Anton Denikin Anton Ivanovich Denikin ( ; August 8 , 1947 ) was Lieutenant General of the Imperial Russian Army ( 1916 ) and one of the foremost generals of the White movement in the Russian Civil War . Childhood . Denikin was born in Szpetal Dolny village , now part of 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 in the 22nd year of his army service , in 1856 . He retired from the army in 1869 with the rank of major . In 1869 Ivan Denikin married a poor Polish seamstress , Elżbieta Wrzesińska — his second wife . 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 led to Anton Denikin ' s decision to become a soldier . The Denikins lived very close to poverty , the retired major ' s small pension being 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 additional income . In 1890 Denikin began a course at the Kiev Junker School , a military college from which he graduated in 1892 . The twenty - year - old Denikin joined an artillery brigade , in which he served for three years . In 1895 he was first accepted into the General Staff Academy , where he did not meet the academic requirements in the first of two years . After the disappointment , Denikin attempted to attain acceptance again . On his next attempt he did better and finished fourteenth in his class . However , to his misfortune , the Academy decided to introduce a new system of calculating grades and as a result Denikin was not offered a staff appointment after the final exams . He protested the decision to the highest authority ( the Grand Duke ) , and after being offered a settlement by which he would rescind his complaint in order to attain acceptance into the General Staff school again , Denikin declined , insulted by the lack of integrity represented by the offer . Denikin first saw active service during the 1905 Russo - Japanese War . In 1905 he was promoted to the rank of colonel . In 1910 he was appointed commander of the 17th infantry regiment . A few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War , Denikin reached the rank of major general . World War I . By the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 Denikin was a Chief of staff of the Kiev Military District . He was initially appointed Quartermaster of General Brusilov ' s 8th Army . Not one for staff service , Denikin petitioned for an appointment to a fighting front . He was transferred to the 4th Rifle Brigade . His brigade was transformed into a division in 1915 . It was with this brigade Denikin would accomplish his greatest feats as a General . In 1916 he was appointed to command the Russian 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 Tsar Nicholas II , he became Chief of Staff to Mikhail Alekseev , then Aleksei Brusilov , and finally Lavr 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 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 Jews perished in pogroms perpetrated by Symon Petlyura ' s Ukrainian nationalist separatists and the White forces led by Anton Denikin and other anti - soviet armies . The press of the Denikin regime regularly incited violence against communist Jews and Jews seen as communists in the context of all - spread treason by Red agents . 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 . 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 . 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 . This did not prevent the Soviets from unsuccessfully targeting him for abduction in the same effort that snared exile General Alexander P . Kutepov in 1930 and later General Evgenii 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 writer , and before World War I had 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 signaled by some authors as having analytical tone and candor . 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 Laureate ) , Ivan Shmelev , and Aleksandr Kuprin . Although respected by some 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 did not press the matter and Denikin was allowed to remain in rural exile . Religious and faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church , was anti - Semitic , and not criticize the pogroms against the Jewish population until the end of 1919 . 9 believed that most people had reason to hate judíos34 and wanted to avoid an issue that divided his officers , many of them intensely antisemitas . 35 allowed pogroms , turned into a method of terror against the Jewish population and to earn quite Semitic favor of Ukrainian people for much of 1919 . 35 36 Some of his generals , as Mae - Maevski or Mamontov , openly ordered pogroms against the Jewish population , while Dragomirov allowed one of the largest , that of Kiev between 1 and 5 October 1919 . 37 it applied well financially measures that harmed the Jewish population , despite being an anti - Semite moderate Movement within Blanco . 38 Amongst White Army members , anti - Semitism was widespread . [ 3 ] Western sponsors were dismayed at this , especially as the Bolsheviks had prohibited anti - Semitism and appeared more progressive . Sir Winston Spencer Churchill personally warned General Denikin , whose forces effected pogroms against the Jews , that : ^ Kenez , Peter , " The Ideology of the White Movement , " Soviet Studies , 1980 , no . 32 . pp . 58 – 83 . ^ Christopher Lazarski , " White Propaganda Efforts in the South during the Russian Civil War , 1918 - 19 ( The Alekseev - Denikin Period ) , " The Slavonic and East European Review , Vol . 70 , No . 4 ( Oct . , 1992 ) , pp . 688 – 707 . ^ Viktor G . Bortnevski , “ White Administration and White Terror ( The Denikin Period ) , ” Russian Review , Vol . 52 , No . 3 ( Jul . , 1993 ) , pp . 354 – 366 . ^ Historians are well aware that diaries are often written with a view to later publication . In fact , important personages often write several diaries with this in mind . Thus while a diary may not be very reliable , personal observations say much . With this in mind , consider the following : " I had not been with Denikin more than a month before I was forced to the conclusion that the Jew represented a very big element in the Russian upheaval . The officers and men of the Army laid practically all the blame for their country ' s troubles on the Hebrew . They held that the whole cataclysm had been engineered by some great and mysterious secret society of international Jews , who , in the pay and at the orders of Germany , had seized the psychological moment and snatched the reins of government . All the figures and facts that were then available appeared to lend colour to this contention . No less than 82 per cent of the Bolshevik Commissars were known to be Jews , the fierce and implacable ' Trotsky , ' who shared office with Lenin , being a Yiddisher whose real name was Bronstein . Among Denikin ' s officers this idea was an obsession of such terrible bitterness and insistency as to lead them into making statements of the wildest and most fantastic character . Many of them had persuaded themselves that Freemasonry was , in alliance with the Jews , part and parcel of the Bolshevik machine , and that what they had called the diabolical schemes for Russia ' s downfall had been hatched in the Petrograd and Moscow Masonic lodges . When I told them that I and most of my best friends were Freemasons , and that England owed a great deal to its loyal Jews , they stared at me askance and sadly shook their heads in fear for England ' s credulity in trusting the chosen race . One even asked me quietly whether I personally was a Jew . When America showed herself decidedly against any kind of interference in Russia , the idea soon gained wide credence that President Woodrow Wilson was a Jew , while Mr Lloyd George was referred to as a Jew whenever a cable from England appeared to show him as being lukewarm in support of the anti - Bolsheviks . " − At the conclusion of the war , correctly anticipating their likely fate at the hands of Joseph Stalin ' s Soviet Union , Denikin attempted to persuade the Western Allies not to forcibly repatriate Soviet POWs ( see also Operation Keelhaul ) . 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 of a heart attack 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 . On October 3 , 2005 , in accordance with the wishes of his daughter Marina Denikina and by authority of President Vladimir Putin of Russia , General Denikin ' s remains were transferred from the United States and buried at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow . Denikin ' s works . Denikin wrote several books , including : Footnotes . The Facts about General Anton I . Denikin : Anti - semite and Pro . . . books . google . com / . . . / The _ Facts _ about _ General _ Ant . . . - books . google . comhttp : / / books . google . com / books / about / The _ Facts _ about _ General _ Anton _ I _ Denikin . html ? id = JvA7nQEACAAJ & utm _ source = gb - gplus - share . . . References . Jump up to : a b c d e f g h Kenez ( 1974 ) , p . 139