Anton Denikin - Civil War

Civil War

Following the October Revolution both Denikin and Kornilov escaped to Novocherkassk in Northern Caucasus and, with other Tsarist officers, formed the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army, initially commanded by Alekseev. Kornilov was killed in April 1918 near Ekaterinodar and the Volunteer Army came under Denikin's command. There was some sentiment to place Grand Duke Nicholas in overall command, but Denikin was not interested in sharing power. In the face of a Communist counter-offensive he withdrew his forces back towards the Don area in what was known as the Ice March. Denikin led one final assault of the southern White forces in their final push to capture Moscow in the summer of 1919. For a time, it appeared that the White Army would succeed in its drive; Leon Trotsky, as commander of Red Army forces hastily concluded an agreement with Nestor Makhno's anarchist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or 'Black Army' for mutual support. Makhno duly turned his Black Army east and led his troops against Denikin's extended lines of supply, forcing him to retreat. Denikin's army was decisively defeated at Orel in October 1919, some 400 km south of Moscow. The White forces in southern Russia would be in constant retreat thereafter, eventually reaching the Crimea in March 1920. The Soviet government immediately tore up its agreement with Makhno and attacked his anarchist forces. After a seesaw series of battles in which one side or the other gained a victory, Trotsky's Red Army troops, more numerous and better equipped, defeated and dispersed Makhno's Black Army.

In the occupied territories, Denikin's regime carried out mass executions and plunder, in what was later known as the White Terror. In the town of Maykop in Circassia during September 1918, more than 4000 people were massacred by General Pokrovsky's forces.

During the Russian Civil War, an estimated 100,000 Jews perished in pogroms perpetrated by Symon Petlyura's Ukrainian nationalist separatists and the White forces led by Anton Denikin. The press of the Denikin regime regularly incited violence against Jews. For example, a proclamation by one of Denikin's generals incited people to "arm themselves" in order to extirpate "the evil force which lives in the hearts of Jew-communists." In the small town of Fastov alone, Denikin's Volunteer Army murdered over 1500 Jews, mostly elderly, women, and children. An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in pogroms perpetrated by Denikin's forces and other anti-soviet armies.

Facing increasingly sharp criticism and emotionally exhausted, Denikin resigned in April, 1920 in favor of General Baron Pyotr Wrangel. Denikin left the Crimea by ship to Constantinople and then to London. He spent a few months in England, then moved to Belgium, and later to Hungary.