Anton Ivanovich Denikin (December 4 (16), 1872, Wloclawek, Russian Empire - August 8, 1947, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) - Russian military leader, hero of the Russo-Japanese and World War I, General Staff Lieutenant General (1916), pioneer, one of the main leaders (1918-1920) of the White movement during the Civil War. Deputy Supreme Ruler of Russia (1919-1920).

In April-May 1917, Denikin was chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, then Commander-in-Chief of the Western and South-Western Fronts.

In January 1919, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, General A.I. Denikin transferred his Headquarters to Taganrog.

On January 8, 1919, the Volunteer Army became part of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFYR), becoming their main striking force, and General Denikin led the AFYR. On June 12, 1919, he officially recognized the power of Admiral Kolchak as "the Supreme Ruler of the Russian state and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies."

By the beginning of 1919, Denikin managed to suppress the Bolshevik resistance in the North Caucasus, subjugate the Cossack troops of the Don and Kuban, removing the pro-German-oriented general Krasnov from the leadership of the Don Cossacks, receive a large amount of weapons, ammunition, equipment through the Black Sea ports from Russia's allies in the Entente, and in July 1919 to begin a large-scale campaign against Moscow.

From mid-October 1919, the position of the White armies in the South deteriorated markedly. The rear was destroyed by the Makhnovist raid across Ukraine, moreover, troops had to be withdrawn from the front against Makhno, and the Bolsheviks concluded an armistice with the Poles and Petliurists, freeing up their forces to fight Denikin. In February-March 1920, a defeat followed in the battle for the Kuban, as a result of the disintegration of the Kuban army (because of its separatism - the most unstable part of the AFSR). After that, the Cossack units of the Kuban armies disintegrated completely and began to surrender en masse to the Reds or go over to the side of the "greens", which entailed 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, by sea to Crimea.

After the death of the former Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak, all-Russian power was to pass to General Denikin. However, Denikin, given the difficult military-political position of the whites, did not officially accept these powers. After the defeat of his troops with the intensification of opposition sentiments among the white movement, Denikin left the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia on April 4, 1920, and transferred command to Baron Wrangel. Slobodin V.P. White movement during the civil war in Russia (1917-1922). -- Tutorial. - M .: MUI Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 1996 .-- 80 s

Having come after the death of M.V. Alekseev to the leadership of the white movement, A.I.Denikin continued to work on improving the system of organizing power. On March 6, 1919, he approved a number of bills on the organization of civil administration.

The main ideas of the bills: unification of the highest civil and military authorities in the person of the chief commander; creation of a vertical structure of civil administration; concentration in the hands of the commander of the State Guard of the protection of public order; creating conditions for the development of a network of local city and zemstvo self-government.

When organizing power in the South of Russia, the leaders of the white movement, under the cover of a one-man dictatorship, sought to create a wide network of local democratic representative zemstvo and city institutions in order to form a solid support of their power and, in the future, transfer to the regions the full solution of local self-government issues.

As for the organization of power in other areas of the white movement, over time it took about the same form as in the South, with one or another peculiarity.

In 1920 Denikin moved with his family to Belgium. He lived there until 1922, then - in Hungary, and from 1926 - in France. Yu.N. Gordeev, General Denikin. Military history sketch. - M .: Arkayur, 1993. - 192 s Was engaged in literary activity, lectured on the international situation, published the newspaper "Volunteer". Remaining a staunch enemy of the Soviet system, he called on emigrants not to support Germany in the war with the USSR. After the occupation of France by Germany, he rejected the offers of the Germans for cooperation and moving to Berlin. Denikin was forced to change his place of residence so often because of the lack of money.

The strengthening of the Soviet influence in European countries after World War II forced A.I. Denikin moved to the United States in 1945, where he continued to work on the book "The Way of the Russian Officer" and made public reports. In January 1946, Denikin appealed to General D. Eisenhower with a call to stop the forced extradition of Soviet prisoners of war to the USSR.

In general, Denikin A.I. had a great influence on the formation and development of the white movement in Russia, while he also developed many bills of the Provisional Government.

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 in the era of his leadership.

To begin with, here is a brief biographical note. The future white dictator of the South of Russia was born on 4 (16 according to the old style) December 1872 in the village of Spetal Dolny, the Zavlinsky suburb of the city of Wloclawek, in the Warsaw province, which already belonged to the decaying Russian Empire. The father of the future general was a retired border guard major, Ivan Denikin, a former serf, and his mother, Elizaveta Vrzesinskaya, 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 Lovichi real school, he was enrolled as a volunteer in the 1st rifle regiment, lived for three months in the barracks in Plock and in June of the same year he was admitted to the Kiev infantry cadet 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 county town of Bela, in the Sedlec province of the Polish kingdom.

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 the exam in the history of military art. After 3 months, he retried the exam and was again admitted to the academy. On the eve of the young Denikin's graduation, the new head of the Academy of the General Staff, General Nikolai Sukhotin, corrected at his own discretion the lists of graduates who were to be numbered among the General Staff and ... Denikin was not included in their number. Anton Ivanovich filed a complaint, but they tried to hush up the case, inviting him to apologize - “ask for mercy,” to which Denikin did not agree and his complaint was rejected for “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, commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Far East, in order to ask him to consider the old situation. This action was a success - in the summer of 1902 Anton Denikin was enlisted 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 had become a captain by this time, achieved a business trip 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 deep in the rear and entered into clashes with the Chinese robber detachments of the Hunghuz. In September, Denikin received the post of an officer for assignments at the headquarters of the 8th corps of the Manchurian army. Then, on his return to Harbin, he took the rank of lieutenant colonel and was sent to Tsinghechen in the Eastern Detachment, where he accepted the post of Chief of Staff of the Trans-Baikal Cossack Division, General Rennenkampf.

The first "baptism of fire", Denikin received during the Tsinghechen battle on November 19, 1904. One of the hills of the battle area entered military history under the name "Denikinskaya" for the Japanese offensive repulsed by him with bayonets. Then he participated in enhanced reconnaissance. Then he was appointed chief of staff of the Ural-Trans-Baikal division of General Mishchenko, where he proved himself to be a capable officer, and already in February-March 1905 he took part in the Mudken battle.

His fruitful work was noticed by the higher authorities and "for the difference 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 went 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 was going well: she continued to advance and soon captured Lvov. After that, Denikin expressed a desire to move from a staff position to a field one, to which Brusilov agreed and transferred him to the 4th rifle brigade, unofficially called "iron" for the feats in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78.

Under the leadership of Denikin, she won many victories over the Kaiser and Austro-Hungarian armies, and she was re-named "iron". He especially distinguished himself in the battle with Grodek, having received the St. George weapon 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 flourished simply on a titanic scale, ranging from the generals of the main Headquarters to minor military officials; food did not reach the front, there were frequent cases of sabotage. There were also problems with the military-patriotic spirit. The enthusiasm was observed only in the first months of the war, and that, due to the fact that government propaganda widely used the patriotic feelings of the population, but as the situation with the supply and the increase in losses, pacifist sentiments spread more and more.

At the beginning of 1915, the Russian Empire suffered 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 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 the aid of Kaledin, with whom he threw the Austrians over a river called San. At this time, he received an offer to become the chief of a division, but did not want to part with his "eagles" from the brigade, which is why 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 9773 enemy soldiers, for which he was promoted to lieutenant general. General Brusilov wrote in his memoirs that Denikin, "without excuses for any difficulties," rushed to Lutsk and took it "in one fell swoop", and during the battle he drove into the city by car and from there sent a telegram to Brusilov about the capture of the city division. But, soon, Lutsk had to be left to level the front. After that, a relative calm was established at the front and a period of trench warfare began.

The whole year of 1916 for Denikin was spent in constant battles with the enemy. On June 5, 1916, he took Lutsk again, for which he was again awarded an award. 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 side of the Entente, was defeated by the Austrians. In the same place, in Romania, Denikin was awarded the highest military order - the Order of Mihai the Brave, 3rd degree.

So, we come to the most significant period in Denikin's life and the beginning of his involvement in the political game. As you know, in February 1917, the February Revolution takes place and a whole chain of events takes place, as a result of which the tsar is overthrown, and a noisy bourgeoisie, but completely incapable of active actions, rose to power. We have already written about these events in "Politsturm", therefore, we will not deviate from the set 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 already on April 5, 1917, took up his new position, in which he worked for about one and a half months, having worked well with Alekseev. Then, when Brusilov came to replace 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 the military congress in Mogilev, he was marked by sharp criticism of Kerensky's policy, the essence of which was to democratize the army. At the General Headquarters meeting on July 16, 1917, he advocated the abolition of committees in the army and the withdrawal of politics from the army.

As commander of the Western Front, Denikin provided support for the Southwest 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 (primarily for the fact that he expressed solidarity with General Kornilov with a rather harsh telegram to the Provisional Government). Together with him, the entire leadership of his headquarters was arrested. A month later, Denikin was transferred to Bykhov to an arrested group of generals led by Kornilov, on the way almost becoming a victim of a soldier's lynching.

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

The new government temporarily forgets about the generals, and the supreme commander-in-chief Dukhonin, taking advantage of the opportunity, frees them from Bykhov's prison.

At that moment, Denikin changed his appearance and moved to Novocherkassk under the name of "assistant to the head of the dressing unit 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, - and the first anti-Bolshevik movement in Russia. In the same place, 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 it from the Cossacks. By 1918, the army numbers about 4,000 people. Since then, the number of traffic participants began to grow.

On January 30, 1918, he was appointed commander of the 1st Infantry (Volunteer) Division. After the 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 took part in the 1st Kuban Campaign, during which he became deputy commander of the Volunteer Army, General Kornilov. He was one of those who suggested to Kornilov to send an army to the Kuban region.

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

After the retreat, Denikin reorganizes the army, increases its number 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 Yekaterinodar was taken, where the headquarters was located. After the death of General Alekseev, the supreme power passes to him. Autumn 1918 - winter 1919 General Denikin's troops conquered Sochi, Adler, Gagra, the entire coastal territory seized 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 Don Cossack troops. On December 26, 1918, Denikin signs an agreement with Krasnov, according to which the Volunteer Army is united with the Don Army. This reorganization laid the foundation for the creation of the ARSUR ((Armed Forces of the South of Russia). The ARSUR also included the Caucasian Army and the Black Sea Fleet.

The greatest successes, "Denikinism" reached in 1919. The size of the army was, according to various estimates, about 85 thousand people. In the reports of the Entente for March 1919, conclusions were made about the unpopularity and poor moral and psychological state of Denikin's troops, as well as about the lack of their own resources to continue the struggle. Therefore, Denikin personally develops a military action plan for the spring-summer period. This was the period of the greatest success of the "White Movement". In June 1919, he recognized the supremacy of the "Supreme Ruler of Russia" Admiral Kolchak.

Wide fame within Soviet Russia came to Denikin 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 widespread, and he himself was subjected to the fiercest criticism in it. In July 1919, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote an appeal with the title "All for the fight against 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 Armed Forces of South Russia under the general leadership of Denikin began their famous "campaign against Moscow."

September and the first half of October 1919 were the time of the greatest success of Denikin's forces in the central direction, in October 1919 they took Oryol, and the forward detachments were on the outskirts of Tula, but on this luck the White Guards stopped smiling.

A special role in this was played by the policy of the "whites" in the controlled territories, which included all kinds 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 landlord order. We add to this that Denikin acted as a person who opposed the creation of national outskirts in every possible way - and this caused discontent from the local population, also, the "white general" assumed the elimination 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 designs of the "whites", whose goal was by no means to improve the life of a simple worker, but to restore the old order and oppression, began, if not to enroll en masse in the ranks of the Red Army, then to offer fierce resistance to the "Denikinism" everywhere. By that time, the rebel army of Makhno inflicted a number of serious blows on the rear of the AFSR, and the troops of the Red Army, creating a quantitative and qualitative superiority over the enemy in the Oryol-Kursk direction (62 thousand bayonets and sabers from the Reds versus 22 thousand from the Whites), in October 1919 G. launched a counteroffensive.

By the end of October, in fierce battles, marching with varying success south of Orel, the troops of the Southern Front (commander A.I. Yegorov) defeated small units of the Volunteer Army, and then began to push them along the entire front line. In the winter of 1919-1920, Denikin's troops left Kharkov, Kiev and Donbass. In March 1920, the retreat of the White Guards ended in a "Novorossiysk catastrophe", 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 the goals of the struggle; the sharp hostility and heterogeneity of the elements that made up the organism of the white power of the South of Russia; vacillation and confusion in all areas of domestic policy; inability to cope with the issues of establishing industry, trade and foreign relations; complete uncertainty in the land question - these are the reasons for the complete defeat of Denikin 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 that moment is doomed to defeat. On April 4, 1920, General Denikin, on an English destroyer, ignominiously leaves Russia, never to return to it again.

Russian military leader, lieutenant general (1915). Member of the Civil War of 1918-1920, one of the leaders of the white movement. Commander of the Volunteer Army (1918-1919), Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (1919-1920).

Anton Ivanovich Denikin was born on December 4 (16), 1872 in the village of Spetal Dolny, a suburb of Wloclawek, a district town in the Warsaw province (now in Poland), in the family of Ivan Efimovich Denikin (1807-1885), a retired border guard major.

In 1890 A. I. Denikin graduated from the Lowichi Real School. In 1890-1892 he studied at the Kiev Infantry Junker School, after which he was promoted to second lieutenant and assigned to the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade.

In 1895-1899 A.I.Denikin studied at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. Was enlisted as an officer of the General Staff in 1902.

With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, A. I. Denikin obtained permission to be sent to the active army. He participated in battles and reconnaissance operations, in February-March 1905 he became a participant in the Battle of Mukden. For excellence in matters against the enemy, he was promoted to colonel and awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd degree with swords, and St. Anna, 2nd degree, with swords.

In 1906, A. I. Denikin served as a staff officer for special assignments at the headquarters of the 2nd Cavalry Corps in Warsaw, in 1907-1910 he was chief of staff of the 57th Infantry Reserve Brigade in.

In 1910-1914 A.I.Denikin commanded the 17th Arkhangelsk Infantry Regiment in Zhitomir (now in Ukraine). In March 1914, he was appointed acting general for assignments under the Commander of the Kiev Military District. On the eve of the outbreak of the First World War, A.I.Denikin was promoted to major general and approved as quartermaster general of the 8th Army, General A.A. Brusilov.

In September 1914, A. I. Denikin was appointed commander of the 4th Infantry ("Iron") Brigade, which in 1915 was deployed to a division. For the battle at Grodek in September 1914, he was awarded the honorary St. George's arms, for the capture of the village of Gorny Luzhok, where the headquarters of the Austrian Archduke Joseph was located - the Order of St. George, 4th degree. AI Denikin took part in battles in Galicia and in the Carpathian Mountains. For the battles on the San River he was awarded the Order of St. George, 3rd degree. Twice (in September 1915 and in June 1916) the troops under his command captured the city of Lutsk. For the first operation, he was promoted to lieutenant general, for the second - he was re-awarded the honorary St.George weapon with diamonds.

In September 1916, A.I.Denikin became the commander of the 8th Army Corps on the Romanian Front. From September 1916 to April 1917 he was the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, in April-May 1917 he commanded the Western Front, in August 1917 he became the commander of the troops of the South-Western Front.

For supporting the rebellion of General A.I.Denikin was imprisoned in the city of Bykhov. In November 1917, together with other generals, he fled to the Don, where he took part in the creation of the Volunteer Army. From December 1917 to April 1918, A.I.Denikin was the chief of staff of the Volunteer Army, after his death he took command over it, in September 1918 he became the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, and from December 1918 to March 1920 he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South. In May 1919, A. I. Denikin recognized the power of the Supreme Ruler, the admiral, and from June 1919 he was considered the Deputy Supreme Ruler. After resigning from power in January 1920, he was declared the admiral's successor as Supreme Ruler.

After the retreat of the White armies in the fall of 1919 - in the winter of 1920 and the catastrophic evacuation from A.I. Denikin, he was forced to transfer command of the Armed Forces of the South to Baron P.N. Wrangel. In April 1920, he left the Crimea for emigration on an English destroyer. Until August 1920, A. I. Denikin lived in England, in 1920-1922 - in Belgium, in 1922-1926 - in Hungary, in 1926-1945 - in France. In November 1945 he moved to the United States. During the years of emigration, A. I. Denikin published memoirs, works on the history of the Russian army and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The most famous were his five-volume work "Essays on the Russian Troubles" (1921-1923) and the book of memoirs "The Way of the Russian Officer" (1953).

A.I.Denikin died on August 8, 1947 at the Ann Arbor University Hospital of Michigan (USA). Originally buried in Detroit, in 1952 his remains were transferred to the Orthodox Cossack St. Vladimir's Cemetery in Kesville, New Jersey. In 2005, the remains of A.I.Denikin were transported to and reburied at the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery.

Anton Ivanovich Denikin was brought up from an early age in the best traditions of a Russian serviceman. His father, Ivan Efimovich, came from the serfs of the Saratov province, was given up by the landowner as a soldier and, having served honestly, having won in the Hungarian, Crimean and Polish campaigns, was awarded the rank of ensign, became an officer. In the officer ranks, he served in Poland in the border guard brigade, retired as a major, and two years later, sixty-four years of age, married a second marriage to Elizaveta Franciskovna Vrzesinska, a Polish Catholic. On December 4, 1872, their son Anton was born.

The family lived very poorly, but amicably, five people existed on their father's pension of 36 rubles (including the old father-in-law and the nanny, who became practically a member of the family). In Poland, under the conditions of Russian-Polish friction, having a beloved Polish mother, Anton Denikin grew up as a Russian, Orthodox person. His father, a Russian officer, had a great influence on him. “My father did not teach me, did not instruct me,” A. I. Denikin recalled. “It was not in his character. But everything that my father told about himself and about people revealed in him such spiritual clarity, such straightforward honesty, such a vivid protest against any human untruth and such a stoic attitude to all life's adversities that all these conversations sunk deeply into my soul.

In 1882 Anton Denikin entered the first class of the Wloclaw Real School. At the age of twelve he lost his father. Ivan Efimovich died of cancer on Good Friday, his last prayers were: "Lord, let's go die with You ...". On his tombstone, the inscription was knocked out: "In the simplicity of his soul he feared God, loved people and did not remember evil."

After the death of his father, life became unbearably difficult. The mother was forced to open a "student apartment", hire eight students with a payment of 20 rubles a month per person for the table and apartment. Later, in the Lowichi real school, need forced Anton Denikin to become a "boss", to take responsibility for other students. He himself already lived in an apartment, and the fee was taken from the "senior in the student apartment" half as much.

Learning and responsibility for others did not save the young man from the throwing inherent in all his peers. Subsequently, Denikin recalled that at that time he was most interested in the religious issue. “Sleepless nights, genuine mental anguish, passionate arguments, reading the Bible along with Renan and other“ godless ”literature ... I personally went through all the stages of hesitation and doubt and in one night (in the 7th grade), literally in one night to the final and irrevocable decision:

man - a being of three dimensions - is unable to recognize the higher laws of being and creation. I sweep aside the animal psychology of the Old Testament, but I fully accept Christianity and Orthodoxy.

Like a mountain fell off your shoulders! .. "

After graduating from a real school, Denikin, using his rights "by education", entered one of the rifle regiments as a volunteer, and then, in the fall of 1890, at the Kiev cadet school.

Two years later, after graduating from college, he was sent as a second lieutenant to serve in an artillery brigade located near Warsaw.

Artillery officers have always been considered the most educated part of the officer corps of all armies. Napoleon Bonaparte began his service in artillery, the heroes of Bulgakov's "White Guard" and "Days of the Turbins" (and the action, by the way, takes place in Kiev, and most of the officers with Polish names) were the artillerymen. Denikin was distinguished by his erudition, the most conscientious attitude to the service. In 1895 he entered the Academy general staff, but he studied there surprisingly poorly, as he was constantly distracted from his studies, could not concentrate only on military subjects, give up his personal and social life. He was the last in issue to be eligible for production at the General Staff.

However, Denikin did not immediately get to the General Staff, the head of the Academy, General Sukhotin, by his own will did not include Denikin in the list of worthy production. We remember that Krasnov, who studied at the Academy, returned to the regiment because of friction with Sukhotin, did not finish his studies, but Denikin began to seek justice and filed a complaint. As a staff captain, he opposed the general, a friend of the minister of war. Denikin was refused, but he continued to achieve his goal and after two years he achieved it. In 1902, he was enrolled in the General Staff, transferred to the headquarters of the 2nd Infantry Division, then he was given command of a company in Warsaw, and when the term of the qualifying command of the company ended, he was assigned to the headquarters of the 2nd Cavalry Corps.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, A. I. Denikin was transferred to the Far East, where he served in the headquarters of the border guard brigade, the Trans-Baikal Cossack Division, and the horse detachment of General Mishchenko. For distinction in battles, Denikin was promoted to colonel, appointed chief of staff of the Ural-Transbaikal division. During the war, he proved himself both as a brave officer who raised soldiers into bayonet attacks, and as a talented staff worker who took part in the development and implementation of the famous equestrian raid of General Mishchenko, perhaps the only large-scale cavalry raid in the entire Russo-Japanese war. The beginning of the revolution of 1905-1907 found Denikin in the Far East. The war was lost, the country was in troubled times. For a time, political problems became paramount for every educated person. In the political spectrum that flourished during the years of the revolution, it was necessary to determine its place. And Denikin made up his mind. His choice was the choice of an intelligent person. “I never sympathized with 'populism,'” Denikin recalled, “(his successors are the social revolutionaries) with its terror and stake on peasant revolt. Nor Marxism, with its prevalence of materialistic values \u200b\u200bover spiritual values \u200b\u200band the destruction of the human person. I accepted Russian liberalism in its ideological essence without any party dogmatism.

Broadly speaking, this acceptance led me to three points:

1) constitutional monarchy, 2) radical reforms and 3) peaceful ways to renew the country.

I carried this worldview unbreakably to the 1917 revolution, not taking an active part in politics and giving all my strength and labor to the army. "

Having suffered defeat in the Russian-Japanese war, the Russian army studied a lot and purposefully. Denikin in 1907-1910 served as chief of staff of the 57th reserve brigade in Saratov, he also studied with the troops. It was clear that the most likely enemy was Germany. In the course of intense study, preparation for war with the best military machine in Europe, Denikin found time to engage in literary and journalistic work. Even before the Russo-Japanese War, he began to write stories from the life of the army and articles of military-political content, published them in the magazine "Razvedchik". Soon there was a whole series under the title "Army Notes". In 1910, AI Denikin was appointed commander of the 17th Arkhangelsk regiment, stationed in Zhitomir, he moved there from Saratov and took his old mother and nanny with him.

Until 1914, he actively prepared the regiment for war, the exercises were as close as possible to the real combat situation. There was no time for personal life. His mother spoke Polish to the end of her days, and in order not to put her and the guests in an awkward position, Denikin avoided companies and tried not to receive anyone. Maybe that's why he was still not married at forty. And his appearance was far from being a groom's. Short, stocky, prone to corpulence, bushy eyebrows, mustache, wedge-shaped beard, he always seemed older than his years.

In June 1914, A. I. Denikin received the rank of major general and became a general for assignments under the commander of the Kiev military district. It is difficult to say whether he managed to delve into the complex problems of staff work, since in July 1914 the First World War began.

You can write a lot about the reasons and prerequisites for this war, about the inter-imperialist contradictions. But in the minds of the rank and file officers, the fact of the war was reflected as the need to repel German aggression, since it was Germany who declared war on Russia. The war was called the “2nd Patriotic War”. But while Germany threw its main forces on France, an ally of Russia, Russian troops, not having time to fully mobilize and turn around, invaded East Prussia, "to save the allies." The troops of the Kiev military district launched an offensive against the German ally - Austria-Hungary. Supreme commander grand Duke Before the offensive, Nikolai Nikolaevich gave the order that Russia was going to save the Slavic brothers from the German yoke. Austria-Hungary was indeed 50% Slavic peoples, and one of the reasons for the war was the Austrian attack on Orthodox Serbia, traditionally friendly to Russia.

In the 8th Army, which was on the left flank of the Russian offensive, Denikin was the quartermaster general, that is, the chief of the operational service under the army commander. And the commander of the 8th Army was General AA Brusilov, who later became famous.

Apparently, Denikin felt better in the role field commander, since on the second day of the offensive, at his own request, he transferred from the army headquarters to the ranks, he received the command of the 4th rifle brigade, which was called the "Iron Brigade" back in the Russian-Turkish war. For two years he commanded a brigade, one of the best units of the Russian army, at the head of it he acquired military authority and a reputation as a military leader. If P.N. Krasnov was known in Russian military circles as a dashing commander, "ataman", a hero and soul of raids, if P.N. Wrangel was perceived as a "distinct" horse guard, a hero of horse attacks insane in bravery and insolence, then A. I. Denikin entered the galaxy of military leaders of the world war as an "iron shooter".

On the northern flank, in East Prussia, Russian troops were defeated in 1914, but on the southern flank, in Galicia, they beat the Austrian corps of different tribes, drove them "in the tail and in the mane", took huge booty. Here, in the offensive battles, many of those who would later lead the White movement showed themselves: Kaledin, Kornilov, Markov ... The operations were led by the chief of staff of the front MV Alekseev, who later became the "supreme leader" of the whites in southern Russia. "On our side, here the" iron arrows "of General Denikin, who were everywhere in time and everywhere saved the day, especially distinguished themselves here," the military historian writes.

In late autumn, Russian troops in the most difficult conditions broke through the Carpathians and began to descend into the Hungarian Valley. Denikin's riflemen and General Kornilov's division were at the forefront of the strike ...

There were no reserves, as usual, the regular troops were practically knocked out in the first months of the war, and the reinforcements were poorly trained. Heavy fighting was going on in the snow-swept Carpathians all winter. And yet in the spring of 1915 the Carpathians were passed. “They suffered the fate of the Alps, Caucasus and Balkans. A brilliant feat was accomplished - and our St. George's horns triumphantly echoed with mountain eagles in snowy clouds, ”the historian notes. AI Denikin for these battles was awarded the "St. George's Weapon" and two Orders of St. George (4th and 3rd degree).

In the spring of 1915, Austro-German troops broke through the Russian front at Gorlitsa. Affected by the economic lag of Russia. Without shells and almost without cartridges, fighting back with bayonets and firing point-blank, the "iron arrows" covered the retreat of Brusilov's 8th army. Kornilov was captured. Vast territories were abandoned. Tsar Nicholas II decided that during difficult trials he should take full responsibility upon himself, and assumed the supreme command of the armies. But almost everything was led by General MV Alekseev, who became chief of staff under the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. For a while, the situation was restored. In August, the Russians began to launch counterattacks. One of the important victories was the capture of Lutsk. “General Brusilov influenced the pride of the“ iron shooters ”, saying that if they could not take Lutsk, XXX corps would take it,” writes a military historian. “In a frenzied impulse, the 4th rifle division (the 4th brigade was deployed into a division) burst into Lutsk, and General Denikin drove into the city in a car with a forward line.

The mediocre command of the higher authorities over Brusilov's head led to the fact that Lutsk was again left and they themselves were almost surrounded. “The 13th Infantry Regiment of the Iron Division was cut off, was surrounded for two days and broke through on September 15th through the enemy division, bringing out 2,000 prisoners and a cannon. The regiment was commanded by Colonel Markov, later a famous hero of the Volunteer Army. " For the capture of Lutsk, Denikin was promoted to lieutenant general.

No sooner had the Lutsk battles died down, than at Czartorysk the "iron arrows" defeated the Germans, the 1st East Prussian Infantry Division, and captured the 1st Grenadier Crown Prince Regiment.

“In these autumn battles, the troops of the Southwestern Front regained to the full the spirit of the first months of the war, which allowed them to do great deeds later on,” the historian sums up, implying by new “great deeds” the glorious Brusilov breakthrough.

And Denikin hoped for victory, but concern about the situation inside the country is already evident in his letters. "And a new bright era will come, if only ... the helmsmen are able to save our country from internal turmoil."

In January 1916, his mother, who lived in Kiev, fell ill, she suffered until the fall and died. Denikin twice left the front to visit her, on the third he did not find her alive. “Ahead is a terrible emptiness and genuine loneliness. I have no one but her, ”he wrote in a letter.

Like any introverted person, Anton Ivanovich found it difficult to get along with people, never allowed himself to be on friendly terms with any of his colleagues, although the customs of the Russian army and the Academy demanded such treatment between officers of the same graduation. But the prospect of losing his mother, his only loved one, prompted him to marry. If only not loneliness! ..

Ksenia Vasilievna Chizh became his chosen one. Anton Ivanovich knew her as a child, the age difference between them was great - 20 years. Ksenia studied in Petrograd at the courses of Professor Platonov, was preparing to teach history in women's educational institutions. She had a fiance, a hussar officer, but he was killed at the front. Denikin corresponded with her. Known for his letters, marked in 1915. But when his mother fell seriously ill and there was no hope left, in the spring of 1916. Anton Ivanovich proposed to Ksenia Chizh. They decided to get married after the war.

In the same 1916, Denikin, visiting his terminally ill mother and throwing letters to Ksenia Vasilievna, at the same time took part in the offensive of the Southwestern Front, the 8th Army under the command of Kaledin delivered the main blow, the "iron arrows" were the first to break into Lutsk again. The general offensive, called "Brusilov Breakthrough", puts Austria-Hungary on the brink of defeat. Half a million prisoners ...

German troops came to the aid of the Austrian allies. The 8th Army had to fight back. "A particularly brutal battle broke out at the Zaturcev ... where the Brown-Swiss Steel 20th Infantry Division was crushed by our Iron 4th Infantry Division of General Denikin," the military historian writes with delight.

In September 1916, Denikin was appointed commander of the 8th Army Corps and said goodbye to his "iron shooters". The "shock phalanx" of Brusilov's 8th army during the offensive and the "ambulance division" during the defense was the 4th rifle division headed by Denikin. During the war, she took 70 thousand prisoners and 49 guns. "The 4th Rifle Division (Iron) always rescued me at a critical moment," recalled Brusilov, "and I invariably entrusted her with the most difficult tasks, which she honestly performed every time."

The 8th corps was transferred to Romania, which hoped for a quick victory of the Entente and declared war on Germany. The Germans quickly defeated the Romanian army and occupied Bucharest. More than thirty divisions were transferred by the Russians to save the hapless ally ...

On the Romanian front, Denikin greeted the news of the fall of the autocracy in Russia, of the “great, bloodless” revolution. “It has always been my sincere desire for Russia to come to this by evolution, not revolution,” he wrote.

2. REVOLUTION. SMUTA

Much can be written about the reasons and preconditions for the revolutionary events in Russia. Contradictions have been ripening for centuries. The capitalization of the country ruined the peasantry, and the world war united the disgruntled peasants into battalions, regiments and divisions, gave them modern weapons at that time and put them by company commanders of half-educated students, volost clerks, various young people, ready to love the Motherland and the Russian peasant, but not knowing this guy. Interethnic contradictions intensified, and until that time were not particularly smoothed out. The country was devastated by the war, and a handful of businessmen enriched themselves fabulously on military supplies. The king was weak. He loved Russia and prayed to God for her, realized his isolation from the people and looked for ways to him, to "his people", and in these searches he came across rogues like Rasputin ... An attempt to remove one tsar and put a man in his place pushed events, and they, like an avalanche, rolled, crushing and sweeping away everything in their path. The country began to fall apart.

And what is most painful - the army began to fall apart. Consciously fighting the Germans and fighting German domination at the top of Russian society, A. I. Denikin saw in the current situation one opportunity to resist the "Teutons", to wait for the fall of Germany - this is to save the Russian army from collapse. Which he tried to do all of 1917.

After the abdication of Nicholas II, the Provisional Government arranged a kind of election of a new Supreme Commander-in-Chief by polling the highest ranks of the Russian army. All agreed on M. V. Alekseev as a knowledgeable staff officer. But Alekseev was distinguished by a gentle character, he lacked will, and they decided to assign a strong-willed, purposeful general to him as the chief of staff. AI Denikin appeared to be such a Russian general. On March 18, 1917, he was summoned to the capital and had a conversation with the new Minister of War, Guchkov.

A. I. Denikin opposed the new appointment, and Alekseev was offended - Denikin was put, as it were, to push him to make volitional decisions. They agreed to work together for two months, and if Denikin's staff work does not argue, he will leave to command some of the Russian armies. They worked together, but this work cannot be called fruitful. The new government, taking into account both the origin and the left (relatively) views of Denikin, hoped with his help to "democratize" the army. Denikin believed that the "democratization" of the army during the war would lead the armed forces to collapse, and resisted new trends. But the disintegration of the troops proceeded inexorably. The new government dismissed half of the corps and a third of the divisional commanders, new appointments were made taking into account political views, not professional suitability. Soldiers' committees were introduced in the units.

From time to time it seemed to the professional military man A. I. Denikin that they were going crazy at the top. "... Not only for history, but also for medicine, the state of mind, especially among the upper stratum of the Russian people during the years of the great troubles, will represent a highly valuable inexhaustible source of study," he wrote later.

Two months later, as a result of the government crisis, Guchkov was replaced by attorney at law A.F. Kerensky as Minister of War. “He was a man of phrases, but not words, a man of posture, but not deeds,” the historian writes. One of his first cases was the dismissal of Alekseev for "insufficient revolutionism." Brusilov became the supreme commander in chief. He hoped to draw the soldiers into battle, appealing to the revolutionary duty, and flirted with the committees. “Anton Ivanovich! Do you think I am not disgusted with constantly waving a red rag? - he confessed to Denikin. - But what to do? Russia is sick, the army is sick. It must be treated. I don’t know any other medicine. ”

In such conditions, the Russian army launched another offensive in June 1917.

And I. Denikin with Brusilov "did not work well". Brusilov proposed transferring Denikin to command the Western Front. Kerensky agreed. One of the arguments was that General Denikin believed in the army's ability to attack even in such a situation.

Faith alone was not enough. The soldiers' committees refused to go on the offensive until Kerensky himself ordered them. Kerensky had to go to the front and speak to the soldiers. The offensive was postponed for three weeks. The Western Front went into action when the advance of the neighbors from the south had already been stopped, but the first three days of fighting showed that the battle would be lost, and so it happened.

On July 16, Kerensky convened a conference of the highest military commanders at Headquarters to analyze the situation. Denikin, who was present at the meeting, spoke first. He said that Russia no longer has an army, and it is necessary to create it anew. “Lead Russian life to truth and light under the banner of freedom! But give us a real opportunity for this freedom to lead troops into battle under our old battle banners, with which - do not be afraid! - erased the name of the autocrat, erased firmly in our hearts. He's gone. But there is a homeland. There is a sea of \u200b\u200bspilled blood. There is the glory of past victories.

But you - you have trampled our banners in the mud. Now the time has come: lift them up and bow before them if you have a conscience! " - with these words he finished his speech.

Kerensky shook his hand and thanked him "for a bold and sincere word", but later said that "General Denikin first drew a revenge program - this music of the future military reaction."

After the conference, Kerensky removed Brusilov from the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. General L. G. Kornilov was appointed to his place. A military general who was captured and fled, who commanded the famous 8th Army in 1917, Kornilov was known as a republican, an opponent of the old regime, and besides, he was a determined man who would not be afraid to shed blood, his own and that of others.

But, having received such a high appointment, Kornilov first of all suggested to the same Denikin: "We need to fight, otherwise the country will perish ... We need to bring Russia to the Constituent Assembly, and then let them do whatever they want ..."

AI Denikin also believed that the country was dying. “The revolution was inevitable,” he later wrote. “It is called nationwide. This definition is correct only in that the revolution was the result of dissatisfaction with the old regime of decisively all strata of the population ... The revolution was expected, it was prepared, but no one was prepared for it, not one of the political groups ... After March 3 and before the Constituent Assembly, every the supreme power bore the sign of imposture, and no power could satisfy all classes of the population due to the irreconcilability of their interests and the immoderation of their desires. " “Something unimaginable” was happening in the country, when viewed from the front, the rear was “a continuous space enveloped by anarchy, and there was no strength to overcome it”.

Denikin took the South-Western Front under his command, and took the dashing General S.L. Markov, the former commander of one of the regiments of the Iron Division, as chief of staff. But there were no big battles. The center of events long ago moved to the rear, to the capitals, where a protective, state current, complex in its composition, was taking shape. In the minds of the supporters of this trend, the main goal was the struggle to preserve the country, to bring it out of the crisis, the struggle against the Germans and the struggle against anarchy, the Bolsheviks, who were strengthening in the capital by leaps and bounds, were considered the main force opposing the current. But the fight against the Bolsheviks was so far only considered an integral part of the fight against the Germans, since the Bolsheviks were considered by all those who sympathized with the protective trend as German agents.

In August 1917, at the Moscow State Conference, two components of this trend were clearly manifested: part of the army elite, whose representative General Kornilov spoke about saving the army by tightening discipline, and part of the Cossack elite, which had already received autonomy, whose representative, General Kaledin, raised the issue more sharply : “Russia must be united. Any separate aspirations must be limited in the bud ”and demanded a narrowing of democracy, including the closure of the Soviets, throughout the country.

From the refined-statist wing of this trend (with the exception of the Cossack elite, in whose consciousness there were also Cossack values), the “white movement” arose, whose members professed, according to the philosopher I. Ilyin, the idea of \u200b\u200b“an autonomous patriotic sense of justice based on dignity and service; legal consciousness, which has to revive the Russian statehood and in a new way to comprehend and approve its precious monarchical form. " “Whites were not slaves and did not become either comrades or philistines; they rebelled as a person, an autonomous citizen and an autonomous warrior. " Thus, according to I. Ilyin, the White movement was a struggle of "Russian (military and civil) patriots who tried to prevent Russia from defeat in the Great War and to complete decomposition into a revolution, who tried to overthrow the power of foreign adventurers with an armed hand ..." At the same time, another philosopher, P. B. Struve, believed that this was a struggle against the people, "who rejected the values \u200b\u200bof the" educated classes ", and therefore was initially doomed to defeat."

General Kornilov's attempt to restore order in the capital, to send troops there, met with resistance from all left forces and Kerensky himself. Kornilov was removed and arrested. Denikin sent a telegram to the Provisional Government that he supports Kornilov and against the destruction of the army, which the government is systematically doing. Denikin sent a copy of the telegram to the front. The provisional government accused A.I.Denikin of mutiny, he was arrested and sent to the Berdichev prison together with his chief of staff Markov, commanders of the Erdeli armies, Vannovsky and Selivachev, who expressed their support.

The commissar of the Southwestern Front Iordansky wanted to arrange a military court over Denikin and the other arrested, but by that time the government had already created a special commission of inquiry on the Kornilov case, and all those involved were brought together, in one prison, in the city of Bykhov, Mogilev province. The Jordanian "missed the booty", but arranged for the arrested to "see off", forced them to go to the train through the whole city, through the crowd of protesters.

After the removal of Kornilov, Kerensky himself assumed the supreme command; General Alekseev, who had arrested Kornilov, again became the chief of staff. But Alekseev did not hold out for long, he was replaced by General Dukhonin, a talented general staff officer, whose talents were never in demand, since after the Kornilov mutiny the army finally plunged into the abyss of anarchy and became incapable of military action.

In Bykhov, in the building of the former monastery, and then the women's gymnasium, the flower of the Russian generals gathered, who came under investigation. A.I. Denikin lived in the same room with S.L. Markov, young, energetic and noisy, and with I.P. Romanovsky, the quartermaster general under Kornilov, a very intelligent, delicate man, with whom he made friends in Bykhov's cell once and forever and ever. The prisoners were guarded by the Tekinsky cavalry regiment, loyal to Kornilov, and the St. George company, in addition, in Bykhov itself was located a Polish corps sympathizing with the arrested from the Poles who lived in the Russian territory of Poland, in the Kingdom of Poland.

Political parties, seeing no opportunity to bring Russia out of the crisis, evaded power. Everyone except the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks needed Russia as a springboard for the world revolution. The October armed uprising and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks were logically logical steps towards the further split and disintegration of the country.

Outwardly, in the cities, all this happened almost imperceptibly. “People did not even understand that a coup had taken place. The Bolsheviks were considered utopians, visionaries, unable to stay in power for more than two months. It is curious that even the stock exchange did not react to the “revolution”. “Rus faded in two days. Three at the most ... - wrote the philosopher V.V. Rozanov. - In essence, nothing happened. But everything crumbled. "

The central part of Russia was "surrendered". They saw the support for the revival of the country on the outskirts, economically stronger, not so affected by the economic devastation. Hope was inspired by the position of the Cossack leaders, who did not recognize the power of the new government and tried to “fence off” Russia.

In November 1917, an all-Russian protective force was born on the Don, really capable of fighting the Bolsheviks. On October 30, General M.V. Alekseev left Petrograd for the Don. He hoped for the Cossacks: he knew that the Cossacks themselves would not go to establish order in Russia, but they would defend their territory and property from the Bolsheviks and thereby provide a base for the formation of a new army on the Don. On November 2, 1917, Alekseev arrived in Novocherkassk, and this day was marked by the White Guards later as the birthday of the Volunteer Army (in general, the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a volunteer army to fight the Germans appeared at the military top at the end of September 1917). On the territory of the Don and Kuban, the transfer of cadet schools from Kiev and Odessa began. The new government's policy has increased the influx of officers into these areas. The order of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee to the army committees of October 25, 1917 stated that officers who did not “directly and openly” join the revolution should be “immediately arrested like enemies,” after which many officers went to the Don one by one and in groups.

Don Ataman Kaledin, not confident in the forces and abilities of General Alekseev, expressed his “principled sympathy” in response to the latter’s call to “give shelter to the Russian officers”, but, pushed by a number of his associates, who, “for reasons of prudence,” now decided to disguise their goals, he hinted that it is better to choose Stavropol and Kamyshin as the center of the "Alekseevskaya organization". Nevertheless, General Alekseev and his organization remained in Novocherkassk, hiding behind the principle "there is no extradition from the Don."

Almost a month after the Bolsheviks came to power, the participants in the Kornilov protest continued to sit in the Bykhov prison. And only when the Bolsheviks moved their loyal troops to the Don and to the Headquarters, the new commander-in-chief Dukhonin decided to release the prisoners, people who recognize only a military, uncompromising struggle against the Bolsheviks. They themselves could have run, but they were afraid that the news of their escape would agitate the soldiers, and the front, which could hardly hold on, would simply collapse and scatter.

Realizing what such a decision could threaten him personally, Dukhonin hesitated. On November 18, a letter from Dukhonin came to Bykhov to send those arrested to the Don in the village of Kamenskaya on bail, then a letter followed with the cancellation of the previous order, and finally an officer arrived with an order from the Shablievsky investigative commission to release the Bykhovites.

Denikin, Romanovsky, Markov and others, disguised, went to Novocherkassk using forged documents. Kornilov, at the head of the Tekinsky Cavalry Regiment, set out there in marching order.

Denikin rode under the name of Alexander Dombrowski, assistant head of the 73rd Polish dressing unit. Romanovsky replaced the general's shoulder straps with the ensign's shoulder straps, Markov portrayed his orderly.

In Novocherkassk, where Denikin arrived at the end of November, it was restless. In Rostov, the Black Sea Fleet landing party landed and, together with the local Red Guard, seized power. Kaledin could not make the Cossacks fight the sailors and the Red Guards. The appearance of "White Guards" with odious names played into the hands of the Red Guards and embarrassed the Cossacks. Kaledin advised Denikin to wait out in the Kuban for now. Denikin and Markov lived for two weeks in the village of Slavyanskaya, and then in Yekaterinodar.

3. "WHITE"

During these two weeks the situation has become clear. The only force capable of resisting the Bolsheviks on the Don was the "Alekseevskaya organization", which by that time numbered about 700 people. On November 26, Kaledin turned to Alekseev for help, stating: "All misunderstandings between us are over." While the Big Army Circle was gathering and deciding to expel the Bolsheviks from Rostov, the "Alekseevites" fought on the outskirts of Rostov and then helped the Cossacks to occupy the city.

On December 6, Kornilov arrived in Novocherkassk. On the way, he and the Tekins were ambushed and decided to scatter and make their way to the Don one by one. Now, under the name of Lorion Ivanov, a refugee from Romania, Kornilov appeared in the Don capital.

From that time on, the arriving generals began to unite around L. G. Kornilov and, relying on the "Alekseevskaya organization", tried to lead all the anti-Bolshevik forces in the South. There was no close unity between the leaders of the "white movement". According to some contemporaries, Kornilov "seized power from Alekseev." But these were "scores between their own", the main task was to push the local amorphous forces away from the leadership, to lead all those fleeing from the Bolsheviks and lead them to save the Motherland.

The organizational center was the "Don Civil Council", which, according to Denikin's idea, was to become "the first all-Russian anti-Bolshevik government."

One of the decisive factors in the creation of the "Don Civil Council" was the arrival in Novocherkassk on December 10, 1917, of the representative of France, Colonel Gushe, who informed Alekseev that the French had allocated 100 million francs for the anti-Bolshevik forces in the South. Thus, a connection was established between the Entente and the "whites" in the South.

The "Don Civil Council" was headed by a "triumvirate" - MV Alekseev, LG Kornilov, AM Kaledin. Alekseev took over the political leadership and duties of the Minister of War, Kornilov - the leadership of the assembled volunteers and the command of all troops when hostilities were transferred outside the Don region, Kaledin - the leadership of defensive operations while the struggle was waged within the Don.

The "Soviet" included representatives of the Don government, the Cadet Party, even the right-wing socialist-revolutionaries, which, as Denikin wrote, "caused only bewilderment among the officers." The "Council" also included generals - A. I. Denikin, I. P. Romanovsky, A. S. Lukomsky.

The work of the "Council" was complicated by the fact that in Novocherkassk and within the "Council" itself, the political "elite" began to settle old scores, created an atmosphere of mutual alienation and, as it seemed to Denikin, did not understand the essence of the events taking place on the Don.

The activities of the "Don Civil Council" were based on the political declaration of the Volunteer Army developed at the end of December 1917, created on the basis of the "Bykhov program" of General Kornilov. The declaration envisaged the creation in the country of "a temporary strong supreme power of state-minded people", which was supposed to restore private property, de-nationalize industry, stop the division and redistribution of land, and recreate the army on the old principles. The culmination of the activities of the "triumvirate" and the "Soviet" was to be the convocation of a new Constituent Assembly, and not the one that was supposed to meet on November 28, 1917, but was all the time postponed by the Bolsheviks. New constituent Assembly was to construct state power and resolve the agrarian and national question.

However, for this first "all-Russian anti-Bolshevik government", according to A. I. Denikin, "the forms of the actually non-existent state power were temporarily completely indifferent." The creation of an armed force was considered important and necessary. "With the restoration of this power, power would come." Therefore, the first action of the "triumvirate" was the formation of anti-Bolshevik shock troops. Special agents were sent to all cities of Russia - in the Volga region, Siberia, the Caucasus.

AI Denikin believed that “the activity of the Council was self-sufficient and was not reflected in the life of the army at all”; it stopped when the “Council” moved from Novocherkassk to Rostov. The reason for the termination of activities was that the "Council" could not resolve the main issue - money, get money for the formation military units... The local treasury chamber promised to allocate 25% of all regional government fees for the maintenance of the armed forces. But who pays taxes in the "time of troubles"? Allied diplomats promised (the notorious 100 million), but they actually gave very little. The Kuban government refused altogether. Rostov “plutocracy” gave 6.5 million by subscription, Novocherkassk - about 2 million.

Representatives of the "public" were unable to secure funding for the anti-Bolshevik struggle with their authority, and the military leadership pushed them back. Thus, the new armed forces were formed "without discernible political leadership."

The formation proceeded in two directions. Firstly, purely "Russian" detachments were assembled from protective and patriotic elements fleeing from Central Russia. Their composition was characterized in 1921 by M. Latsis, a well-known Chekist: “Junkers, officers of the old times, teachers, students and all student youth - after all, this is all in their vast majority a petty-bourgeois element, and it was they who constituted the military formations of our opponents, from this is what the White Guard regiments consisted of ”.

Denikin wrote: "Everyone who really sympathized with the idea of \u200b\u200bstruggle and were able to endure its hardships went to our peculiar Zaporozhye Sich." However, officers played a particularly important role among these elements. Before the First World War, the Russian officers were all class-based in origin. "There was no caste, but there was an isolation of the officer corps." During the war, the corps of officers grew approximately 5 times, career officers by 1917 held positions not lower than the commander of a regiment or battalion, lower levels were occupied by wartime officers, and the overwhelming majority of such officers were from peasants. However, the specificity of the profession contributed to the selection of people of a protective, patriotic orientation for officer posts. "The officer's soul is a monarchist", "my right to one-man command is based on my submission to the one-man leader." According to A. I. Denikin, the officers - the "intellectual proletariat", the "protective element" - more easily succumbed to the influence of the right circles and their "right" command. According to their political views 80% of the officers who formed the backbone of the Volunteer Army during this period were monarchists. In general, according to AI Denikin's definition, an independent "military-social movement" has matured and took shape.

The conditions of formation, the environment, the influx of all sorts of adventurers painted new protective formations in negative colors. “The Bolsheviks from the very beginning determined the nature of the civil war: extermination,” Denikin wrote. "There was no choice in the means of counteraction under such a system of warfare." The army was formed in a hostile environment, the officers "met indifference in society, hostility among the people, in the socialist press, malice, slander and vilification." The very mood of society left its mark on the Volunteer Army. “It would be hypocrisy on the part of a society that has experienced an unprecedented moral decline to demand asceticism and the highest virtues from volunteers. There was a feat, there was also dirt ", - wrote A. I. Denikin and lamented that the chief of supply was honest," while the mean time, obviously, demanded dastardly tricks. " But on the whole, “highly valiant commanders” were selected, and the volunteers themselves were distinguished by their resilience and ruthlessness. The commander, General Kornilov, instructed them: “Don't take prisoners. The more terror, the greater the victory. "

The basis of the formations was the "Alekseevskaya organization" On December 20, Kaledin's order No. 1058 allowed the formation of volunteer detachments. Officially, the creation of the "Volunteer Army" and the opening of the enrollment in it was announced on December 24, 1917, on December 25, L. G. Kornilov took over the command of the army. A. I. Denikin was appointed chief of the Volunteer Division, and S. L. Markov became his chief of staff.

Joining the army, each volunteer gave a subscription to serve for four months and obey the command without question. They began to receive salaries only in January, before that they lived on only one ration. The officers were given a salary of 150 rubles, the soldiers - 50 rubles a month.

During the month, from December 15 to January 15, 6 battalions and 3 * artillery batteries were formed. Quantitatively, it looked like this:

As for the three batteries, one was "stolen" from the 39th Infantry Division at st. Torgovoy, 2 guns were taken from a warehouse in Novocherkassk to pay the last honors to the dead and “lost” and one battery was bought from the Cossacks for 5 thousand rubles.

According to AI Denikin, "all these regiments, battalions, divisions were essentially only cadres, and the total number of the entire army hardly exceeded 3-4 thousand people, at times during the Rostov battles falling to an absolutely insignificant size."

Forming in the specific conditions of the Don, the “volunteers” were forced to declare that “the first immediate goal of the Volunteer Army is to resist an armed attack (by the Bolsheviks) on the South and Southeast of Russia”, they promised that “they would defend the independence of the regions to the last drop of blood, who gave them shelter. "

The second real force that was created was the "local" shock detachments - "partisans", which included regular Cossack officers and Cossack student youth.

During the Bolshevik uprising in Rostov, Kaledin, not relying on regular Cossack regiments, ordered the formation of hundreds of volunteers. On November 30, the famous detachment of the Esaul V.M. Chernetsov was organized. At that time, there were 4 thousand officers in Novocherkassk. 800 people came to Chernetsov's call to the officers' meeting, 27 responded to the proposal to enroll in the "partisans", then 115 more, but the next day only 30 people showed up for the dispatch.

According to AI Denikin, “the Don officers, numbering several thousand, until the very fall of Novocherkassk, completely evaded the fight; the Don partisan detachments received dozens, the Volunteer Army - a few, and all the rest, connected by blood, property, land with the Army, did not dare to go against the clearly expressed mood and desires of the Cossacks. “The main contingent of partisans is the student youth,” contemporaries stated.

The formation of units began in the Kuban, but the difficulties were the same there.

In general, the Volunteer Army was never deployed to the size of a full-blooded army, or even a corps. A. I. Denikin names the conspiratorial conditions of formation, “the absence of an order” and a number of other reasons, pointing out that the southern cities were “packed with officers”, “the panels and cafes of Rostov and Novocherkassk were full of young and healthy officers who had not entered the army”. In general, the national militia did not work out, and the army initially had, as Denikin repeatedly noted, "a class character." Proceeding from this, it was clear that the army could not solve tasks on an all-Russian scale, therefore the task was set to restrain the pressure of unorganized Bolshevism and thereby allow the "healthy society and national consciousness" to grow stronger.

But the Bolshevik onslaught turned out to be more organized than the "volunteer" command assumed. And friction arose with the Cossacks. Kaledin tried to reconcile all strata of the Don population, but the representatives of the peasants admitted to the government immediately raised the issue of the Volunteer Army, demanding its dissolution. The front-line Cossack units considered the "volunteers" to be the main reason for the "internecine struggle", because of them the Bolsheviks allegedly attacked the Don. Some of the Cossacks broke away from Kaledin, convened a Cossack congress at the Kamensk front-line and began to “negotiate with the Bolsheviks.

In the second half of January, the Volunteer Army relocated from Novocherkassk to Rostov and, not fully formed, got involved in battles, covering Rostov and Taganrog from the west.

Soon, the "volunteer" command, seeking to push the Don elite to take more active actions, announced that it was leaving the Don front. The forces of the Volunteer Army, covering the Novocherkassk direction, consisted of only two companies, but the withdrawal of these units had a depressing effect on Kaledin. His regiments did not obey him, the Don "partisans" were defeated, Chernetsov died, the remnants of his detachment looked more at Kornilov, who really fought, and not at his "united" indecisive government. On January 29, A.M. Kaledin shot himself.

The new ataman A. M. Nazarov asked the "volunteers" to stay and announced a complete mobilization of the Cossacks. But the rise was enough for several days, time was lost, only the older Cossacks responded, who at the first collision could not withstand the artillery fire of the Red Guards.

Meanwhile, the Bolshevik ring around the Don closed. On February 1 (14), battles began near Bataysk, from where the Bolsheviks were not expected.

On February 7 (20), the military ataman Nazarov informed the Volunteer Army that the Cossacks could not provide any assistance due to the failed mobilization and that he "no longer dares to detain" the "volunteers" on the Don.

Against the background of all these harsh and gloomy events in the life of A. I. Denikin, a joyful event took place. On January 7, 1918, he married Ksenia Vasilievna Chizh. The wedding took place in one of the Novocherkassk city churches. There were no invitees. The best men were "iron shooters" Markov and Timanovsky, Denikin's adjutant and Markov's adjutant. “This is how the family life of General Denikin began. Like his wretched wedding, it passed in poverty, ”writes the general's biographer.

The "volunteers" found themselves in a stalemate. There was no one to count on. The command decided to leave the Don, tentatively - to the Kuban, where the regional government was still in power in Yekaterinodar, but there was no great confidence. MV Alekseev said: “We are leaving for the steppe. We can return only if there is God's mercy. But you need to light a torch so that there is at least one point of light among the darkness that engulfed Russia. "

On February 9 (22), 1918, the main staff of the Volunteer Army lined up at their headquarters, "the Paramonov house". Many commanders still wore civilian suits. Only Kornilov went out to the troops in a military-style sheepskin coat. He was handed a smoky gray horse, and a national tricolor flag was unfurled behind him. On the sleeves of the "volunteers" were the same three-color stripes, corner down. The words of the command sounded ...

Anton Ivanovich Denikin, appointed assistant commander of the army, walked in holey boots, in civilian clothes, with a carbine over his shoulder. On the first day he caught a bad cold, and they put him on a wagon somewhere in the tail of the train.

The eldest of the generals, MV Alekseev, rode in a cart with a suitcase, which contained the entire treasury of the Volunteer Army, about six million rubles. All this time he suffered severely from uremia and did not hope to live to the end of this forced campaign.

Initially, the troops moved towards Novocherkassk, but in the Mishkin farm the "volunteers" were met by a delegation of Novocherkassk Cossacks and asked not to enter the city, otherwise they would be offered armed resistance. At the same time, a delegation of Cossacks and Novocherkassk city self-government arrived at the Soviet headquarters, said that the "volunteers" had left, and asked not to fire cannons at the city.

The "Volunteers" turned to the south and began crossing the Don near the villages of Aksayskaya and Olginskaya. Since the 112th reserve regiment, sent by the Soviet command to occupy Olginskaya, voluntarily abandoned the front and left for Stavropol, the Volunteer Army slipped out of the ring without loss.

On February 12 (5), "partisan detachments" headed by the Don marching chieftain, General P. Kh. Popov, left Novocherkassk "without wide notice". The Army Circle and Ataman Nazarov remained in Novocherkassk. To the "volunteers" who called him for the Don, Nazarov replied that "the Bolsheviks would not dare to touch the elected chieftain and the Army Circle."

In the village of Olginskaya, the "volunteers" stopped for four days, counted their forces and reorganized. There were about 3,700 people there. As it turned out, during the battles near Taganrog and Rostov, the army more than doubled. Of the named number of bayonets, the majority were officers - 2,350. The officer corps was divided as follows: 500 personnel - 36 generals, 242 staff officers (including 24 general staff), 1,848 wartime officers. The army had over a thousand cadets, students, gymnasium students, cadets; 235 privates (of which 169 are soldiers). Organizationally, the army was divided into three regiments, one separate battalion, an engineering Czechoslovak battalion, four batteries of two guns each, three small horse detachments. The first officer regiment, consisting of Novocherkassk, 1st and 2nd Rostov officer battalions, was led by General Markov; Kornilovsky regiment - Colonel Nezhentsev; The partisan regiment, created from the Don partisan detachments, came under the command of General A. P. Bogaevsky, the Don Cossack; the cadet battalion was commanded by General Borovsky, the Czechoslovakians - by Captain Nemetchik.

52 civilians walked with the army (including Rodzianko).

In terms of quality, the army did not at all resemble the guard of the "bourgeois-landlord counter-revolution." According to A.G. Kavtaradze, 90% of the participants in the campaign did not have any property. Hereditary noblemen were 21%, personal noblemen - 39%, the rest came from peasants, burghers, etc.

Apparently, in the initial period of the struggle, the army mainly consisted not of the landowners and the bourgeoisie, but of the protective, state-minded "service" intelligentsia.

Proceeding from this, the leaders of the army strenuously emphasized its democracy. Even the commander L. G. Kornilov pointedly declared: "I am a republican," although he repeatedly said that "I would gladly hang all these Tuchkovand Milyukovs ".

Initially, there was no firm plan to go to the Kuban. The "volunteers" and "partisans" who had escaped from the encirclement went in parallel to the east to the Salsk steppes. As the participant of the campaign, General A. P. Bogaevsky, believed, the detachments split up when in the village of Kagalnitskaya the “volunteers” learned that the Salsk steppes did not have the means to “feed” the Volunteer Army, and decided to go to the Kuban. The volunteer patrol went with Popov's "partisans" to the Astrakhan border.

But as General A.P. Bogaevsky later said, “it is poorly received (the Volunteer Army. - A. V.)on the Don, even worse in the Kuban ... ". Passing through the villages, "volunteers" were engaged in "self-supply", carrying out paid (for the time being) requisitions. On March 1 (14), near the village of Berezanskaya, a battle took place for the first time between the "volunteers" and the Kuban Cossack youth, who "defended the village from the" cadets ". The Kuban was engulfed in the "revolutionary movement". However, as noted by AI Denikin, "in essence, the Bolshevism of the stanitsa was purely external."

The purpose of the campaign was dubious. On February 28 (March 13), 1918, the Kuban government fled from Yekaterinodar, and the "volunteers" from that moment moved "nowhere" and withstood numerous battles, in each of which the question was: "Victory or death."

The vanguard, as a rule, was General Markov's Officer Regiment. Markov, professor of the military academy, "iron shooter", went out on that "1st Kuban campaign" in a leather jacket and a white hat. He turned out to be one of the last Russian generals who flaunted his courage and could stand up to his full height under the cutting lead with an absent-minded look and a cane in his hands - "Forward, gentlemen! ...". And the chains rose after him and rushed forward, "like a lordly shining shoulder straps", and loudly soared over the snow-covered fields "Ur-ra-ah! .."

They were surrounded by an enemy many times superior to them, there was nowhere to retreat, and the first serious defeat threatened them with complete destruction. They wade through unfrozen rivers, lay in chains in the snow for days, tried to bring every battle to a bayonet strike, since they had to save cartridges, and did not take prisoners, since the war was initially aimed at destruction, and no one would regret them themselves sorry.

The movement from the rear was covered by the Don "partisans", students who, going on a campaign, apparently did not imagine all the hardships and hardships awaiting them in the Kuban. And apparently no one imagined ...

On March 15 (28), Kornilov gave the order to the Kuban government troops that had left the capital of the Kuban, Yekaterinodar, to go to him to join. The volunteer army by that time had lost more than a quarter of its personnel in killed and wounded (215 killed, 796 wounded at the beginning of March), and the addition of the Kuban detachment, more than three thousand bayonets, became a significant help. True, the Kuban people brought with them an endless, insoluble dispute - "what are we fighting for", but the majority of the Kuban detachment consisted of regular Kuban officers, experienced fighters, scouts, so such a union brought more advantages than disadvantages.

The campaign lasted 80 days, the "volunteers" withstood forty-four battles. At the end of March, they reached Yekaterinodar and attacked him. The Red Guards, Black Sea sailors and the Kuban Cossacks who rose up against the "Great Russian General" defended the city, suffered huge losses, but weighed down the advancing chains of "volunteers". General Kornilov was killed by a shell in the morning on March 31 (April 13).

A.I.Denikin took command. His first order was the withdrawal of troops from the city, an urgent task - the preservation of the army personnel.

4. COMMANDING THE VOLUNTARY ARMY

On April 12 (25), the "volunteers" in the Kuban learned about the rise of the anti-Bolshevik movement on the Don and about the offensive of the Germans and Haidamaks on Rostov. A delegation from the rebellious Don Cossacks arrived in the Volunteer Army. “The arrival of this delegation finally decided the question of the further direction of our movement,” AP Bogaevsky recalled.

The "Kubans", in spite of this news, demanded to go to the south, "to raise the Cossacks" in the Trans-Kuban region, in the Batalpashinsky department. General Alekseev insisted on the decision to go to the Don and then return to the Kuban.

On April 17 (30), the Volunteer Army and the Kuban units subordinate to it moved north. Soon the "volunteers" took up a position near Sredny Yegorlyk on the border of the Stavropol province, Don and Kuban regions, which underlined their wait-and-see attitude.

One and a half thousand wounded were sent to the Novocherkassk hospitals. Two thousand tired soldiers, not counting the Kuban units, took a long rest at the junction of three regions. From the north, they were covered by the Don stanitsa rebelling against the Bolsheviks, from the east - deserted steppes, from the south and west, the Red Army of the Kuban, up to 50 thousand Ukrainian Red Guards and mobilized Kuban Cossacks, unfolded from the south and west, preparing to repel the German offensive. The German offensive, which threatened to overwhelm the entire South of Russia, distracted the attention of the Bolsheviks from the "volunteers", who were considered defeated and left the scene once and for all.

But the "volunteers" did not even think to leave the historical stage. Having completed an 80-day campaign in continuous battles, they became convinced of their own strength and even invincibility, of the enemy's weakness and poor military training. They explained their retreat from the Kuban only by the lack of ammunition and military equipment. In the campaign they earned their legend, the legend of the martyrs. Subsequently, in honor of the campaign, a special badge was issued, which was worn by all "pioneers" - a crown of thorns pierced by a sword, on a St. George ribbon with a rosette of national colors. The trip itself was named "1st Kuban", or "Ice".

It was said that in the battle for the village of Novo-Dmitrievskaya, the Officer's regiment wade in the evening over a river flooded with rain and was cut off from the rest of the army by the stream. The weather suddenly changed, frost hit, the wind carried a snowstorm. The officers were chilled to the bone, their clothes turned into rigid armor of ice bark. Markov, seeing that there was no one to expect help, said to his officers: “We cannot die here in this weather! We go to the village ", meaning Novo-Dmitrievskaya occupied by the Bolsheviks. With a night bayonet attack, the Officer Regiment occupied the village and was able to warm up. The next day, some sister of mercy said to Markov: "It was a real ice hike ..."

There is another legend, less heroic, but more beautiful. Allegedly, already near Yekaterinodar, the same Officer Regiment fell under heavy rain, which was replaced by snow, and the changed icy wind froze the overcoats drenched in water, covered them with a crust of ice. The same wind blew away the clouds, the sun peeped through, and the gaze of the astonished eyewitnesses saw a whole column of warriors shining with ice armor ...

Volunteer regiments - Markovites, Kornilovites, partisans - also acquired their own legend, their own image, different from other regiments. Subsequently, these differences were reinforced by the difference in military uniform: black and white shoulder straps and caps of the Officer's regiment, red and black - Kornilovsky, pale blue, "student" color of the band of the "partisans".

Each regiment noted the weaknesses of its "neighbor" and entered them into a kind of humorous catalog of the old Russian army:

My crane, crane,

Young crane ...

Mockery is a sign of strength and health. Replacing old verses:

Fool Cavalry Guards

Prop up the ceilings

Dressed up like doormen

Tsarskoye Selo hussars,

Muzzles beat at full gallop

In the Mariupol regiment,

new ones came:

There is noise and fighting in the restaurant.

This is a dashing Markovite.

The officers of General Markov's regiment, lieutenants and warrant officers, enjoyed all the privileges of an officer's rank, but did not feel the responsibility that other officers did, since they served in the regiment as privates. Hence the "restaurant daring". A. N. Tolstoy wrote that the Markovites "swear by swearing and dirty overcoats."

Who is painted as a poster?

That is a Kornilov soldier.

The soldiers and officers of the Kornilov regiment, with their black uniforms with red distinctions, had a blue sleeve insignia with a skull and bones, with a burning artillery grenade inherent in grenadier regiments, and the inscription “Kornilovtsy”.

There is less information about the "partisans" who later received the honorary title of "General Alekseev Regiment". Apparently, the higher educational level of the former students, who donned military uniforms, brought the modesty that distinguished the most privileged and "old" regiments of the Russian guard - the Preobrazhensky, Semyonovites, and cavalry guards.

After the difficulties of the "Ice Campaign" and the creation of the "White Legend", most of the "volunteers" did not consider it necessary to hide their true beliefs. Negative attitudes towards such figures as Rodzianko, the former chairman of the IV State Duma, grew. “Your Black Hundreds have become more frank,” admitted the White Guards. They openly carried out monarchist propaganda and paid no more attention to the protests of socialists and republicans, of whom there were also many in the army, than to empty barking, and continued their work.

It was because of the question of "orientations" and "political slogans" that a crisis broke out in the army in May 1918. It was aggravated by the fact that four months of service had expired - the term agreed on under the contract.

It turned out that the vast majority of the command staff and officers were monarchists. In the army, it turns out, a secret monarchist organization was created, which included some of the highest leaders. Alekseev himself was inclined towards a constitutional monarchy and began to say that the army had put forward the slogan of the Constituent Assembly "only out of necessity."

Denikin himself considered such overt monarchism to be disastrous for the army. In his reasoning, he proceeded from the fact that "the main vicious ailment of the Soviet regime was that this power was not national," ". In this case, the slogan "For a United, Great and Indivisible Russia", according to Denikin, was quite enough. The future form of government in the country depends on the Constituent Assembly, "convened to establish the legal order." Denikin never tired of repeating this. In the meantime, the main goal was to save Russia by creating a strong patriotic army and a merciless struggle against Bolshevism, "relying on the state-minded circles of the population."

For Denikin, "non-determination" and "evasion" were not a "mask", but a demand of life. “All three political factions of the anti-Bolshevik front - right, liberals and moderate socialists - individually were too weak to bear the burden of the struggle on their shoulders. "Non-determination" gave them the opportunity to preserve a bad peace and go one way, albeit in each other, looking suspiciously at each other, enmity and melting in their hearts some republic, others monarchy ... "- he thought. In addition, Denikin took into account the anti-monarchist sentiments in the neighboring Stavropol province and among the Cossacks.

Relying on the generals Romanovsky and Markov in his policy of "non-prescription", Denikin was nevertheless forced to go to a showdown with the army personnel.

I am fighting only for Russia, - he told the officers and appealed to their prudence. - If I throw out the republican flag, then half of the volunteers will leave, if I throw out the monarchist flag, the other half will leave. And we must save Russia!

The personnel of the army reacted to Denikin's policy with the understanding that, however, the conflict did not exhaust. In the anti-Bolshevik camp, a struggle unfolded for influence over the Volunteer Army. “All groups and organizations, instead of material assistance, sent us warm greetings — both in writing and through delegates — and everyone tried to lead not only the political direction, but also the strategic actions of the army,” Denikin complained.

The tragic curiosity was that the army, which had become an object of struggle and hope, was constantly on the verge of financial collapse. Her cash balance was balanced between two-week and monthly needs. “Monetary Moscow did not give a dime. The allies hesitated. " All capitalists, as well as private banks, followed a wait-and-see policy. 4.5 million rubles received from the allies, and the same amount of funds received from the Don treasury, gave the army the opportunity to exist for two months (with monthly expenses of 4 million), and then the way of collecting indemnities and seizing trophies opened up before it.

Three factors constantly got on Denikin's nerves: relations with the new Don ataman, General Krasnov, relations with the Kubans who joined the army, and relations with the Germans who appeared on the horizon.

Mutual disagreements began among the "volunteers" with the Don people as soon as the army entered the Don territory. Denikin did not like the leaders of the insurgent Donets. The marching chieftain Popov appeared to be a "sluggish and indecisive" man, Yanov, the head of the Provisional Don Government, appeared to be a "right-wing demagogue." The only worthy man, General Krasnov, as soon as he became chieftain, immediately tried to subjugate the Volunteer Army to himself, since it was located on the territory of the Don, and when this failed, he ordered the Don Cossacks who served with Denikin to immediately leave the ranks of the "volunteers" and enter Don army.

Denikin understood that after the "Ice Campaign" his army was saved by the uprising that had begun on the Don, had the opportunity to rest, gain strength, Alekseev himself and the military-political department of the army settled in Novocherkassk, all the wounded "volunteers" were taken there, but still the command " volunteers "got involved in a political struggle with the Don leadership. “In general, for the most part, volunteerism and the Don Cossacks lived peacefully, not following the example of their leaders,” Denikin admitted.

A similar situation developed in relations with the Kuban people. The servicemen of the eastern Kuban, the "line men", were loyal to Denikin, and the Ukrainian-speaking "Black Sea" residents of the western Kuban began to lean towards Ukraine, and hence the Germans. Among the Kuban officers in the army, "line men" prevailed; among the members of the Rada and the Kuban government, which joined the army in the Kuban, there were more "Black Sea men". Both groups were at enmity, complained about each other to Denikin, and the officers of the "line" were ready for physical violence against some especially zealous "Ukrainianophiles" among the "Black Sea". Fearing a final split, Denikin held back the "Kuban passions" as best he could.

Relations with the Germans who occupied Rostov were established, which Denikin called "armed neutrality." Denikin did not have the strength to fight the Germans now, although for this purpose, in fact, the Volunteer Army was created. For their part, the Germans treated the "volunteers" with distrust, but did not prevent the white counterintelligence from working in Rostov itself. As the German commandant said: “Officially ... I cannot give you the right to shoot. This is the policy. But I'll tell you unofficially. I will not interfere in your affairs. Do it carefully, that's all. "

But there were also joyful moments. Most of the officers who received leave after the four months of their contractual service, returned to the army. One by one, drop by drop, fugitives from Soviet Russia arrived in the army. And, finally, the “1st brigade of Russian volunteers” of Colonel MG Drozdovsky, who came from the Romanian front, joined the “volunteers”: 667 officers, 370 soldiers, 14 doctors and priests, 12 nurses. "Drozdovtsy", having made an equally difficult campaign in Bessarabia and Ukraine, joined the Volunteer Army on equal terms, earned their legend of one of the regiments most annoying to the Bolsheviks, a special military uniform (crimson caps), and even in the song "We boldly go into battle" some Red Army units subsequently added the lines:

And we will kill all the "blackbirds", Such a bastard ...

The army rested and gained strength. Krasnov strenuously “wooed” her in the Tsaritsyn direction, but Denikin waited, hoping to replenish in the Kuban. The command of the "volunteers" was very scrupulous about relations with the Germans and rejected all hints of contact with them. Therefore, it waited for the end of hostilities on the Soviet-German front near Bataisk and Azov. As soon as the Germans and Bolsheviks signed an agreement on the cessation of hostilities (June 23, 1918) in this area, the "volunteers" began to act.

With a short and strong blow, they seized the Torgovaya-Velikoknyazheskaya railway line, where they suffered a serious loss - General S.L. Markov was killed.

After that operation, the "volunteers" turned to the south and went on the offensive to the Kuban, began the "2nd Kuban campaign".

At the same time, on June 17-18, the Cossacks revolted in the Mozdok department on the Terek, on the same day, June 18, 11 hundred Kuban Cossacks moved from the Red Army to Denikin. In the Kuban, the contradictions between the Cossacks and nonresidents sharpened to the limit, it was on them that Denikin was counting. The forces of the Volunteer Army itself were small, but the obvious support of the Don people (with weapons and manpower) and the massive uprisings of the Kuban Cossacks, launched "on Trinity", made this army a formidable force. The behavior of the Soviet troops played a certain role. Retreating from Denikin, "Soviet troops, especially Ukrainian ones, completely routed the stanitsas lying along the road, which, naturally, threw the Kuban Cossacks ... into the hands of Denikin and Alekseev."

The army at that moment was independent of political organizations and allies. There were no prominent political figures under her. Henceforth, politics for some time did not distract A. I. Denikin from the direct "combat work". An important disadvantage was that the army still did not have a civil administration apparatus, since General Alekseev was negotiating the creation of an all-Russian power beyond the Volga and did not consider it necessary to create such an apparatus in the army.

The lack of civil administration bodies and a clear program for organizing a peaceful life immediately affected the Stavropol Territory, through which the "volunteers" passed, heading for the Kuban. Stavropol was captured by the insurgent Terek Cossacks of General Shkuro, but when Shkuro announced to the “volunteers”: “We, the Cossacks, are going under the slogan of the Constituent Assembly,” he received the answer: “What other shop is there, the Constituent Assembly? We will establish our own order. " Private property and lease relations between peasants and Cossacks were restored by order. As a result, the Stavropol peasantry, which had risen under the banner "For Soviets without Communists", recoiled from the Volunteer Army and began to create partisan "self-defense" detachments.

The military alliance of the "volunteers" and the Kuban rebels strengthened the anti-Bolshevik troops. By mid-July, the Volunteer Army had grown to 20 thousand personnel, mainly due to the Kuban Cossacks. Kubans in the army at that time were 16-17 thousand. However, these forces grew in the eyes of the Bolsheviks many times over. On July 27, 1918, Lenin reported to Zinoviev: “Now we have received the news that Alekseev in the Kuban, with up to 60 thousand, is attacking us, carrying out the plan of a united onslaught of the Czechoslovakians, British and Alekseev's Cossacks.

The "volunteers" in the Kuban were opposed by a 72,000-strong army under the command of the Kuban Cossack Sorokin. The Kuban nonresident, the Cossack poor, the Red Guards who had left the Ukraine fought desperately. In fierce battles, when the prisoners were not taken, and the captured wounded from the enemy camp were at best shot, at worst they were tortured (and both sides did so), the Volunteer Army reached Yekaterinodar.

The first victories instilled confidence in the "Russian volunteers", and they spoke loudly about the revival of Russia, and some did not hesitate to say:

"The people need a tight-knit gauntlet - and we will take it into the tight-knit gauntlet of an unlimited monarchy."

Leaving for the Kuban, Denikin moved away from the Don and the Don chieftain, whom, to put it mildly, he disliked. D.P.Bogaevsky, the former commander of the Partisan Regiment, who, according to his authority and high rank in the old army, was awarded the post of "prime minister", chairman of the Board of Governors under Krasnov, and in addition was in charge of the entire foreign policy of the Great Don Host, remained to look after Krasnov. But friction with the bottoms was replaced by friction cuban - "volunteer".

The army command continued to ignore the Kuban government and the Rada. Alekseev believed that “the current composition of the Rada does not express the will of the population, and its role is important only in the future, when the entire Kuban will be cleared; now the Rada is just an unnecessary and useless appendage to the army headquarters. " Members of the Rada, "people's representatives", in retaliation, launched an increasingly widespread campaign for an "independent Kuban", for an independent state.

And yet, despite all the friction, the "volunteers" and the insurgent Kuban Cossacks drove the Bolsheviks out of Yekaterinodar and began to push them eastward, to the Caspian Sea. Military skill and discipline prevailed over the masses fighting under the command of local Bolshevik leaders who were always gnawing at each other.

The Bolsheviks at this time were experiencing a turning point in the creation of a regular army right on the battlefield. The army was built partly on the basis of the semi-anarchist detachments of the Red Guard. The second source was bulk kits in Central Russia. The peasants resisted these kits. "The war went far from their provinces, the accounting was bad, the appeals were not taken seriously," recalled the highest military leader of the Bolsheviks, LD Trotsky. The newly created army was sick with partisanism. "Physical punishment in the communist army was a legalized institution that no one hid from anyone," one of the Bolsheviks later admitted. But the very fact of creating a regular army, the restoration conscription coincided with the first and still weak fluctuations of the multimillion-dollar mass towards the establishment of the destroyed order by it, towards the "gathering of lands." These fluctuations also affected the most combat-ready part of society - the officers. “... All organizations - right and left, not excluding in part the Soviet ones - saw the only internal real force capable of feat, sacrifice and armed struggle in the Russian officers and tried to attract them by all means to serve their goals ... meanwhile it stood at a crossroads, ”wrote A. I. Denikin. The Bolshevik decree of June 29, 1918 on the mobilization of former officers and officials decided the fate of many of them. “We met the Red Army in the true sense of the word only in late autumn (1918. - A.V.).In the summer, there was only preparation and some transformations, ”recalled AI Denikin. For a long time, the backbone, the core of the Bolshevik army was "old soldiers and non-commissioned officers who made service their trade," and those called up for mobilization were very unstable in battles.

While Denikin was beating the Bolshevik army corroded by partisanship in the Kuban and the North Caucasus, the Bolsheviks created new, more persistent units on the Volga, in battles with the Czechoslovakians, and the patriotic factor played a very important role here. “Through the combination of agitation, organization, revolutionary example and repression, the required turning point was achieved within a few weeks. From the unstable, unstable, crumbling mass a real army was created, "Trotsky believed. This army was called both the "Army of the III International" and the "Army of the World Revolution", but in terms of its composition, place and time of origin and formation, the young Red Army was "programmed" for patriotism, for the restoration of the collapsed country. The army was not free from a mass of shortcomings, military experts openly admitted that "in terms of their fighting qualities, the enemy ... was stronger than the Red Army." But it was really the people's army, which was characterized by a "spontaneous impulse". There was a cult of personal courage in the army, especially in the "red cavalry of ataman origin." In the minds of the overwhelming majority of the rank and file and mobilized officers, "military specialists", the army was intended for the defense of the country. This feeling was fueled by the struggle with the Czechoslovakians and other foreigners and was consonant with the national character of the people. By the winter of 1918/19. the Bolsheviks planned to create a million-strong army by mobilization.

The volunteer army, replenished with the Kuban Cossacks and mobilized in part of the Stavropol province, reached the number of 30-35 thousand people, but was much inferior to the Don army of Krasnov. Nevertheless, well-known political figures immediately reached the new headquarters of the "volunteer" command, in Yekaterinodar. Then in August, after the capture of Yekaterinodar, there was the first massive influx of officers from the general staff into the army.

strictly adhered to the nomination to the posts of only "pioneers" who had served in the Volunteer Army for the longest time. This system permeated the army from top to bottom. “The ranks in our battery did not play a big role. The prescription of admission to the battery was important, ”one“ volunteer ”recalled. As a result, some brave, but completely ignorant in military affairs, a young man who made the Ice Campaign was preferred to headquarters officers, veterans of the World War.

The generals obeyed Denikin, but with extreme reluctance they obeyed each other, and only one thing helped out - "nevertheless, a sense of duty to the Motherland prevailed."

The lack of a solid material base led to the fact that "the supply of the army was purely random, mainly at the expense of the enemy," as a result, in the units (especially among the Cossacks of General Pokrovsky), they looked at the struggle as a "means of profit", and at war booty, "As if it were his own good", and even an adherent of strict discipline, General Wrangel "tried only to prevent arbitrariness and, possibly, to distribute the spoils of war among the units more correctly."

Positive, constructive work was difficult. Life itself forced the "volunteers" to take up the creation of civilian authorities. On the Cossack territory this was done quickly and decisively by the Cossacks themselves, and in Stavropolitsyn and in the Black Sea province it fell to the lot of the Volunteer Army.

The "human material" for the creation of such bodies remained from the former decayed administration of old Russia. Denikin himself admitted in Stavropol that “inveterate people go to the districts; uyezd administrative posts became a stage in prison companies. "

The organization of civil power by "volunteers" was based on the "Regulations on the Field Command of Troops", developed back in 1915. In the liberated territory, it was supposed to establish the power of military governors, subordinate to the command of the army. The created governorates were overgrown with old bureaucracy and adventurers.

The well-known monarchist V.V. Shulgin and General A.S. Lukomsky prepared a report on the organization of a Special Meeting under the High Command, designed to "give opinions on matters submitted for its consideration" by the High Command. On August 31, the "Provisions on the Special Meeting" was approved by General Alekseev. The "Special Council", as the "supreme body of civil administration" under the supreme leader of the Volunteer Army, took over the administration of the occupied territories. In structure, it resembled a kind of cabinet of ministers.

The next stage in the organization of civil power was the development of the "Provisional Regulations for the Administration of the Regions occupied by the Volunteer Army," to which Denikin attached importance to a kind of provisional constitution. The project was based on the laws of the Provisional Government, but an unlimited individual dictatorship was temporarily established, all state formations of the South were united on the basis of autonomy rights around the Volunteer Army and a single army was created. The project was received with hostility by both the Kuban Rada and the Krasnov government on the Don.

As success grew, relations with their own became more complicated. The Kubans, in opposition to Denikin, put forward the idea that the new Russia "will, apparently, be the result of a treaty unification of autonomous regions, a federation of Russian states," which will include Kuban and Georgia as democratic republics.

The conversation about Georgia did not arise by chance. In September, Georgian troops landed in Sochi, and Denikin broke all diplomatic relations with Georgia and forced the Kuban people to do so.

The last quarter of 1918 was a turning point for A. I. Denikin. The army under his command has grown in strength and numbers. In early August, she resorted to the first mobilizations, at the end of October, all officers under 40 were drafted into the army, at the end of the year they began to put prisoners in line. Denikin received great support with manpower in the Stavropol Territory. In the summer, after the first occupation of this area, the peasants recoiled from the Denikinites. Then the mobilization in the Stavropol Territory, in the Black Sea province, gave disastrous results. But then the Reds came to the Stavropol Territory, brought with them a new food policy, and the Stavropol peasants again began to glance in the direction of Denikin.

The September battles bled white and red alike. Thus, General Wrangel's division lost 260 officers and 2,460 Cossacks in August and September, approximately 100% of its personnel, and was replenished by the Cossacks of the liberated divisions. By the end of the 2nd Kuban campaign, 100-150 bayonets remained in the "volunteer" regiments, but the "volunteers" retained their combat capability. “I saw parts that were very thin, exhausted, half-frozen, in shabby light clothes - the winter cold came early this year - and nevertheless ready for new battles,” Denikin recalled.

But here the Stavropol peasants mobilized by the Reds began to go over to the side of Denikin. The volunteer army, which in November 1918 consisted of 7.5 thousand people (together with the Kuban - 43 thousand), replenished by the Stavropolites, grew (together with the Kuban) by January 1, 1919 to 82 600 bayonets and 12 320 sabers. The transfer of the Stavropol regiments was not the only source of replenishment of the "volunteers". In November, the command began drafting four more ages into the ranks of the army - 99, 98, 94 and 93 years of birth.

With the exit from the Kuban, "morals softened." "By the fall of 1918, the cruel period of the civil war" for extermination "had already been outlived," Denikin stated. The Kuban out-of-town and Ukrainian Red Guards were either driven out or dissolved in the Red Army units coming from Central Russia, from other provinces. The prisoners were attracted to the service. 70% of them fought well, 10% went back to the Bolsheviks, 20% avoided fighting. In general, the measure justified itself.

In connection with the replenishment of the army, conflicts within it again intensified for political reasons. When the "volunteers" took Armavir for the first time, they arranged a memorial service for Nicholas II and ordered the old hymn. Usually, during the anthem and the Marseillaise, the “Republican officers” and the “monarchist officers” would salute, but reprimand each other through clenched teeth, and in some places such conflicts have already ended with shooting. The political attitude of the Volunteer Army was defined as follows: the majority of the rank and file (peasants of the Stavropol province) - for the Constituent Assembly; most of the officers - too, especially the 3rd division (the Drozdovites who came from the Romanian front) and the 1st division (the Kornilovites); in the 2nd division, where there were purely officer regiments, the monarchist trend was observed, but did not predominate.

5. LEADER AND UNITER

On October 8, 1918, MV Alekseev died, “moderating and uniting”. Power was completely concentrated in the hands of A.I. Denikin. Immediately followed by an order to appoint Denikin the supreme leader of the Volunteer Army, leaving him in the post of commander-in-chief. General Lukomsky became his deputy for military affairs, Dragomirov for civil affairs. Centralization in the administration of the army intensified, and the tendency to unite and lead all anti-Bolshevik forces in the south of the country intensified.

Some contemporaries believed that Denikin personally did not fit the role of leader and unifier. General Wrangel later wrote that Denikin was "an excellent military man", but "fate unexpectedly dumped on his shoulders his huge, alien state work, threw him into the whirlpool of political passions and intrigues."

Nevertheless, Denikin pursued a cautious, stubborn and principled policy aimed at the revival of the United and Indivisible Russia. “It's time to drop all disputes, strife, parochialism,” he called on Kuban politicians. He promised them that he would recognize the broad autonomy of the constituent parts of the state, saw the possibility of unity with the Don, Crimea, Terek, Armenia, Orenburg, with Ukraine and "with the Georgian people when the Georgian government goes astray."

It was not possible to find a common language with the "Black Sea". Denikin began to support the "line" generals, hoping to use them to fight the independent aspirations of the "Black Sea", and the "line" approached the issue in a military manner. Wrangel, who considered himself an expert in Cossack psychology, spoke of the need for a "shout", since "any indulgence, any search for compromise by the authorities would be taken into account as its weakness, and the inevitable consequence of which would be new harassment of local demagogues." The Kuban chieftain Filimonov recalled that the massacre of the Rada was planned at the end of 1918. "Generals Pokrovsky and Shkuro came to me and offered to take all power into their own hands with their assistance."

After the liberation of the Kuban, they tried to impose an ataman who was convenient to the "volunteers". They offered Pokrovsky, Przhevalsky, Donets Bogayevsky, even suggested Denikin "to coordinate the activities of the Kuban and the Volunteer Army." But a private meeting of the Rada changed the Constitution of the Kuban. A "natural" Kuban Cossack could become the chieftain with the rights of the president. They agreed on the compromise figure of the former ataman Filimonov. The conflict was driven inside, and after a while it reappeared and contributed much to the death of the movement.

The most important factor that influenced the entire situation in the south of the country was the defeat of Germany in the world war and the appearance in the region of allies, British and French troops.

It seemed that A. I. Denikin, loyal to the allies to the end, could catch his breath. At first it was. The English representative, General Poole, who arrived in Yekaterinodar, said: "You and I have the same aspirations, the same goal - the restoration of United Russia," and one of the Erlish delegation members spoke even more clearly: "Whoever is against Denikin is against us." ...

But it turned out that the Entente countries, which took on the role of the main anti-Bolshevik force, did not have a consensus on the "Russian question", the contradictions that existed within the Accord itself, the differences between the various political groupings of each of the countries (the military departments, as a rule, were more aggressively, and the governments themselves, given the growth of revolutionary sentiments, tried to balance) led to the fact that in relation to Russia there were at least five points of view. The French bourgeoisie, which invested a lot of money in war loans to tsarist Russia, demanded a struggle against the Soviets "at all costs." France was still afraid of Germany and was interested in a strong ally in the East, which was Tsarist Russia, which more than once saved the French in the world war. Denikin's slogan "United and Indivisible Russia" impressed the French very much.

The British were not so radically inclined, they admitted the possibility of trade and diplomatic relations with the Bolsheviks. The colonial empire saw a competitor in Russia. The British needed a weak and fragmented Russia, which would give up Turkestan and Transcaucasia, from the oil-bearing regions of the Caspian Sea. The British were ready to recognize the Bolsheviks if they recognize the independence of these regions.

And yet France insisted on armed intervention. On November 13, 1918, an agreement was confirmed between Western countries on the division of Russia into "spheres of interest." The French took over the Ukraine and Crimea, as well as the Donetsk basin, where they had invested a lot of money even before the revolution. The British took control of the oil-bearing regions of the Caucasus. On the night of November 15-16, the Allied squadron entered the Black Sea. At the end of the month, she appeared in the ports of Novorossiysk, Sevastopol, Odessa. The "Appeal of the Concord Powers to the Population of Southern Russia" was published: "We inform the population that we have entered the territory of Russia to restore order and to free it from the yoke of the Bolshevik usurpers."

The Bolsheviks and their opponents in Russia seemed to have changed places. Now foreigners came to support the former national, patriotic forces, and the "non-national", according to Denikin's definition, the Bolshevik government sought to oust them, which coincided with the awakening unifying tendencies of the Russian people. Strange as it may seem, exultation reigned among both whites and reds. The Bolsheviks waited, as they thought, for the European socialist revolution; the collapse of Austria-Hungary, the fall of the regime in Germany - a little more, and "the whole world of violence" will be destroyed. The Whites waited for their allies who simply had to save Russia (otherwise no one in the Volunteer Army thought about it, since they did not know about any secret agreements on dividing Russia into "spheres of interest"), and the allies, it would seem, took the matter seriously. British, French, Greek divisions began to land on the Black Sea coast. Many Russian politicians rushed at that moment "under the wing" to Denikin. The big Ukrainian bourgeoisie despised both its hetman and numerous "fathers", allocated Denikin 5 million for the army and promised 2 million from now on every month. The hetman government called "volunteers" to the Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav provinces. There was pressure on the Don Ataman Krasnov.

Outwardly, everything looked the best possible: on November 23, the allied fleet entered Novorossiysk, an honor guard of the officers of the Kornilovsk regiment met the allied mission, whose representative exclaimed: "Long live the united, great, indivisible Russia!" On November 28, the English General Poole arrived in Yekaterinodar, declaring: “I was sent by my country to find out how and how to help you,” and set three tasks for the anti-Bolshevik forces: a single command, a single policy, a united Russia.

But the first relations of the allies with the "volunteers", the Kuban and the Don people, initiated by the allied command, did not yet reflect the official point of view of the entire political leadership of the Entente. Denikin later reproached the allies that “cut off from their centers, they took some serious diplomatic steps at their own peril and risk in the firm conviction that these steps would be approved by their governments and would be actually implemented.

A big and tragic in its results hoax was brewing. "

On November 30, 1918, British Minister of War W. Churchill was forced to inform his representatives in Russia that, due to revolutionary and anti-war sentiments in the troops, Great Britain would continue to occupy only the Baku-Batum railway with its own forces and hold Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, and the rest of it participation in the intervention will consist in the supply of material and technical means for the White Guard armies and in military assistance to the Baltic states. For the same reasons, France was able to land in the southern ports only 2 French and 1.5 Greek divisions (instead of 12-15 according to the plan) and small Serbian, Romanian and Polish units. About all changes in policy, the White Guard command was either not notified by the allies, or it was announced late. Denikin, who proceeded in his calculations from the military assistance of the allies, already urgently demanded whole divisions from them to cover Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav, but did not receive an answer.

On the whole, it has not yet been possible to establish more or less correct relations with Western Europe. Certain difficulties were caused by the fact that the goals of the Volunteer Army, fighting for the United and Indivisible Russia, coincided with the goals of France, but the army itself was still stationed in the territory that fell into the sphere of influence of Great Britain, and the British had already put forward a new plan. Churchill believed: “... We must try to unite into a single military and political system all border states hostile to the Bolsheviks, forcing each of them to do as much as it can. " The goal of the British government was to create a barrier between Europe and Russia and to dismember the South of Russia. On December 23, the British infantry landed in Batum, on the 25th the British occupied Tiflis and began to methodically increase their military presence in the Transcaucasus. Denikin was given to understand that his interference in affairs on the other side of the Caucasian ridge is undesirable. Sochi district and Dagestan became a disputed territory between Denikin and the British.

The British pursued their policy carefully, under the cover of the forces of Menshevik Georgia, which landed its troops in Sochi, dispersed the Abkhaz People's Council, accusing it of "Turkophilism" (in fact, the council was more "Russophile"), and appointed a new one. Georgian nationalists began to systematically smash the Armenian mountain villages in the Sochi district, and the Denikinites began to create Armenian squads there.

Denikin's assistant, General Dragomirov, protested to the British command in connection with the anti-Armenian actions, and the British, not daring to aggravate the situation, put pressure on the Georgian leadership to begin the withdrawal of troops from the Black Sea province.

And I. Denikin nevertheless demonstrated to the British who is the boss in the region. Denikin's agents provoked an Armenian uprising in the Sochi district, and the rebels turned to the Volunteer Army for help. “In order to restore order in the Sochi district and end the bloodshed between Georgians and Armenians,” the “volunteers”, supported by Armenian squads, launched an offensive and on February 6-7, 1919 occupied Sochi and Adler. Losses - 12 killed Georgians and 7 killed "volunteers". Georgian General Koniev surrendered. On the morning of February 8, the Georgian garrisons of Sochi and Adler began to surrender their weapons.

The British demanded the withdrawal of the "volunteers" from the Sochi district. In turn, the volunteer general Cherepov demanded that Georgian troops be withdrawn from Sukhumi "for the self-determination of Abkhazia." We agreed on a compromise solution: the "volunteers" remained in the Sochi district, and the Georgians in Sukhumi. The Bzyb River became the border, the British set up posts on it.

All this did not affect the British material aid to whites. The British were interested in covering Transcaucasia from the north and gave Denikin a loan of 20 million for the supply of weapons and equipment in order to use the latter to fight the Moscow Bolsheviks.

Naturally, the "volunteers" tried to get closer to the French military command. The French, for their part, all this time in vain were looking for forces in Ukraine that would be both "republican" (the French Republic considered it indecent to help the monarchists) and "unified Delimic", but only stumbled upon "monarchists" like the hetman's officers and "self-styled" "Like the Petliurites. At first, the French did not count on the forces of the Volunteer Army located in the Kuban ("the English zone of interests").

Meanwhile, Denikin intensified. The offensive of the Bolsheviks pushed the Don Cossacks to recognize a single military command. The volunteer army united with the Donskoy in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. The Donets, pressed by the Bolsheviks, clung to the Donets and Manych. The Kubans and Tertsi, united in the Caucasian Volunteer Army, entered the Salsk steppes, covering them on the right, and the Volunteer Army itself was transported in echelons through the Don territory and began to deploy in the Donetsk basin, “invading” the zone of French interests.

Having defeated the Bolsheviks in the North Caucasus, Denikin planned to transfer his headquarters to Sevastopol and lead all the anti-Bolshevik "Russophile" forces in the Crimea and Ukraine. Here he collided with French interests. The French themselves were going to exercise military leadership in the South, and the Volunteer Army was assigned the role of one of the components of the anti-Bolshevik movement in the South. They wanted to have an obedient government, to which Denikin would obey. They saw the cadres of this government in the organizations that had accumulated in Odessa like the Union of Cities and the Zemsky Union.

Subsequently, General Lukomsky blamed "local leaders" for the friction between the allies and Denikinites, who "confused the French." A. I. Denikin, who considered political life in Odessa "political whistle-blowing", "chaotic period", "wedding on a churchyard", saw one of the reasons for disagreement "secret joint activities some German banks and large Jewish financiers who supported the Ukrainian movement. " The rank and file of the armies simply believed that French policy in the South was directed by “Jewish gold” and “Jewish dominance,” since Colonel Freudenberg, who had advisers to Margolin, Margulis and other “prominent representatives of Russian Jewry”, was in charge of the relationship between the French and the local anti-Bolshevik forces.

Denikin was worried about the negotiations between the French and the Ukrainian nationalists-Petliurists; he telegraphed them about cases of executions of officers by Petliurites. But the French command at that time had little regard for Denikin, they even tried to push them around. On January 14 (27), General Franchet d'Espre telegraphed the French mission to the "volunteers": "I received your notification of the proposed transfer of General Denikin's headquarters to Sevastopol. troops that he does not command. "

Denikin was offended. Chilling relations with the French did not frighten him as much as the Allies would have liked. In 1919, in the Denikin camp, no one was particularly deluded about the real forces that the Entente could put up for direct hostilities: no more than 30 thousand. I had to hope for my own strength.

Denikin flatly refused to cooperate with Ukrainian nationalists, as the French suggested to him, after which Denikin-French negotiations reached a dead end.

The "Odessa pool", as Denikin believed, ruined "both the idea of \u200b\u200bFrench intervention and Odessa itself." The French expelled representatives of the Volunteer Army from Odessa, formed a "Russian government" headed by Prince Lvov, and, in agreement with this government, established an occupation administration of southern Russia. This management actually extended to Odessa, which was "struggling in the convulsions of unhealthy politicking and speculative excitement," and to nearby settlements. The French commander-in-chief, General Foch, said that he did not attach much importance to Denikin's army, "because armies do not exist by themselves ... it is better to have a government without an army than an army without a government."

From the point of view of an established democracy, the logic of General Foch was impeccable, the stake was placed on democratic traditions, on governments, on parties. The French did not take into account the historically formed role of the armed forces in Russia, did not pay attention to the fact that the Volunteer Army had overrun the state formations in the South of Russia.

Having removed the Denikin command, the French did not have enough strength to hold the South of Russia.

On April 6, 1919, Odessa was surrendered to the Soviet troops, which, as eyewitnesses recalled, caused "an explosion of indignation against the French both in the army and in society."

The focus of the French's attention was now shifted to the West. The revolution in Hungary played a huge role here. From now on, the Bolsheviks were eager to join the "Red Magyars", and the French created a barrier on their way.

The English took advantage of the French oversight. On April 16, the British commander-in-chief, General Milne, came to Yekaterinodar to see Denikin. Anglo-Denikin relations were restored.

Denikin, in turn, took advantage of the British "favor" and tried to restore relative order in the Caucasus. The Bolsheviks in this region tried to find massive support and for this purpose handed over four Terek Cossack villages to the Ingush, and the Cossacks themselves were evicted with the help of the Ingush. They wanted to find the same support from the Chechens, and when the entire population of Terek, exhausted by endless raids and robberies, wanted to declare war on the Chechens, the Bolsheviks insisted on peace negotiations and included Chechen representatives in local authorities. When the Volunteer Army drove the Bolsheviks out of the North Caucasus, these peoples were wary of Denikin.

Denikin met with representatives of all the peoples of the Caucasus, all such meetings were attended by British dignitaries. The "Temporary Regulation on Civil Administration in Localities under the Supreme Command of the Main Command of the Armed Forces in the South" was developed and announced, which consolidated the full power of the high Denikin command, life according to laws issued before October 25, 1917, Cossack privileges, the primacy of the Orthodox Church, Russian as the state language. The villages they had seized from the Cossacks were taken away from the Ingush.

Attempts to resist provoked punitive expeditions. Moreover, it was announced that the expedition was directed against any nation in general. All conflicts in the region were considered as national and were submitted to the arbitration court, also national in composition. Thus, it was proposed that the friction between Ossetians and Ingush be brought to the arbitration court of the Kuban Cossacks and Kuban Circassians.

The "mountain government" fled, the "majlis", the mountain parliament, went to emigrate. Local power was transferred to the generals of the Russian service, but of an indigenous nationality. In Dagestan - General Khalilov, in Kabarda - Bekovich-Cherkassky.

The main task remained the struggle with the Bolsheviks in the center of Russia. Foreign allies hesitated to provide support, they needed assurances of democracy. On April 10 (23), 1919, Denikin and the chairman of the Special Meeting Dragomirov addressed the Allied representatives with a declaration defining the goals of the Volunteer Army. As Denikin admitted, the declaration was largely intended to make a favorable impression on the British Labor Party (Labor). The declaration declared:

1) The destruction of the Bolshevik anarchy and the establishment of a legal order in the country.

2) The restoration of a powerful, united and indivisible Russia.

3) Convocation of the National Assembly on the basis of universal suffrage.

4) Carrying out the decentralization of power by establishing regional autonomy and broad local self-government.

5) Guarantee of full civil liberty and freedom of religion.

6) An immediate start to agrarian reform to eliminate the land needs of the working population.

7) Immediate implementation of labor legislation, ensuring the working classes from their exploitation by the state and capital. "

Denikin himself realized that the course towards the "People's Assembly" without specifying the future form of government was a variant of "non-determination", and thus "little by little a political deadlock was created, from which only the victories of the army could lead." His opponents gave the declaration a more severe assessment. "All these documents did not give anything real, confining themselves to generalities ... All this was as indisputable as it was indefinite," Baron Wrangel believed.

And yet the promises began to bear fruit. The mobilization of peasants took place in the Yekaterinoslav province, in the Crimea. Mobilized officers in these areas (up to 43 years old). The German colonists, known for their discipline, were put under arms almost without exception, from 18 to 46 years old.

The mobilization of peasants into the Volunteer Army eroded its backbone, which had previously displayed "superhuman valor and unattainable heroism." The mobilization of students, which began at the end of April, and of officers had the same (but not so noticeable) consequences. According to the intelligence report of the Soviet command of March 26, 1919, the officers of the Volunteer Army, in terms of their quality and views, were clearly stratified into three groups: combat, mobilized and staff officers. They called the "old volunteers" "soldiers" and believed that "75% of them fell into apathy and felt doomed," felt hatred for the bourgeoisie, which walks, drinks and speculates. The mobilized officers, it was noted, are afraid of the front, "this group is subject to panic, terribly afraid of the arrival of the Bolsheviks." The headquarters unit “is predominantly monarchical and ready, of course, to fight indefinitely. This group causes disgust and anger among the combatant officers. "

In the spring of 1919, the "volunteers", and more broadly the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, became the main anti-Bolshevik force in the South. "Competitors" from Odessa fled. There was no longer any "Russian government" except for the Special Meeting under Denikin in the region. The British supplied the "volunteers" with everything they needed to create a 250,000-strong army, later they provided Denikin with both diplomatic and purely military support, but they did not go to the open recognition of Denikin. Denikin realized that for the Western "democracies" it was necessary for the Russian anti-Bolshevik forces to promise two things: a republic and a federation. “We didn't say these words,” he summed up.

6. HIKING MOSCOW

In May 1919, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia were ready for an offensive. In the parts of the Red Army in the South by that time there was a turning point, the morale fell. The rear of the Red Southern Front was corroded by the uprising of the Cossacks of the Upper Don District. In Ukraine, peasants who were dissatisfied with the surplus appropriation rebelled.

Denikin's blow in the northern direction was strong, the offensive was swift. In southern Ukraine, Denikin's Cossacks, Kuban and Tertsy, marched triumphantly. General Shkuro described the situation in Ukraine as follows: "Music is playing, the Cossacks are singing, spring, sun, love, the multiplication of peoples, and so on."

But the main blow was delivered in the northeastern direction, at the connection with Kolchak.

The allies placed the main burden of the struggle in Russia on Kolchak. With his offensive, he could distract the Bolsheviks, who were rushing to the West, to Europe, to unite with revolutionary Hungary. The second, no less important factor was the “solvency” of Kolchak, who seized part of the Russian gold reserve. On June 12, the Supreme Soviet of the Entente recognized the Kolchak government as the Russian government "de facto".

Denikin, in turn, recognized the supremacy of Kolchak in order to achieve the unification of all white forces, and rushed to join him in the Volga region.

The Caucasian Volunteer Army, the Kuban and Terek Cossacks of General Wrangel, captured Tsaritsyn, which the Donets could not do throughout 1918. The Wrangelites jumped across the Volga and even made contact with the Ural Cossacks in some places. But in June 1919, Kolchak had already suffered a series of defeats and was rolling back to the Urals.

Nevertheless, Denikin's offensive in May-June 1919 ended victoriously, with a complete breakdown of the Bolsheviks' southern front. The war, according to the "volunteers", has entered its last phase. AI Denikin, who arrived in Tsaritsyn, announced a campaign against Moscow. Three armies - the Volunteer, the Don and the Caucasian Volunteer - were to, following the "Moscow directive", move on a broad front to the north. "Volunteers" in Ukraine, Donets - in the Voronezh direction, the Caucasian army - along the Volga to Saratov.

The three armies had (as of August 1, 1919) 107,800 bayonets and 55,550 sabers. The forces were clearly not enough to create a full-fledged front line. Denikinians advanced along the railways and waterways. “Mechanically, large areas of the territory were conquered by the mere fact of occupying the railway - a strategic point; there was no need to knock the enemy out of most places; they were peacefully occupied by police officers and guards. " Such a non-stop movement forward "with a complete lack of reserves and complete disorganization of the rear" was dangerous. Wrangel believed that Denikin's "Moscow Directive" was a death sentence for the armies of southern Russia, since "all the principles of strategy were consigned to oblivion." The commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin, proposed that instead of an attack on Moscow, strengthen the rear and improve the internal structure.

The original plan to create a united Eastern Front with Kolchak has undergone changes. The Bolsheviks pushed Kolchak further and further east. In addition, in the areas of the Volga region and north of the Don region in the Tambov, Saratov, Voronezh provinces, the Denikinites immediately met with serious resistance. Earlier there was a large landowner landholding. Under the Bolsheviks, the peasants "liquidated" the landlords and now feared retribution. The second factor was that the Cossacks who had suffered from "decossackization" behaved in a bad way outside the Don region. Even foreign historians believe: "No troops behaved more brutally during the civil war than the Don Cossacks occupying nonresident villages." Already ten days after the announcement of the "Moscow directive", on July 12, the whites got bogged down. The right-flank Caucasian Volunteer Army, "which took the number of prisoners ten times more than itself," stopped, considering further advance to the north impossible.

The "volunteers" who were betting on a national upsurge against the "non-national government" of the Bolsheviks faced class opposition.

In July, Denikin stopped expecting real support from Kolchak and, taking into account the mood of the population in the Volga region, shifted the whole burden of the struggle to the left, western flank of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, expecting to find sympathy of the population and possible allies here. Purely strategic issues faded into the background. "The prevailing influence was political position, which was a powerful weapon of strategy, but at the same time dominated its dictates," Denikin wrote. There was no other way in the civil war. Trotsky, heading the military department of the hostile camp, followed the same path: “... My strategic position was determined by the political and economic, and not purely strategic point of view. It must be said, however, that the questions of the grand strategy cannot be resolved otherwise. "

The retreating Kolchak, in order to ensure greater independence of Denikin, appointed him as his deputy, and then the supreme ruler and governor of the South of Russia.

By this time, the system of civil administration in the occupied territories was finally established, and an apparatus was created. In his memoirs, Denikin wrote that he selected the top of the apparatus on the basis of business, not political, but there were restrictions - he did not take on the extreme right and did not take on socialists, although he was offered "harmless socialists" as "ministers without a portfolio." Local governance was much worse. In the occupied areas “there was no organized apparatus at hand. For the prolonged domination of the Reds, the overwhelming part of the local intellectual forces was destroyed, everything had to be created anew. " Added to the lack of personnel was a lack of desire to work. Denikin reproached the intelligentsia for being engaged in politics and "awakening", and not in daily work. On the whole, in the opinion of the famous monarchist V.V. Shulgin, "Russian squalor has emerged in civil administration, before which thought is numb and hands are lowered ..."

The main reason for the inability of civilian power was a kind of element. "The point is not in the right or left politics," Denikin believed, "but in the fact that we did not cope with the rear." The "White Idea" and the "White Movement" were doomed in advance, since the very "top of society", decaying, incapable of anything, had already clung to them and swallowed all healthy, ideological elements. “There is no peace of mind,” Denikin wrote to his wife. - Every day - a picture of thefts, robberies, violence throughout the territory of the Armed Forces. The Russian people have fallen so low from top to bottom that I do not know when they will be able to rise from the mud. I don't see any help in this matter. In impotent rage, I promise hard labor and hanging ... "

Denikin himself "eked out a half-beggarly existence", he was able to put his wardrobe in order only by the beginning of the summer of 1919, when English uniforms arrived. Salaries in the Volunteer Army were scanty, and members of the White movement were placed "between heroic starvation and monetary abuse." Denikin tried to influence by personal example, Wrangel “publicly hanged robbers in his army with noise and bangs,” but in general “there was no minimum order in the country. The weak government did not know how to force itself to obey ... The concept of legality was completely absent ...

Theft and bribery have penetrated deeply into all branches of government. " Looting has become widespread. “I don’t even want to talk about the troops formed from the highlanders of the Caucasus,” Denikin wrote. They robbed the Cossack units. Robbery for them, according to Denikin, was a "historical tradition." The Cossacks of General Mamontov, who went into a deep raid to the north, especially distinguished themselves. Mamontov, being a non-Cossack by origin, was deeply imbued with the romance of "hikes for zipuns." The wagons of his corps were bursting with good, the Kalmyk regiments flaunted the fact that they sprayed their horses with perfume. Coming out of the raid without loss, the corps was dispersed, as the Cossacks wanted to deliver the loot to their homes.

But the Cossacks, with their separatist or autonomist self-awareness, plundered the Great Russian and Ukrainian territory and brought “even factory machines” to the Don, that is, fighting for the Don (Kuban, Terek), did not forget to collect in favor of their newly formed state, but the “volunteers” who were fighting for "One and Indivisible", they practically robbed their own, robbed themselves. In the army, “it was extremely rare that there were those who had firm morals and did not participate in this,” recalled the participants in the white movement. However, "the same population, who suffered from robbery, themselves robbed with rapture."

An attempt to establish its economic base in the South of Russia ran into the customs barriers of the Don, Kuban, Terek, which even influenced the supply of troops at the front. Private firms clashed with government regulators. Sometimes the establishment of production was hampered by open sabotage of foreign firms.

The terrible devaluation (the pound sterling was equated to 217 rubles 40 kopecks "Nikolaev", 498 rubles 60 kopecks "Kerensky" and 544 rubles "Don") made it possible to obtain weapons and equipment only through the exchange of goods. The export of coal, raw materials, grain in exchange for weapons intended to "pacify" their own people discredited Denikin in the eyes of the broadest masses, but there was no other way.

The growth of the power and influence of big capital, built on an unprecedented flourishing of speculation ("normal" capitalists fled from Russia and transferred their capital at the beginning of the revolution, and many on the eve of it), began to displease the army. Ultimately, the opposition between the "front" and the "rear" appeared. Combat General Golubintsev later wrote: “Our goals - the soldiers at the front - were different from the goals of the rear crooks and demagogues; they were afraid of the successes of the white armies. "

The agrarian question became the cornerstone. According to their contemporaries, the peasants wanted to hear from Denikin “a word that secures their land allotment and forgives all past sins. But they did not hear this word. " Under pressure from the landowners who joined the "volunteers", the "Law on the harvest of 1919" was drawn up, according to which 1/3 of the bread, 1/2 herbs and 1/6 of the vegetables collected by the peasants on the former landowners' lands were donated to the returned landowners. In the summer, this opposed Denikin with the peasant masses of the Saratov, Voronezh and Tambov provinces, in the fall - the masses of the peasants of Northern Ukraine, where there used to be many landlord estates.

“Everything depends on how the land issue is resolved,” many politicians predicted quite rightly. The retreating Kolchak helped Denikin as best he could, taking responsibility. In a telegram dated October 23 (November 5), he proposed "to protect the actual transfer of land into the hands of the peasants as much as possible ... I think that a reference to the directives received from me could protect you from the claims and advice of interested circles." But, as Denikin believed, the whole situation was not conducive to the agrarian reform, "there were no ideologists or executors." As a result, "volunteer" reports from the Kiev province reported that before the peasants were waiting for the Volunteer Army, they were "completely on its side", now the attitude is indifferent, soon will be hostile.

Having come to Ukraine, he issued an appeal "To the population of Little Russia", where he indicated that the separation of Ukraine from Russia was the result of German intrigues, starting in 1914. The Ukrainian leader Petliura was declared a German protege. His troops, which approached Kiev at the same time as the "volunteers", were driven out of the city by Denikin's Cossacks. The Ukrainians were promised the organization of a peaceful life on the basis of "self-government and decentralization, with indispensable respect for the vital features of local life." Russian was declared the state language, but the Little Russian language was forbidden to be persecuted and it was allowed to study it in private schools. In addition, the Ukrainians were "honored to become the support and source of the army."

In Ukraine, Denikin had to face the Jewish question more acutely than anywhere else. There, the wave of anti-Semitism "manifested itself brightly, passionately and with conviction, - at the top and bottom, among the intelligentsia, among the people, and in the army: among the Petliurists, rebels, Makhnovists, Red Army men, greens and whites ..." - eyewitnesses recalled. Bernard Lukasz calculated that three quarters of the Jewish pogroms that took place in Russia during the civil war were in Ukraine. 226 times pogroms were organized by "volunteers", 211 - by Petliura, 47 - by Poles, 47 - by Bulak-Balakhovich's detachments, 989 - by others, "but some of them worked at the expense of Petliura." In total, about 300 thousand Jews died. If among the Petliurites pogroms became something of a state policy, and the sechests, having cut out the Jews, “left in marching order with deployed ensigns and brass music,” the leaders of Dobrovoliya, the Bolsheviks, and even Makhno tried to suppress such sentiments (which did not prevent ordinary the Makhnovists to deal with the Jews "on a common basis").

Most of the "volunteers" identified Jews with the Bolsheviks, and when the Bolsheviks took hostages, the "volunteers", for their part, also took Jews hostage. But in general, the attitude towards the Jews was softer than the "gangs" were towards the latter, and the Jews often sought protection from the "bandits" from the "volunteers". Denikin himself believed: "If only the troops had the slightest reason to believe that the higher authorities approve of the pogroms, then the fate of the Jewry of Southern Russia would be incomparably more tragic."

And one more national problem arose before Denikin. To gain weight in the international arena, he acted as a unifier of the Slavic peoples (against the German threat). Many nation states, formed on the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slavic in their ethnic composition, looked with hope at Russia, that is, at the same Denikin. And since the Slavic peoples were in the zone of close attention of France, the Denikinites, despite their past conflicts with the French, had to go into closer contact with them, especially since the anti-German basis of the unification of the Slavs suited the French (but alarmed the British).

The idea of \u200b\u200buniting the Slavs began to bear fruit. On October 20, 1919, the Serbian diplomatic representative Nenadich arrived at Denikin's headquarters. Earlier, the quarters of Zivkovic's Serbian division visited the zone controlled by the "volunteers", causing concern among the Romanians.

On September 3, in order to coordinate the actions, a connection was established between the French-Polish mission and the "volunteers". On September 13, a Polish mission headed by General Karnitsky arrived in Taganrog. Denikin, himself a Pole by his mother, during the meeting spoke about "two fraternal Slavic peoples", about "new relationships based on the identity of state interests and on the community of external opposing forces" (referring to the same German danger). During the negotiations with the “Slavic brothers”, the question of Ukraine became one of the main issues. Poles about ukrainian nationalists spoke dismissively: "Politically, they do not exist for us."

The question of Ukraine came up again when in October came to the South of Russia ex-president Czechoslovakia Kramarzh. Kramarzh said: "Ukraine's independence would harm all Slavs," but reassured Denikin: "I know that the French government will never recognize an independent Ukraine." As a result, Denikin, meeting with representatives of the French mission, said: "All misunderstandings with France have been completely settled."

But the relationship with the "brothers-Slavs" failed. Since July 1919, Polish-Soviet negotiations were held in Bialowieza. Then a conference of the Russian (Soviet) and Polish Red Cross began. It ran from October to December 1919. In parallel with the conference, the Bolshevik J. Markhlevsky conducted informal negotiations with representatives of Piłsudski. At the same time, the "volunteers" come into contact with the troops of the West Ukrainian People's Republic (Galicia), which are conducting military operations against the Poles for Eastern Galicia. A tangle of new contradictions is tied up.

Since the middle of 1919, Poles more and more often begin to remember about Poland during the time of King Stanislav Poniatowski, about the "Commonwealth from sea to sea", about the border of 1772, which passed along the Dnieper. The Polish command begins to probe the attitude of both the Denikinites and the Bolsheviks to this issue. Denikin's representative, General Shcherbachev, reported from Paris that the Poles were ready to fight the Bolsheviks, but "the ethnographic border did not satisfy them, and they wanted to know now what compensation could be given to Poland." Denikin could not make concessions on Ukrainian territory to the Poles. The Bolsheviks were temporarily satisfied with the current situation in Ukraine and did not claim the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands occupied by the Poles. This, apparently, became one of the most important decision-making factors. The Poles decided to behave in such a way as to "prevent the victory of reaction in Russia." Along the entire line of the Soviet-Polish front, hostilities were suspended, and the Bolsheviks withdrew units in order to transfer them against Denikin.

Denikin saw one of the reasons in the personal relationship to him of the Polish envoy, General Karnitsky, with whom he had a conflict while serving in the old Russian army. Karnitsky allegedly “in his reports to his superiors used every effort to present in the darkest and most false light the white Russian armies, our policy and our attitude towards the reviving Poland. And so he contributed to the betrayal of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia by Pilsudski, who then secretly from me and the allied Western powers concluded an agreement with the Bolsheviks.

The case seemed to be more complicated. “United and Indivisible Russia” was interpreted by many in different ways, and the memory was fresh that until 1915 Warsaw was actually a Russian city. As Churchill later explained the situation, "the Poles, who prepared the largest and most powerful army in the war with the Soviets, saw that they would have to defend themselves against Denikin on the second day after the general victory."

Thus, by the time of the decisive battles in Central Russia and in the north of Ukraine, when the Bolsheviks were ready to make a temporary alliance with anyone, just to stop Denikin, when the Soviet government was already preparing foreign passports and a reserve of valuables, when the Bolsheviks removed everything they could , from the Polish and Kolchak fronts and threw against the Denikinites, Denikin himself found himself in a hostile or neutral environment of small state formations, among the hostile "volunteers" of the Central Russian peasant element. On top of that, the ubiquitous Makhno broke through the Denikin front and went along the rear towards the Black Sea. "Batko" was in a hurry to his native Gulyai-Pole, but at the same time, he was inexorably approaching Denikin's headquarters - Taganrog. Denikin was forced to keep 45 thousand soldiers in the rear to resist the "gangs" and suppress the uprisings. The army has become "not the same". "Rear" decomposed and decomposed "everyone and everything." The whole of Rostov-on-Don wore English greatcoats, and the soldiers and officers in the positions were wearing old Russians, those that they had since World War II.

The most severe blow in the back was the betrayal of a part of the Cossack elite.

The Cossacks were the only mass force supporting Denikin. They dealt a series of terrible blows to the Bolsheviks. One Don army from May to October 1919 took 75 guns, 600 machine guns and 65 thousand prisoners. But the forces of the Cossacks were broken by the war, which was initially waged for destruction. The commander of the Bolshevik front believed: "The plan of the campaign was based on the destruction of enemy manpower and, perhaps, also on the capture of grain-growing areas of the Don region." Epidemics of typhus and Spanish flu hit the villages destroyed by the war. “And the cemetery's melancholy blows from the village,” eyewitnesses wrote and stated: “... Indifference to life and death. From the mass of troubles - spiritual paralysis. "

At the same time, the Cossack elite, especially the Ukrainian-speaking "Black Sea" people, began to show alarm if Denikin would encroach upon Cossack privileges and Cossack statehood in case of victory. Back in the summer, in the Don and Kuban, the "self-styled" tried to assemble a conference and create a single union Cossack state from the Don, Kuban and Terek.

In the midst of negotiations, the leader of the "Black Sea" Ryabovol was killed in Rostov by an unknown in an officer's uniform. The Kubans in revenge closed all Denikin newspapers in Yekaterinodar, although the involvement of Denikin in the murder was never proven, while later it became known that the Russian Parisian emigration, “representing” Russia at the peace conference, instructed B.V. Savinkov to “influence "On Ryabovol, so that he does not interfere with the restoration of" United and Indivisible Russia. " How the well-known terrorist could have "influenced" needs no comment.

The Kuban delegation in Paris roamed from reception to reception, asked the League of Nations to recognize the Kuban as an independent state by the world community, and in July 1919, the Kuban people signed an agreement with the Mejlis of the Mountain Peoples on friendship and mutual assistance.

The culmination of this activity was the appeal of the foreign Kuban delegation to the Bolsheviks. On November 6, 1919, the Politburo of the Bolshevik Party considered the proposals for peace made to the Soviet government through the French socialist F. Loriot by representatives of the Don and Kuban Cossack governments. The Bolsheviks decided to start negotiations with the aim of wasting time and decomposing the Cossack troops.

In early November, another political crisis broke out in the Kuban. The "Chernomorets" went over to active actions and began to crowd out the "lineists", Denikin's supporters. At this time, Denikin, who, in all likelihood, became aware of the negotiations between the Cossack representatives in Paris with the Bolsheviks, struck a blow. He allegedly learned from a Georgian newspaper that in July the Kuban delegation signed an agreement with the Mejlis. Since the "Mejlis", although it fled, was at war with Denikin's people and directly with the Terek Cossacks, Denikin accused the Kuban delegation of treason and betrayal of the Terets. One of the members of the Parisian delegation, Kalabukhov, was demanded to be extradited and tried by a military court.

The Kuban Rada got worried, deprived the delegation of its powers, but did not want to extradite Kalabukhova. In the current confrontation, Generals Wrangel and Pokrovsky used military force, arrested Kalabukhov and the top of the "Black Sea". Kalabukhov was tried and hanged in Yekaterinodar on the square "for treason to Mother Russia."

Unfortunately, the executed turned out to be not only a deputy of the Rada, but also a priest. Stunned by this execution, the Kubans began to throw the front in echelons ...

7. DEFEAT

In October-November 1919, the decisive battles on the Southern Front just began. The best parts of the Bolsheviks, drawn from all directions, go over to the offensive. The extended Denikin front began to crack. The Donets were drained of blood. At the beginning of December, they had 200 checkers in their regiments, in the Kuban units, embraced by desertion after the well-known events - from 59 to 99 checkers per regiment.

At the beginning of the winter of 1919/20, the turning point was clearly marked. Denikin's army swiftly rolled south.

On December 12, 1919, a meeting of the Entente prime ministers in London stated that Kolchak and Denikin were defeated, and decided to “strengthen Poland as a barrier against Russia”. Henceforth, the stake was placed on the "cordon sanitaire" - a belt of small states around Soviet Russia. However, the British were not going to let go of the force, which could become a barrier between the RSFSR and the Transcaucasia they needed.

The main cadre core of the Volunteer Army again withdrew to the territory of the Don and was reduced in size to the level of the spring of 1918. In December there were only 2-3 thousand "volunteers" near Rostov. The army was brought to the Volunteer Corps. After picking up all the stragglers and pouring in the rear teams, they put in operation 8,398 fighters with 158 guns.

The main burden of waging the war again fell on the Cossack units, which, especially the Don people, were terribly overworked. The Cossacks left the Ukraine in a rather miserable state. A rather strong opposition was formed against Denikin even on the Don. The chief of staff of the Don Army, General Kelchevsky, demanded the removal of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. There were rumors that Kelchevsky wanted to surrender the Don army, "to get surrounded."

Some of the military leaders knew about these sentiments and advised Denikin to retreat to the Crimea or Odessa. “I cannot leave the Cossacks,” Denikin replied. "I will be accused of treason for this." And the British insisted on a retreat to the Don and the North Caucasus - the Bolsheviks marched through the mining villages of Donbass and quite quickly and unexpectedly found themselves near Rostov and Novocherkassk. An even less expected thaw set in. The Don opened up, the ice was gone. Donets, not daring to give a general battle, having a water barrier in the rear, after a short resistance, went beyond the river, surrendered both Rostov and Novocherkassk. An irreparable blow was dealt to the Cossack movement.

9/10 of the manpower of the White Guards leaving for the Don stuck to the carts, leaving their units. The day after the crossing, the Don army had 7,266 bayonets and 11,098 sabers, the "volunteers" had 3,383 bayonets and 1,348 sabers, the Kuban-Tersk corps, temporarily consolidated into a brigade, had 1,580 sabers. However, three days later, by January 1 (14), 1920, the Don army doubled and consisted of 36,470 fighters with 147 guns and 605 machine guns. The Don became depopulated, the Cossacks were afraid to stay there, they were afraid of the Bolsheviks, and the Cossacks rushed to catch up with their units. On the other hand, the Kuban and Tertsy people rolled uncontrollably home. The collapse in their parts was complete.

But not all was lost. The commander-in-chief of the Red Army S. S. Kamenev complained that it was not possible to completely cut off the "volunteers" from the Cossacks, that the Don people retained their combat capability, and after the capture of Rostov between the thinned parts of the Red Army and the Center "a gap of 400 miles was formed." In early February, the Soviet military command reported: "Our advance without significant reinforcements and reorganization could end in disaster, since in the event of a withdrawal we will have impassable flooded rivers in the rear ..." On February 9, 1920, Army Commander G. Ya. Sokolnikov reported from Rostov that "the old fighters were replaced by local mobilized and prisoners, there are no reinforcements ..." The main command of the Red Army considered the situation "extremely difficult and even more."

The Bolsheviks began to persistently offer the Cossacks to go over to the side of the Red Army, promised not to touch either them or their land. The Soviet government began negotiations with Georgia on joint actions against Denikin.

The British saw Denikin's weakness and, interested in preserving a buffer between Russia and the Transcaucasus, made a bet on the Cossack states. On Christmas Day, Wrangel drew Denikin's attention: "There is reason to think that the British sympathize with the creation of a common government, seeing this as an opportunity to resolve the Georgian and Azerbaijani issues, in which we have taken an irreconcilable position until now." Wrangel proposed to transfer the main forces of the "volunteers" to the west and, together with the Poles, create a united front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. All this meant a reorientation towards the French.

Denikin tried to seize the initiative from the British and the Cossack "self-appointed". He dissolved the Special Meeting and formed a new government headed by the Don Ataman Bogaevsky, although General Lukomsky played the leading role in the government. Both Bogaevsky and Lukomsky were people whom Denikin trusted. At the same time, at the suggestion of the British General McKinder, they recognized the existence of the "border governments" of Georgia and Azerbaijan. However, these changes failed to avoid friction within the Denikin camp.

The recovered Cossack public figures gathered on January 5 (18), 1920, the Supreme Circle of the Don, Kuban and Terek and began to challenge Denikin's power.

At this time, the Soviet command shifted the direction of the main attack to Manych and threw the entire strategic cavalry of Budyonny and Dumenko to break through the white front. The mass of the cowardly, spreading panic to the rear, fled to Yekaterinodar and Novorossiysk. But the Don army resisted. In fierce battles, the Don cavalry beat the red cavalry, corps commander Pavlov asked for reserves to pursue the Reds, and it became possible for the whites to go on the offensive. In order to rally their forces and accelerate the approach to the front of the Kuban formations, the Denikinites and the Don command tried to move closer to the Supreme Circle. Denikin spoke at the Circle with a conciliatory program, invited the Cossack representatives to join his government (which Bogaevsky had already done). In case of refusal, he threatened to leave with the "volunteers" and part of the commanders, and then "the entire front would collapse."

Even the chairman of the “Chernomorets” Circle Timoshenko fell under the spell of Denikin’s speech and replied that the Kuban did not think of itself as completely separate from Russia, and Denikin’s departure was “the death of the Cossacks”. But the rank and file of the Circle was not imbued with Denikin's ideas. “Whatever Denikin said, they did not believe him,” an eyewitness recalled.

The agreement was nevertheless reached. As Denikin believed, "both sides came to an agreement under the pressure of the situation, without much joy and without great hopes." Denikin chose from the candidates proposed to him the head of the new South Russian government, he was the Don Cossack N.M. Melnikov, a consistent supporter of Kaledin.

Denikin's entourage, the Cadet party, did not believe in the strength of the union and believed: “If there is a military victory, Denikin will throw off all this nonsense and there will be changes. If not, then Denikin will die. "

The Don command, calmed by the agreement between Denikin and Krug, began to prepare an offensive on Novocherkassk, and the Volunteer Corps was to attack Rostov. They decided to start the offensive when the new Kuban army was concentrated, advancing on the Grand Duke. However, the Kuban people "held a meeting and discussed under what slogans to fight."

At the beginning of February, the new command of the Reds (M. Tukhachevsky) shifted the direction of the main attack against the Kubans and transferred the 1st Cavalry Army of S.M.Budyonny to the junction of the Don and Kuban armies.

The Don command, in agreement with the corps commanders, decided: "In view of the unhealthy, semi-Bolshevik mood in the Kuban, let the Kubans experience the delights of the Soviet paradise, and themselves, in spite of Budyonny acting in the rear, move in the most decisive way to the north." This plan was already being carried out, but Denikin himself categorically opposed it. Soviet military experts noted that at that moment "the enemy's lower classes were ready to give a decisive battle, but the upper classes did not dare."

On February 14, fighting began on the front of the Kuban army, and the Don command sent a mobile reserve, the best Mammoth cavalry and the cavalry of the Upper Don rebels to help the Kuban people, instead of throwing these forces on Novocherkassk or Rostov. The Donets had to move their troops along diverging lines - to the north and to the southeast.

The situation in the Kuban at this time aggravated on February 18, N.M. Melnikov presented Denikin with a list of the new government, these were "reliable Russian people", supporters of United and Indivisible Russia. Immediately clashes began between the South Russian and Kuban governments, the Kubans did not recognize the "South Russian power" on their territory.

On February 16, the Reds knocked out the Kuban units from Torgovaya, the Don people, caught in a snow storm in the Manych steppe, did not have time to help the Kuban people. General Pavlov lost a quarter of his cavalry frostbitten and was unable to recapture the Trade. On February 19, the Donets and the "volunteers" went on the offensive on Rostov and Novocherkassk, on the 20th and 21st the whites occupied Rostov, where they captured huge trophies. However, on February 22, Budyonny's cavalry utterly defeated the Kuban units. "After this battle, the Kuban army as an organized force ceased to exist," Soviet military experts believed. The Kubans fled to their territory, followed by the Reds on February 24.

Fearing encirclement, the Donets and the "volunteers" retreated from Rostov. The cavalry of Budyonny, who had defeated the Kuban troops, hurried to cut them. Near the village of Yegorlykskaya, the greatest cavalry battle of the entire war broke out, which ended in a draw, but the whites had already "lost their heart" and began to leave for the Kuban.

A sad fate befell the "volunteers" in Ukraine. Some of them, under the command of the eccentric General Slashchev, went to the Crimea, where Slashchev got out of Denikin's command, some were pressed against the Dniester and surrendered to the Bolsheviks (13 thousand prisoners, 342 guns, 560 machine guns).

Disappointed in Denikin's ability to protect the Cossack regions from the Bolsheviks, the Supreme Circle on March 9 raised the issue of breaking with him. At the same time, fearing complete confusion and wanting to maintain a unified command, the Circle offered the commander of the Don army, General Sidorin, the post of commander-in-chief of the Don-Kuban-Tersk army. Sidorin replied: "I gave my word to General Denikin and I will not betray him." Sidorin, the commander of the largest army in the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, tried several times to turn the tide of events in his favor. At Tikhoretskaya, Berezanskaya and Korenovskaya, he threw the Don cavalry into battle, but the Don people, left without the support of the Kuban and even "volunteers" who left their combat positions and rushed to Novorossiysk, fought badly. Donets "did not have enough heart", Sidorin himself was almost captured.

On March 16, the Supreme Circle decided to withdraw the Cossack troops from the subordination of Denikin in operational terms, on the 17th the red cavalry, replenished by the surrendered Kuban, broke into Yekaterinodar, and the Supreme Circle fled for the Kuban. While the question "hung", the Kuban generals Naumenko, Toporkov, Pisarev, Babiyev declared that they would only obey Denikin, after which they left the fortified line of the Kuban. In response, the “self-styledists” intensified their agitation. They openly said that the war was lost, that we must put up with the Bolsheviks.

On March 19, by the decision of the Supreme Circle, the atamans and governments of the Cossack regions were released from all obligations regarding the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, the troops were withdrawn from subordination to Denikin, it was supposed to immediately start organizing the defense of the region without "volunteers" and creating a new "allied" government. But the Kuban and Don generals continued to obey Denikin and dragged along the troops that had preserved the formation.

The Georgian government refused to let the white troops pressed against the Caucasus Mountains into Georgia, and they found themselves in a hopeless situation. It remained to take them out to the Crimea, poor in resources.

9 thousand "volunteers", 20 thousand Kubans and 50 thousand Donets left for the ports of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. The first “volunteers” who entered Novorossiysk lost discipline and organized rallies. Panic and an atmosphere painful for the troops were created by thousands of people who "stuck" to the movement, made millions and were now striving to find themselves in a safe place as soon as possible. The "Volunteers" ordered ships for 17,000 people and loaded everything they could ("parallel bars and broken tables"). The Kubans were given 500 places, the Don people - 4 thousand.

Crowded with troops, Novorossiysk could defend itself, and the steamers would return for the Cossacks once more, but this did not happen. A significant part of the Cossacks was deliberately left on the coast, so that, willy-nilly, they switched to partisan struggle. Don General T.M.Starikov later complained that Denikin had abandoned all the Don cavalry in Novorossiysk. But the Cossacks did not start a partisan war. The Kubans openly went over to the Bolsheviks, the 1st Kuban Division, almost in full force, went over to the side of the Reds and was the first to break into Novorossiysk, where 22 thousand people surrendered to the Bolsheviks, mostly from the Don.

In the city itself, more than one tragedy broke out. General Sidorin was ready to shoot at Denikin, and the situation was defused only by the approach of several more ships, on which several thousand Don Cossacks were put.

“... The heart is infinitely painful: huge reserves, all artillery, all horse personnel have been thrown. The army has been drained of blood ... ”- Denikin wrote to his wife from Crimea.

By April 1920, the main forces of the "volunteers", 1/4 of the Don army, the volunteer command, the Don command and the atamans of the Cossack troops were in Crimea, while the Kuban army, part of the Don, the Kuban command and the Kuban government remained on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.

Together with the departure to the Crimea, the question arose about the stay at the head of the movement of Denikin himself. Part of the "public" - Bishop Benjamin, a group of senators headed by Glinka - negotiated with General Slashchev, who defended the Crimea. It was pointed out that "Denikin is discredited, that he is morally broken, and Wrangel must take his place." As eyewitnesses recalled, Denikin “was completely discouraged and fit for nothing; his name was pronounced with curses. "

On March 29 in Feodosia, at a meeting of a narrow circle of generals (Pokrovsky, Sidorin, Borovsky and Yuzefovich), Borovsky, on behalf of Slashchev, expressed the opinion that Denikin should leave. All agreed.

On April 1, Denikin learned from the commander of the Volunteer Corps, Kutepov, that the Volunteer Corps did not believe him, Denikin, as it had until now. On April 2, Denikin prepared an order for all military leaders to gather at the Military Council in Sevastopol on April 4 "to elect a successor to the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia." General Wrangel, recently expelled from the army, was summoned to the council by a special telegram.

“My decision is irrevocable. I weighed everything and thought it over. I am physically ill and mentally broken; the army has lost faith in the leader, I have lost faith in the army, ”Denikin said to his new chief of staff, General Makhrov, passing the order for dispatch.

Denikin sent a letter to the Chairman of the Military Council, General Dragomirov, Denikin: “For three years of Russian turmoil, I fought the struggle, giving it all my strength and bearing power like a heavy cross sent down by fate.

God did not bless the troops that I foreseen with success. And although I have not lost faith in the viability of the army and in its historical vocation, the internal connection between the leader and the army has been broken, and I am no longer able to lead it.

I will change the Military Council to elect a worthy one, to whom I will successively transfer power and command. "

The council of war met in Sevastopol, Denikin remained in Feodosia. The chiefs of the "volunteer divisions - the Drozdovites, Kornilovites, Markovites and Alekseevites insisted on keeping Denikin at the POWER, General Kutepov later wrote:" I was EXTREMELY aware that no one could replace General Denikin, therefore I believed that our case was lost. " So, apparently, other "volunteers" also thought.

The meeting on the elections was disrupted by General Slashchev, who demanded that Denikin appoint a successor by order, rather than pass the issue to zero. General Sidorin, the Don commander, also refused to give any "advice", arguing that the Don command is very weakly represented: from the Don army - 6 people, and from the Volunteer Corps - 30.

Dragomirov notified Denikin about this and asked him to come to Sevastopol and head the Military Council. Denikin insisted on his decision.

At this time, General Wrangel arrived in the Crimea from Constantinople. The British representative provided him with the destroyer "Emperor of India" for this purpose. With Wrangel, the British command sent a note to Denikin to begin negotiations with the Bolsheviks on the surrender of the White Army under the terms of an amnesty, the British took on mediation, otherwise they refused to help.

Naturally, having left for the Crimea, the "volunteers" moved from the English "zone" to the French. Any relationship with them has lost any meaning for the British. The French, dissatisfied with Denikin's previous overly independent behavior, waited. There was no one to hope for.

New circumstances forced the Military Council to stop at the candidacy of General Wrangel. The council feared that the election of the high command could create a bad precedent in the army, and turned to Denikin with a request that he appoint Wrangel by his order. Everyone knew that the relationship between Denikin and Wrangel was very complicated, and they did not hope much. But Denikin gave the following order: “Lieutenant General Baron Wrangel is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia.

To all who walked honestly with me in a difficult struggle, - a deep bow. Lord, grant victory to the army and save Russia. "

The expanded Council of War (up to the regimental commanders) saw that the case was lost. Wrangel was approved as commander-in-chief so that he "through communication with the allies would achieve immunity to all persons who fought against the Bolsheviks." And Wrangel asked the British command for two months "to settle matters" ...

On the evening of April 4, Denikin left Russia on the same destroyer "Emperor of India". About his last day at home, he left a short note: “A painful farewell to my closest employees at Headquarters and the officers of the convoy. Then he went downstairs - to the premises of a security officer company, which consisted of old volunteers, most of them wounded in battles; with many of them I was connected by the memory of the painful days of the first campaigns. They are agitated, muffled sobs are heard ... Deep excitement seized me too: a heavy lump, rising to my throat, prevented my speaking. They ask why?

Now it is difficult to talk about it, someday you will learn and understand ...

We went with General Romanovsky to the English mission, from there together with Holman to the pier. Honor guards and representatives of foreign missions. A short goodbye. We switched to an English destroyer ...

It was already night when we went out to sea. Only bright lights, which covered the darkness, marked the shore of the abandoned Russian land. Fade and fade.

Russia, my Motherland ... "

8. In emigration

From the moment of his departure from Crimea, Denikin was considered a guest of the British government and was under the patronage of England.

In Constantinople, in the building of the Russian embassy, \u200b\u200bhis wife, her relatives, daughter, two children of L. G. Kornilov were waiting for him. All these people huddled in two rooms. When Denikin and General Romanovsky, who was accompanying him, arrived at the embassy building, General Romanovsky was killed by an unknown person in an officer's uniform.

The next day after the funeral service, the shocked Denikin departed with his family for England on the battleship Marlborough.

In mid-April he arrived in London and, declaring himself a "private person", began to look for a secluded place away from London. It turned out that his personal capital, translated into English currency, is only 13 pounds sterling. He still walked in military uniform, in a military raincoat without shoulder straps, only put on a checkered cap on his head.

They found a place for him in Eastbourne, but he did not live there for long. The British began to establish trade relations with Russia. Lord Curzon, in a note sent to Moscow, wrote that it was he who persuaded Denikin to "give up the fight" with the Bolsheviks and that Denikin "in the end followed this advice." And I. Denikin wrote a refutation, in which he emphasized: “As before, so now I consider an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks inevitable and necessary until their complete defeat. Otherwise, not only Russia, but the whole of Europe will turn to ruins. "

From England, the Denikin family moved to Belgium, where Anton Ivanovich sat down to work begun in England to write his memoirs. "Essays on Russian Troubles" he called them.

From Belgium, in search of a cheaper life, the family moved to Hungary (1922). In Hungary, he mainly wrote his huge five-volume work.

It was restless in Europe. The Russian emigration dreamed of revenge, of a new campaign against the Bolsheviks. After writing his historical research on the resolution and the civil war in Russia, A. I. Denikin again reached out to the people and moved from Hungary to France. And here he no longer met with the military men, but with writers, with Bunin, with Kuprin, with Balmont. From essays on the revolution and the civil war, he moved on to essays on the old Russian army.

In the early 30s, the books written were sold out, royalties dried up, the family was again in poverty. Life itself pushed A.I. Denikin into politics, but he continued to evade open participation in any organizations.

With Hitler's rise to power in Germany, many hoped for a renewed war in order to use it to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in Russia. A. I. Denikin warned: “Do not cling to the specter of intervention, do not believe in a crusade against the Bolsheviks, because simultaneously with the suppression of communism in Germany, the question is not about suppressing Bolshevism in Russia, but about Hitler’s“ eastern program ”, who only dreams about the capture of the South of Russia for German colonization. In the event of a German attack on the Soviet Union, Denikin called on the emigration to oppose Germany and Hitler.

When Germany defeated France, Denikin, not wanting to be in the zone of German occupation, went to the south of France to Mimizan, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, where he lived until 1945. The Germans still occupied this territory. They did not touch Denikin, but offered to leave for Germany and continue to study there. scientific research... Denikin refused. His biographer D. Lekhovich writes that Anton Ivanovich was painfully worried german occupation, immediately aged and lost 25 kilograms of weight. He worried even more when Germany attacked the Soviet Union. He hated the Bolsheviks, but his soul ached for Russia. And when the Red Army drove the Germans from their native land, Denikin was happy.

Among other things, Denikin and his wife translated into Russian and disseminated among the Russian emigration the most outspoken speeches of German ideologists.

All this time Denikin worked on the book The Way of the Russian Officer, where he described his life before the 1917 revolution. And ... he continued to meet with the Russians. The Germans decided to occupy the entire coast with troops consisting of prisoners of the Red Army, "Vlasov". One of the battalions was stationed near the Denikins' dwelling. Once Denikin was asked:

Tell me, General, why don't you go to the service of the Germans? After all, here is General Krasnov ...

Excuse me, I will answer you: General Denikin served and is serving only Russia. He has not served a foreign state and cannot serve, - was the general's answer.

Denikin survived the German occupation. Rejoiced at the overall victory over the enemy. But the surrender of Russian soldiers, who donned German uniforms and then surrendered to the Americans and British, deeply hurt him. In 1945, Denikin went to America to seek the abolition of such extradition there, the abolition of the forcible return of people to the Soviet Union.

In the United States, he tried to achieve his goal, but did not meet with understanding either at the top or in the American press, which quite unexpectedly accused him of conniving at Jewish pogroms.

He died of a heart attack on August 7, 1947 and is buried in Detroit. At the funeral american army gave him military honors in memory of his participation in the First World War.

# military history # history # army history

Commander-in-chief The armed forces South of Russia during the Civil War. Russian Lieutenant General.

Anton Ivanovich Denikin was born into the family of a retired border guard major, a former serf peasant in the Saratov province, who was given up as a soldier by a landowner and who participated in three military campaigns. Denikin Sr. rose to the rank of officer - an army ensign, then became a Russian border guard (guard) in the Kingdom of Poland, retiring at the age of 62. There, the retired major's son Anton was born. At the age of 12, he was left without a father, and his mother, with great difficulty, managed to give him an education in the full volume of a real school.

After his graduation, Anton Denikin first entered a rifle regiment as a volunteer, and in the fall of 1890 - in the Kiev infantry cadet school, which he graduated two years later. He began his officer service with the rank of second lieutenant of an artillery brigade not far from Warsaw. In 1895, Denikin entered the Academy of the General Staff, but studied there surprisingly poorly, being the last in graduation who had the right to be enrolled in the General Staff corps.

After the academy, he commanded a company, battalion, served in the headquarters of the infantry and cavalry divisions. At the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Denikin asked to be transferred to the Far East. There he consistently served in staff positions in the brigade of the Zaamur border guard, the Trans-Baikal Cossack division, famous for his forays into the Japanese rear of the cavalry detachment of General Mishchenko. For differences in battles with the Japanese, he was promoted to colonel ahead of schedule and appointed chief of staff of the Ural-Transbaikal Cossack Division.

After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, Colonel A.I. Denikin served as chief of staff of the reserve brigade, commander of the 17th Arkhangelsk Infantry Regiment, stationed in the city of Zhitomir. During these years he was often published in the then popular military magazine "Razvedchik". The army service of a combat officer was successful largely due to his natural talent and zealous service. In June 1914, he was promoted to major general and was appointed general for assignments under the commander of the Kiev military district.

He met the First World War of 1914-1918 in the post of Quartermaster General, that is, the chief of the operational service under the commander of the 8th Army, General A.A. Brusilov. Soon he, of his own free will, transferred from the headquarters to the active units, receiving the command of the 4th rifle brigade, better known in the Russian army as the "Iron Brigade". The brigade received this name for the heroism shown in the last Russian-Turkish war during the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule.

During the offensive in Galicia, the Denikin brigade of "iron shooters" more than once distinguished itself in matters against the Austro-Hungarians and made its way into the snowy Carpathians. Until the spring of 1915, stubborn and bloody battles were going on there, for which Major General A.I. Denikin was awarded the honorary St. George weapon and the military order of St. George, 4th and 3rd degrees. These front-line awards were the best evidence of his ability as a military leader. Soon, his famous "Iron Brigade" (two rifle regiments) is deployed into the rifle "Iron Division" of the 4-regimental composition.

During the fighting in the Carpathians, the front-line neighbor of Denikin's "iron shooters" was a division commanded by General L.G. Kornilov, his future ally in the white movement in southern Russia.

The rank of Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin received for the capture of "iron arrows", who broke through during the offensive operation six lines of enemy defense, strategically important city of Lutsk. At Czartorysk, his division defeated the German 1st East Prussian Infantry Division and captured the Crown Prince's elite 1st Grenadier Regiment. In total, about 6 thousand Germans were captured, 9 guns and 40 machine guns were taken as trophies.

During the famous offensive of the Southwestern Front, which entered the military under the name of the Brusilov Breakthrough, Denikin's "Iron Division" again broke into the city of Lutsk. On the approaches to it, the attacking Russian riflemen were opposed by the German "Steel Division".

"A particularly brutal battle broke out at the Zaturtsi ... where the Braunschweig Steel 20th Infantry Division was crushed by our Iron 4th Infantry Division of General Denikin," one of the historians wrote about these battles.

It should be added to this that Denikin's division of "iron shooters" during the First World War took 70 thousand prisoners and captured 49 enemy guns of various caliber as trophies.

In September 1916, General A.I. Denikin was appointed commander of the 8th Army Corps, which at the end of the year, as part of the 9th Army, was transferred to the Romanian Front. Royal Romania, which entered the war on the side of the Entente, was quickly defeated by the Austrians, Bulgarians and Germans, after which its demoralized armies rolled back to russian border... There, during the battles with the Austrians near the city of Buseo, two allied Romanian corps were subordinate to the Russian commander.

By that time, Denikin had already gained fame as a talented military leader. One of his contemporaries wrote: “There was not a single operation that he did not win brilliantly, there was not a single battle that he did not win ... There was no case that General Denikin said that his troops were tired, or that he asked help him with reserves ... Before the troops, he behaved simply, without any theatricality. His orders were short, devoid of "words of fire," but strong and clear to execute. He was always calm during battles and was always personally where the situation required his presence, both officers and soldiers loved him ... Denikin always assessed the situation soberly, did not pay attention to trifles and never lost his spirit in an anxious moment, but immediately accepted measures to counter the threat from the enemy. In the worst of circumstances, he was not only calm, but was ready to joke, charging others with his cheerfulness. In his work, he did not like fuss and senseless haste ... "

General Denikin met the February revolution and the abdication of Emperor Nicholas I Romanov from power on the Romanian front. He wrote about those events: "It was my ever-present sincere desire that Russia would come to this by evolution, not revolution."

When General M.V. Alekseev was appointed the Supreme Commander of Russia, Denikin, on the recommendation of the new Minister of War Guchkov and the decision of the Provisional Government, became chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters (April - May 1917). He took part in the development of operational plans, including the future June offensive; opposed "revolutionary" transformations and "democratization" of the army; tried to limit the functions of the soldiers' committees only to economic issues.

Then Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin consistently held the posts of commander-in-chief of the Western and Southwestern Fronts. After the failure of the July offensive, he openly blamed the Provisional Government and its Prime Minister Kerensky for the collapse of the Russian army. Having become an active participant in the unsuccessful Kornilov rebellion, Denikin, along with the generals and officers loyal to Kornilov, was arrested and imprisoned in the city of Bykhov. After his liberation, he arrived in the capital of the Don Cossacks, the city of Novocherkassk, where, together with generals Alekseev and Kornilov, he formed the White Guard Volunteer Army. In December 1917, he was elected a member of the Don Civil Council (Don government), which, according to Denikin, was to become “the first all-Russian anti-Bolshevik government”.

Initially, Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin was appointed chief of the Volunteer Division, but after the reorganization of the White Guard troops, he was transferred to the post of assistant to the army commander. He took part in the famous 1st Kuban ("Ice") campaign, sharing all its hardships and hardships with the soldiers. After the death of General L.G. Kornilov on April 13, 1918, during the storming of the Kuban capital of the city of Yekaterinodar, Denikin became commander of the Volunteer Army, and in September of the same year - its commander-in-chief.

The first order of the new commander of the Volunteer Army was an order to withdraw troops from Yekaterinodar back to the Don, with the sole purpose of preserving its personnel. There, the Cossacks, who rose up against Soviet power, joined the White Army.

With the Germans who temporarily occupied the city of Rostov, Lieutenant-General Denikin established relations, which he himself called "armed neutrality", since he fundamentally condemned any foreign intervention against the Russian state. The German command, for its part, also tried not to exacerbate relations with the volunteers.

On the Don, the 1st brigade of Russian volunteers under the command of Colonel Drozdovsky joined the Volunteer Army. Gaining strength and replenishing its ranks, the white army went on the offensive and recaptured the line of the Torgovaya - Velikoknyazheskaya railway from the Reds. Together with her, the White Don Cossack Army of General Krasnov was now operating.

After that, the army of Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin began, this time successful, the 2nd Kuban campaign. Soon the entire south of Russia was in the flames of the Civil War. The Kuban, Don and Tersk Cossacks for the most part went over to the side of the white movement. Some of the mountain peoples also joined him. The Circassian Cavalry Division and the Kabardian Cavalry Division appeared in the White Army of the South of Russia. Denikin also subdued the White Cossack Don, Kuban and Caucasian armies (but only in an operational sense; the Cossack armies retained a certain autonomy). In January, he became the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. Later, the Ural Cossack Army of General V.S. were subordinate to Denikin at various times. Tolstoy, the Black Sea Fleet, the Caspian Naval Flotilla, several river military flotillas.

In July 1919, he was appointed Deputy Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak and at the same time received the post of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian state, leaving him in the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. On January 4, 1920 (after the defeat of the Kolchak armies), he was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia.

According to his political views, A.I. Denikin was a supporter of a bourgeois parliamentary republic. In April 1919, he turned to the representatives of Russia's allies in the Entente during the First World War with a declaration defining the goals of the White Volunteer Army:

“1) Destruction of the Bolshevik anarchy and the establishment of legal order in the country.

2) The restoration of a powerful, united and indivisible Russia.

3) Convocation of the National Assembly on the basis of universal suffrage.

4) Conducting the decentralization of power by establishing regional autonomy and broad local self-government.

5) Guarantee of full civil liberty and freedom of religion.

6) An immediate start to land reform to eliminate the land needs of the working population.

7) Immediate implementation of labor legislation, ensuring the working classes from their exploitation by the state and capital. "

The capture of the city of Yekaterinodar, the Kuban region and the North Caucasus inspired the soldiers of the Volunteer Army. It was significantly replenished with the Kuban Cossacks and officers. In most of the Stavropol province, mobilization was carried out. Some regiments of the old Russian army were recreated under their former names, many prisoners of the Red Army joined the ranks of the White Guard troops.

Now the Volunteer Army numbered 30-35 thousand people, still noticeably inferior to the Don White Cossack Army of General Krasnov. But on January 1, 1919, the Volunteer Army already consisted of 82,600 bayonets and 12,320 sabers. She became the main striking force of the white movement.

A.I. Denikin moved his headquarters of the commander-in-chief first to Rostov, then to the nearby city of Taganrog. In June 1919, his armies had over 160 thousand bayonets and sabers, about 600 guns, more than 1500 machine guns. With these forces, he launched a broad offensive against Moscow.

Denikin's cavalry with a massive blow broke through the front of the 8th and 9th red armies and united with the insurgent Cossacks of the Upper Don, participants in the Veshensky uprising against Soviet power. A few days earlier, Denikin's troops struck a strong blow at the junction of the enemy's Ukrainian and southern fronts and broke through to the north of Donbass.

The White Volunteer, Don, and Caucasian armies began a rapid advance northward. During June 1919, they captured the entire Donbass, Don region, Crimea and part of Ukraine. Kharkov and Tsaritsyn (Volgograd) were taken with battles. In the first half of July, the front of Denikin's troops entered the territory of the provinces of the central regions of Soviet Russia.

On July 3, 1919, Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin issued the so-called "Moscow" directive, setting the ultimate goal of the White forces' offensive to capture Moscow. The situation in mid-July, according to the estimates of the Soviet high command, assumed the dimensions of a strategic disaster. However, the military-political leadership of Soviet Russia, after taking a number of urgent measures, managed to turn the tide of the Civil War in the south in their favor.

During the counterattack of the Red Southern and Southeastern Fronts, Denikin's armies were defeated, and by the beginning of 1920 they were defeated in the Don, the North Caucasus and Ukraine. Denikin himself with part of the white troops retreated to the Crimea, where on April 4 of the same year he handed over the power of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to General P.N. Wrangel. After that, he and his family sailed to Constantinople (Istanbul) with his family on an English destroyer, then emigrated to France, where he settled in one of the suburbs of Paris. Denikin did not take an active part in the political life of the Russian emigration. In 1939, while remaining a principled enemy of Soviet power, he appealed to the Russian emigres not to support the fascist army in the event of a campaign against the Soviet Union. This appeal had a great public response. During the occupation of France by Nazi troops, Denikin flatly refused to cooperate with them.

In November 1945, fearing that the French authorities would extradite him to the Soviet Union, he left France for permanent residence in the United States and settled in Michigan, where he died two years later.

Anton Ivanovich Denikin entered the Russian military as a renowned military leader of the First World War and as one of the main leaders of the white movement during the Civil War. His activities in late 1917 - early 1920 received a contradictory assessment of historians, but one thing is certain: he was a patriot of Russia and believed in its great destiny.

After himself A.I. Denikin left his memoirs, which were published in Russia in the 1990s: Essays on Russian Troubles, Officers, The Old Army and The Way of a Russian Officer. In them, he tried to analyze the reasons for the collapse of the Russian army and Russian statehood in the revolutionary year 1917 and the collapse of the white movement during the Civil War.

Alexey Shishov. 100 great commanders