Anton Ivanovich Denikin
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Anton Ivanovich Denikin (Анто́н Ива́нович Дени́кин) (December 16, 1872 – August 8, 1947) was Lieutenant General of the Imperial Russian Army (1916) and one of the foremost leading generals of the anti-Bolshevik White Russians in the civil war.
Born in the (then Russian-controlled) Polish town of Włocławek, the son of a minor army officer, Denikin's skill and relentless ambition would soon see him tread a remarkable path. He was educated at the Kiev Military School and the Academy of the General Staff, and first saw active service during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.
By the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 Denikin was a Major General and in command of the Kiev military district. He joined the Eighth Army initially as Deputy Chief of Staff in September and was sent to Galicia commanding the 4th Rifle Brigade.
In 1916 he was appointed to command the VIII Corps and lead troops in Romania during the last successful Russian campaign of the war, the Brusilov Offensive. Following the February Revolution and the overthrow of the Czar he became Chief of Staff to Mikhail Alekseev, then Aleksei Brusilov, and finally Lavr Georgevich Kornilov. Denikin supported the attempted coup of his commander, the Kornilov Affair, in September 1917 and was arrested and imprisoned with him. After this Alekseev would be reappointed commander-in-Chief.
Following the October Revolution both Denikin and Kornilov escaped to Novocherkassk in southern Russia and, with other Tsarist officers, formed the 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. Denikin led one final assault of the southern White forces in their final push to capture Moscow in the summer of 1919. Overstretched, his army was decisively defeated at Orel in October, some 400km south of Moscow. The White forces in southern Russia would be in constant retreat thereafter, eventually reaching the Crimea in March 1920.
As a commander-in-chief Denikin was devoted to restoring law and civil liberties in the areas under his control. His government did not have the time necessary to implement expected land reform aimed at gaining support of small landowners -- although his succesor, Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, would carry out those reforms.
The Whites under Denikin have a disputed record with regard to Russia's Jews. Despite Denikin's strict orders, various White forces (cossacks in particular) were most likely responsible for some pogroms against the Jewish population of Ukraine and Russia. Pogroms were fueled in part by perceived Jewish support of the bolsheviks and their participation in the Red administration's repressive organizations, such as the Cheka. According to Nahum Gergel's 1951 study of the pogroms in Ukraine (quoted by Solzhenitsin in his book "Two Hundred Years Together"), out of an estimated 887 pogroms, only 17% were committed by the White Army, mostly while under Denikin's command. Yet subsequent sources attribute approximately 77% of Jewish fatalities to the White Army [citation needed]. However, it should be noted that forces nominally under Denikin's command were frequently effectively not under his control, and it is those forces most associated with the pogroms. As a leader of the Whites, Denikin is often criticized for failing to establish adequate discipline and control over his far flung troops; Denikin himself saw this as one of his greatest mistakes. However, given the chaotic circumstances of the Russian Civil War it is uncertain exactly how much control he could reasonably have been expected to achieve with the means at his disposal.
Denikin resigned his post in April in favor of Wrangel and left by ship across the Black Sea to Constantinople. He spent a few months in England, then moved to Belgium, and later to Hungary.
From 1926 Denikin lived in France. Although he continued to remain bitterly opposed to Russia's Communist government, he chose to remain discreetly on the periphery of exile politics, spending most of his time writing and lecturing. However, this did not prevent the Soviets from unsuccessfully targeting him for abduction in the same effort that snared exile General A.P. Kutepov in 1930 and later General E.K. Miller in 1937. White Against Red - The Life of General Anton Denikin gives possibly the definitive account of the intrigues during these early Soviet "wet-ops."
With the fall of France in 1940, Denikin left Paris in order to avoid imprisonment by the Germans. Although he was eventually captured, he declined all attempts to co-opt him for use in Nazi anti-Soviet propaganda. The Germans did not press the matter and Denikin was allowed to remain in rural exile. Although not formally part of the resistance, his activities would certainly have been sufficient to cause his arrest had they been fully known to the Nazi authorities.[citation needed] Diary entries kept by his wife during this period also make it clear that he was appalled by Nazi anti-Semitism, a fact that may shed light on his actual attitude towards the pogroms of the Russian Civil War.
At the conclusion of the war, correctly anticipating their likely fate at the hands of Stalin's Soviet Union, Denikin attempted to persuade the Western Allies not to forcibly repatriate Soviet POWs. He was largely unsuccessful in his effort.
From 1945 until his death in 1947, Denikin lived in the United States, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
His daughter Marina Denikina applied for and was granted Russian citizenship in 2005. On October 3, 2005, in accordance with the wishes of his daughter and by authority of President Vladimir Putin of Russia the remains of General Denikin were transferred from the United States and buried at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow. Marina Denikina died November 17, 2005, at her home in Versailles, near Paris.
[edit] References
The standard reference is Dimitry V. Lehovich, White Against Red - the Life of General Anton Denikin, New York, W.W. Norton, 1974. This book is also available in Russian in two versions: then abridged text is Belye Protiv Krasnykh, Moscow, Voskresenie publishers, 1992. The second, unabridged, is Denikin - Zhizn' Russkogo Ofitsera, Moscow, Evrasia publishers, 2004.
Additional reference: Ukraine: a History by Orest Subtelny
Denikin wrote several books, including The Russian Turmoil (5 volumes), Old Army, The Career of a Tsarist Officer: Memoirs, 1872-1916 and The Road of a Russian Officer (unfinished, published posthumously in 1953).
See also the list of references in Russian edition of Wikipedia.
