artillery Brigade near Warsaw. In 1895 he passed the entrance exams to the General Staff Academy in St. Petersburg, from which he graduated in 1899. Three years later he was transferred to the General Staff and appointed to the post of senior adjutant of the 2nd Infantry Division. In 1903, Denikin transferred from infantry to cavalry and became adjutant of the 2nd Cavalry Corps located nearby. He served in this position until the outbreak of war with Japan. In February 1904 he left for the active army in the Far East, where he served in staff positions in several divisions. He was a participant in the Battle of Mukden. During the hostilities, he showed himself to be an proactive officer, for which he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree with swords and bows, and St. Anne, 2nd degree with swords. After the end of the war, he made a career from the position of staff officer of the 2nd Cavalry Corps to the commander of the 17th Arkhangelsk Infantry Regiment. Denikin met the First World War with the rank of major general at the headquarters of the 8th Army of General Brusilov. Soon he transferred to a combat position and became the commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade. For its successful leadership, he was awarded the St. George's Arms and the Order of St. George, 3rd and 4th degree. He was a participant in the Battle of Galicia. In September 1916, Denikin was already commander of the 8th Army Corps, with whom he fought on the Romanian Front. In February 1917, he welcomed the overthrow of the monarchy, for which he was appointed chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and a little later, he became commander-in-chief of the armies of first the Western and then the Southwestern Fronts.

General Denikin during the Civil War

In his political views, Denikin was close to the cadets, opposing the democratization of the army, so in August he supported the Kornilov coup attempt, for which he was arrested and imprisoned first in Berdichev and then in Bykhov. There he, together with Kornilov and his comrades, sat until the October Revolution.

After his release, under someone else’s documents, he fled to the Don to Novocherkassk, where, together with Kaledin, Kornilov and Alekseev, he took part in the organization and formation of the Volunteer Army. As its deputy commander, he took part in the 1st Kuban campaign. After the death of Kornilov on April 13, 1918 during the unsuccessful assault on Yekaterinodar, Denikin became its leader. During the summer-autumn, the Denikinites liquidated the North Caucasus Soviet Republic. In December 1918, all the anti-Bolshevik armies - Volunteer, Don and Kuban - united into the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR) under the single command of Denikin, who, with the political and economic support of the Entente, launched an attack on Moscow in the spring of 1919. During the summer, Tsaritsyn and most of Ukraine were captured, including Kyiv, from where parts of the UPR were driven out. And by October, after the capture of Kursk, Orel and Voronezh, Denikin’s troops approached Tula, preparing for the final push on Moscow. During the campaign, the number of AFSR increased from 10 thousand in May to 150 thousand people in September. However, the stretched front and political mistakes led to defeat. Denikin was a fierce opponent of any form of self-determination for the territories of the former Russian Empire. This led to conflict both with Ukraine and the peoples of the Caucasus, and with the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban. Starting in August, battles between Denikin’s troops and UPR units began, and after they killed the chairman of the Kuban Rada Ryabovol, the Kuban Cossacks began to desert en masse from Denikin’s army. In addition, its rear on the Left Bank of Ukraine was destroyed by the Makhnovists, to fight whom it was necessary to withdraw units from the northern front. Unable to withstand the powerful counterattack of the Red Army, in October units of the AFSR began to retreat to the South.

By the beginning of 1920, their remnants retreated into the Cossack regions, and at the end of March, only Novorossiysk and the surrounding area remained under the control of the Denikinites. Fleeing from the Bolsheviks, about 40 thousand volunteers crossed to Crimea. Denikin was one of the last to board the ship.

Denikin in exile

In Crimea, due to his growing unpopularity in the army and feeling responsible for military failures, on April 4 he resigned as commander-in-chief of the AFSR and on the same day departed with his family for England on an English ship. After Denikin's departure, Baron Wrangel became his de facto successor, although Denikin did not sign any orders for his appointment. He did not stay in England for long, since the British government expressed a desire to make peace with Soviet Russia. In August 1920, Denikin left the islands in protest and moved to Belgium, and a little later, to Hungary. In 1926 he settled in Paris, which was the center of Russian emigration. In exile, he withdrew from big politics and took up active literary work. He wrote about a dozen historical and biographical works dedicated to the events of the civil war and geopolitics, the most famous of which was “Essays on the Russian Troubles.” With Hitler coming to power in Germany, Denikin launched a vigorous public activity, condemning his policies. Unlike many other political emigrants from Russia, he considered it impossible to collaborate with Hitler to overthrow Bolshevism. With the outbreak of World War II and the occupation of France by the Germans, he rejected their offer to lead Russian anti-communist forces in exile. Remaining a staunch opponent of the Soviet system, he nevertheless called on emigrants to support the Red Army, and in 1943, Denikin used his personal funds to send a carload of medicines to the Soviet Union. The Soviet government knew about his fundamental anti-German position, so after the war it did not raise the question of his forcible deportation to the USSR with the allies. In 1945, Denikin emigrated to the United States, where he continued to engage in social and political activities. He died on August 7, 1947 and was buried in Detroit. In 1952, by decision of the White Cossack community in the United States, his remains were transferred to the Orthodox Cossack cemetery of St. Vladimir in the city of Keesville in New Jersey. In 2005, on the initiative of the Russian Cultural Foundation, the remains of Denikin and his wife, along with the remains of the Russian philosopher Ilyin and his wife, were transported to Russia and solemnly reburied in the Moscow Donskoy Monastery. In 2009, a memorial to white soldiers was built on their graves in the form of a granite platform framed by a symbolic marble fence, inside of which there are memorial obelisks and two white Orthodox crosses.