Volunteer Army The Volunteer Army ( " Добровольческая армия " in Russian , or Dobrovolcheskaya armiya ) was an anti - Bolshevik army in South Russia during the Russian Civil War of 1918 - 1920 . History . The Volunteer Army began forming in November – December 1917 by General Mikhail Alekseyev in Novocherkassk and General Lavr Kornilov and his supporters . Initially , the Volunteer Army included volunteering officers , cadet s , students and Cossacks . Of the first 3 , 000 recruits , just 12 were soldiers , the rest were officers . Some of them resented having to serve as privates . On December 27 , 1917 ( January 9 , 1918 ) , the creation of the Volunteer Army was officially announced . Alekseev became its overall leader , Kornilov - its Commander - in - chief , General Alexander Lukomsky - its Chief of Staff , General Anton Denikin – commander of the 1st Division and General Sergey Markov – commander of 1st Officers regiment . They also created the so - called Special Council at the headquarters , which included prominent civilian politicians such as Peter Struve , Pavel Milyukov , Mikhail Rodzianko , Sergey Sazonov and Boris Savinkov . In early January 1918 , the Volunteer Army numbered approximately 4 , 000 men and fought against the Red Army together with the units of General Aleksei Kaledin . In late February , the Volunteer Army had to retreat from Rostov - on - Don due to the onset of the Red Army and left for Kuban in order to unite with the Kuban Cossack formations , a manoeuvre known as the Ice March . However , most of the Kuban Cossacks did not give their support to the Volunteer Army . Only a small unit ( 3 , 000 men ) under the command of General Viktor Pokrovsky joined the Volunteer Army on March 26 , 1918 , increasing its number to 6 , 000 people . The Volunteer Army ' s attempt to capture Yekaterinodar between April 9 and April 13 was a fiasco , costing Kornilov his life . General Denikin took the command over the remnants of the Volunteer Army and left for the remote stanitsa s beyond the Don region . In June 1918 , 3 , 000 men of Colonel Mikhail Drozdovsky joined the Volunteer Army . On June 23 , the Volunteer Army ( 8 , 000 - 9 , 000 men ) began its so called Second Kuban Campaign with the support from Pyotr Krasnov . By September 1918 , the Volunteer Army had already had 30 , 000 - 35 , 000 men thanks to mobilization of the Kuban Cossacks and " counterrevolutionary elements " , gathered in the North Caucasus . Thus , the Volunteer Army took the name of the Caucasus Volunteer Army . In the Autumn of 1918 , the governments of Great Britain , France and the USA increased their material and technical assistance to the Volunteer Army . With the support from Entente , the forces of the South Russian Whites were combined into the so - called Armed Forces of South Russia ( " Вооружённые силы Юга России " , or Vooruzhenniye sily Yuga Rossii ) under the command of Denikin . In the late 1918 - early 1919 , Denikin managed to inflict a defeat on the 11th Soviet Army and capture the North Caucasus region . In January 1919 , the Caucasus Volunteer Army was divided into the Caucasus Army and the Volunteer Army , which would later be joined by the Don Army , created from the remnants of Krasnov ' s Cossack Army . After capturing Donbass , Tsaritsyn and Kharkov in June 1919 , Denikin began to advance towards Moscow on June 20 ( July 3 ) . According to his plan , the main blow to Moscow was to be inflicted by the Volunteer Army ( 40 , 000 men ) under the command of General Vladimir May - Mayevsky . The White Army was accused by the Soviets of cruelty in its conquered territories , usually against the workers , for which the Soviet historiography would dub this regime " Denikinschina " . Some of the units and formations of the Volunteer Army possessed good military skills and fighting strength due to a large number of officers in its ranks , who hated and despised the Soviets . However , the Volunteer Army ' s fighting efficiency started to decrease in the summer of 1919 in light of significant losses and conscription of mobilized peasants and even Red Army soldiers in captivity . During the counter - offensive of the Red Army ( since October 1919 ) , the Volunteer Army sustained a decisive defeat and rolled back to the South . In the early 1920 , it retreated to the areas beyond the Don region and was reduced to a Corps of 5 , 000 men under the command of General Alexander Kutepov . On March 26 and March 27 , 1920 , the remnants of the Volunteer Army were evacuated from Novorossiysk to the Crimea , where they merged with the army of Pyotr Wrangel . Criticism . The Volunteer Army has been criticized for its treatment of political prisoners ( and the prisoners ' respective communities ) . K . N . Sokolov , an anti - Bolshevik activist and Kadet politician who advocated for the Russian government ' s movement toward a constitutional monarchy , lambasted this characteristic of his own organization . He wrote , " The uncontrollable robbery of the population by our military forces , the debauchery and repression by military officials in local areas , the unbelievable corruption of the representatives of power , their open speculation , venality , and , finally , their unrestrained arbitrariness prevailing in their counterintelligence organizations , here were the ulcers of our regime , compelling the population to say : no , this is not the regime that can save Russia . " Edward M . Dune , a member of the Red Guard , the organization that eliminated the Kadets ' power after the Russian Revolution in 1917 , compared the Red Army ' s behavior to that of the Volunteer Army . For instance , in reference to the Kuban Cossacks rebellion , Dune explains , " Our actions … differed little from the behavior of the White Army during the war itself . " Nomenclature timeline . Although " Volunteer Army " is often used as a shorthand description for all the White Russian forces in the area , the actual names are as follows .