Anton Denikin

Anton Denikin's life was a soldier's story twisted by the catastrophe of revolution. The son of a former serf who rose to become an army officer, Denikin was a career military man, distinguished in the First World War. The 1917 revolutions shattered his world. Opposed to the Bolshevik seizure of power, he helped found the Volunteer Army, the core of the White movement in southern Russia. Taking command after the death of General Lavr Kornilov, Denikin launched a stunning offensive in 1919. His forces, a fragile coalition of Cossacks, volunteers, and conscripts, swept north from the Caucasus, capturing Kiev and threatening Moscow itself. For a moment, the collapse of Lenin's government seemed imminent. But the offensive overextended his lines, and his army, plagued by internal divisions and unable to articulate a compelling political vision for a post-Tsarist Russia, began to disintegrate. The Red Army counterattacked ruthlessly, driving his forces back to the Black Sea. In 1920, he handed command to Pyotr Wrangel and went into a bitter exile. He spent his remaining years writing detailed military histories of the civil war, a man forever analyzing the battle he lost.