Anton Ivanovich Denikin Totally Explained

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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 generals of the White Russians in the civil war.

Childhood

Denikin was born on December 7, 1872, in Szpetal Dolnyj village near the Polish city Włocławek (then part of the Russian empire). His father, Ivan Efimovich Denikin, had been born a serf in the province of Saratov. Sent as a recruit to do 25 years of military service, Ivan Denikin became an officer on the 22nd year of his army service, in 1856. He retired from the army in 1869 with the rank of a major. In 1869 Ivan Denikin married a poor Polish seamstress, Elżbieta Wrzesińska. Anton Denikin, the couple's only child, learned to speak two languages (Russian and Polish) at the same time. His father's commitment to Russian patriotism and the Orthodox religion was crucial for Anton Denikin's decision to become a soldier.
The Denikins lived very close to poverty (retired major's small pension was their only source of income). After his father's death in [1885], Denikin's family financial situation got even worse. Anton Denikin began tutoring younger schoolmates so that the family could earn an additional income. In 1890 Denikin began a course at the Kiev Junker School, a military college from which he graduated in 1892.

Military Service

Denikin 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.

WWI

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.

Civil War

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 wasn't 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. 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.
Facing increasingly sharp criticism and emotionally exhausted, Denikin resigned in April, 1920 in favor of General Baron P. N. 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.

Pogroms

The retreat of the White Army intensified anti-Jewish violence in the areas not yet under Red Army communist control, as non-communist Russian and Ukrainian farmers, workers, middle-class businessmen, nobility and even some clergy effectively identified most or all Jews with "Judeo-Bolshevism", with communist violence, and with Lenin and Trotsky themselves. Denikin resisted demands by human rights and Jewish organizations, and by British Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill, to issue specific orders against pogroms. In September, 1919, Churchill urged Denikin, both through the British military mission to South Russia, and in direct correspondence "to do everything in [his] power to prevent a massacre of the Jews in the liberated districts [andto issue] a proclamation against anti-Semitism." In October, 1919, with Denikin's order purging Jews from the volunteer forces (order #21,322), the campaign of pogroms against the Jewish population of Ukraine and Russia intensified. When Denikin at last issued official orders against anti-Jewish pogroms, these orders were effectively ignored not only by the local population, but also by virtually all soldiers and no officers responsible for the former anti-semitic atrocities were brought to justice. According to Nahum Gergel's 1951 study of the pogroms in Ukraine (quoted in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book "Two Hundred Years Together"), out of an estimated 887 mass pogroms, about 40% were perpetrated by the Ukrainian forces led by Symon Petliura, 25% by the Ukrainian Green Army and various Ukrainian nationalist gangs, 17% by the White Army (mainly by the forces under Denikin's command) and 8.5% by the Red Army.

Exile

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 didn't 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."
   Denikin was a talented writer, and even before World War I'd written several pieces in which he analytically criticized the shortcomings of his beloved Russian Army. His voluminous writings after the Russian Civil War (written while living in exile) are remarkable for their analytical tone and candor and are a "must read" to anyone interested in the Russian Civil War. Since he enjoyed writing and most of his income was derived from it, Denikin started to consider himself a writer and developed close friendships with several Russian émigré authors--among them Ivan Bunin (a Nobel Laurate), Ivan Shmelev, and Aleksandr Kuprin.
   Although respected by most of the community of Russian exiles, Denikin was disliked by émigrés of both political extremes, the right and the left.
   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 didn't 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. 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 New York City. On August 8, 1947, at the age of 74, Denikin died while vacationing near Ann Arbor, Michigan.
   General Denikin was buried with military honors in Detroit. His remains were later transferred to St. Vladimir's Cemetery in Jackson, New Jersey. His wife, Xenia Vasilievna Chizh, was buried at Saint Genevieve de Bois cemetery near Paris.
   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.

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