In the civil war against the Bolsheviks were a variety of forces. They were Cossacks, nationalists, democrats, monarchists. All of them, despite their differences, served the White cause. Defeated, the leaders of the anti-Soviet forces either died or were able to emigrate.
Alexander Kolchak
Although the resistance to the Bolsheviks did not become fully united, it was Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (1874-1920) who is considered by many historians to be the main figure of the White movement. He was a professional soldier and served in the Navy. In peacetime, Kolchak became famous as a polar explorer and oceanographer.
Like other military personnel, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak gained rich experience during the Japanese campaign and the First World War. With the coming to power of the Provisional Government, he briefly emigrated to the United States. When news of the Bolshevik coup came from his homeland, Kolchak returned to Russia.
The Admiral arrived in Siberian Omsk, where the Socialist-Revolutionary government made him Minister of War. In 1918, the officers made a coup, and Kolchak was named the Supreme Ruler of Russia. Other leaders of the White movement did not then have such large forces as Alexander Vasilyevich (he had a 150,000-strong army at his disposal).
On the territory under his control, Kolchak restored the legislation of the Russian Empire. Moving from Siberia to the west, the army of the Supreme Ruler of Russia advanced to the Volga region. At the peak of their success, the Whites were already approaching Kazan. Kolchak tried to draw as many Bolshevik forces as possible to clear Denikin's road to Moscow.
In the second half of 1919, the Red Army launched a massive offensive. The Whites retreated farther and farther to Siberia. Foreign allies (Czechoslovak Corps) handed over Kolchak, who was traveling east on a train, to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The admiral was shot in Irkutsk in February 1920.
Anton Denikin
If in the east of Russia Kolchak was at the head of the White Army, then in the south Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872-1947) was the key commander for a long time. Born in Poland, he went to study in the capital and became a staff officer.
Then Denikin served on the border with Austria. He spent the First World War in the army of Brusilov, participated in the famous breakthrough and operation in Galicia. The provisional government briefly made Anton Ivanovich commander of the Southwestern Front. Denikin supported the Kornilov rebellion. After the failure of the coup, the lieutenant-general was imprisoned for some time (Bykhov's seat).
Released in November 1917, Denikin began to support the White Cause. Together with Generals Kornilov and Alekseev, he created (and then single-handedly led) the Volunteer Army, which became the backbone of resistance to the Bolsheviks in southern Russia. It was on Denikin that the countries stakedThe Entente, which declared war on Soviet power after its separate peace with Germany.
For some time Denikin was in conflict with the Don Ataman Pyotr Krasnov. Under the pressure of the allies, he submitted to Anton Ivanovich. In January 1919, Denikin became Commander-in-Chief of the All-Union Socialist Republic - the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. His army cleared the Kuban, the Don region, Tsaritsyn, Donbass, Kharkov from the Bolsheviks. Denikin's offensive bogged down in Central Russia.
AFSYUR retreated to Novocherkassk. From there, Denikin moved to the Crimea, where in April 1920, under pressure from opponents, he transferred his powers to Pyotr Wrangel. This was followed by a trip to Europe. In exile, the general wrote a memoir, Essays on Russian Troubles, in which he tried to answer the question of why the White movement was defeated. In the civil war, Anton Ivanovich blamed only the Bolsheviks. He refused to support Hitler and was critical of the collaborators. After the defeat of the Third Reich, Denikin changed his place of residence and moved to the United States, where he died in 1947.
Lavr Kornilov
The organizer of the unsuccessful coup Lavr Georgievich Kornilov (1870-1918) was born in the family of a Cossack officer, which predetermined his military career. As a scout, he served in Persia, Afghanistan and India. In the war, having been captured by the Austrians, the officer fled to his homeland.
At first, Lavr Georgievich Kornilov supported the Provisional Government. He considered the left to be the main enemies of Russia. Being a supporter of strong power, he began to prepare an anti-government speech. His campaign against Petrograd failed. Kornilov, along with his supporters, was arrested.
With the onset of the October Revolution, the general was released. He became the first commander in chief of the Volunteer Army in southern Russia. In February 1918, Kornilov organized the First Kuban (Ice) campaign to Ekaterinodar. This operation has become legendary. All the leaders of the White movement in the future tried to be equal to the pioneers. Kornilov tragically died during the shelling of Yekaterinodar.
Nikolai Yudenich
General Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich (1862-1933) was one of Russia's most successful military leaders in the war against Germany and its allies. He led the headquarters of the Caucasian army during its battles with the Ottoman Empire. Having come to power, Kerensky dismissed the commander.
With the onset of the October Revolution, Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich lived illegally in Petrograd for some time. At the beginning of 1919 he moved to Finland with forged documents. The Russian Committee meeting in Helsinki proclaimed him commander-in-chief.
Yudenich made contact with Alexander Kolchak. Having coordinated his actions with the admiral, Nikolai Nikolayevich unsuccessfully tried to enlist the support of the Entente and Mannerheim. In the summer of 1919, he received the portfolio of minister of war in the so-called Northwestern government formed in Reval.
In autumn, Yudenich organized a campaign against Petrograd. Basically, the White movement in the civil war operated on the outskirts of the country. Yudenich's army, on the contrary, triedliberate the capital (as a result, the Bolshevik government moved to Moscow). She occupied Tsarskoe Selo, Gatchina and went to the Pulkovo Heights. Trotsky was able to transfer reinforcements to Petrograd by rail, which nullified all attempts by the whites to get the city.
By the end of 1919, Yudenich retreated to Estonia. A few months later he emigrated. The general spent some time in London, where he was visited by Winston Churchill. Getting used to defeat, Yudenich settled in France and retired from politics. In 1933, he died in Cannes from pulmonary tuberculosis.
Aleksey Kaledin
When the October Revolution broke out, Alexei Maksimovich Kaledin (1861-1918) was the chieftain of the Don army. He was elected to this post a few months before the events in Petrograd. In the Cossack cities, primarily in Rostov, sympathy for the socialists was strong. Ataman, on the contrary, considered the Bolshevik coup to be criminal. Having received disturbing news from Petrograd, he defeated the Soviets in the Donskoy Host Region.
Aleksey Maksimovich Kaledin acted from Novocherkassk. In November, another white general, Mikhail Alekseev, arrived there. Meanwhile, the Cossacks in their mass hesitated. Many front-line soldiers, tired of the war, responded vividly to the slogans of the Bolsheviks. Others were neutral towards the Leninist government. Almost no one felt hostility towards the socialists.
Having lost hope of restoring ties with the overthrown Provisional Government, Kaledin took decisive steps. He declared the independence of the Don Army Region. In response, the Rostov Bolsheviks raised an uprising. Ataman, having enlisted the support of Alekseev, suppressed this speech. First blood was shed on the Don.
At the end of 1917, Kaledin gave the green light to the creation of the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army. Two parallel forces appeared in Rostov. On the one hand, it was the Volunteer Army of White Generals, on the other hand, local Cossacks. The latter increasingly sympathized with the Bolsheviks. In December, the Red Army occupied the Donbass and Taganrog. The Cossack units, meanwhile, finally decomposed. Realizing that his own subordinates did not want to fight the Soviet regime, the ataman committed suicide.
Ataman Krasnov
After the death of Kaledin, the Cossacks did not long sympathize with the Bolsheviks. When Soviet power was established on the Don, yesterday's front-line soldiers quickly hated the Reds. Already in May 1918, an uprising broke out on the Don.
Pyotr Krasnov (1869-1947) became the new chieftain of the Don Cossacks. During the war with Germany and Austria, he, like many other white generals, participated in the glorious Brusilov breakthrough. The military always treated the Bolsheviks with disgust. It was he who, on the orders of Kerensky, tried to recapture Petrograd from Lenin's supporters when the October Revolution had just taken place. A small detachment of Krasnov occupied Tsarskoye Selo and Gatchina, but soon the Bolsheviks surrounded and disarmed it.
After the first failure, Peter Krasnov was able to move to the Don. Having become the ataman of the anti-Soviet Cossacks, he refused to obey Denikin and tried to pursue an independent policy. ATIn particular, Krasnov established friendly relations with the Germans.
Only when the surrender was announced in Berlin, the isolated ataman submitted to Denikin. The Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army did not long tolerate a dubious ally. In February 1919, under pressure from Denikin, Krasnov left for Yudenich's army in Estonia. From there he emigrated to Europe.
Like many leaders of the White movement, who found themselves in exile, the former Cossack ataman dreamed of revenge. Hatred of the Bolsheviks pushed him to support Hitler. The Germans made Krasnov the head of the Cossacks in the occupied Russian territories. After the defeat of the Third Reich, the British extradited Pyotr Nikolaevich to the USSR. In the Soviet Union, he was tried and sentenced to capital punishment. Krasnov was executed.
Ivan Romanovsky
Military leader Ivan Pavlovich Romanovsky (1877-1920) in the tsarist era was a participant in the war with Japan and Germany. In 1917, he supported the speech of Kornilov and, together with Denikin, served his arrest in the city of Bykhov. Having moved to the Don, Romanovsky participated in the formation of the first organized anti-Bolshevik detachments.
The general was appointed Denikin's deputy and led his headquarters. It is believed that Romanovsky had a great influence on his boss. In his will, Denikin even named Ivan Pavlovich as his successor in the event of an unforeseen death.
Because of his frankness, Romanovsky clashed with many other military leaders in the Dobroarmiya, and then in the All-Union Socialist Republic. The white movement in Russia referred to himambiguously. When Denikin was replaced by Wrangel, Romanovsky left all his posts and left for Istanbul. In the same city, he was killed by lieutenant Mstislav Kharuzin. The shooter, who also served in the White Army, explained his action by the fact that he blamed Romanovsky for the defeat of the All-Russian Union of Youth in the civil war.
Sergey Markov
In the Volunteer Army Sergei Leonidovich Markov (1878-1918) became a cult hero. A regiment and colored military units were named after him. Markov became known for his tactical talent and his own bravery, which he demonstrated in every battle with the Red Army. Members of the White movement treated the memory of this general with particular trepidation.
Military biography of Markov in the tsarist era was typical for the then officer. He participated in the Japanese campaign. On the German front he commanded an infantry regiment, then became chief of the headquarters of several fronts. In the summer of 1917, Markov supported the Kornilov rebellion and, along with other future white generals, was under arrest in Bykhov.
At the beginning of the civil war, the military moved to the south of Russia. He was one of the founders of the Volunteer Army. Markov made a great contribution to the White cause in the First Kuban campaign. On the night of April 16, 1918, with a small detachment of volunteers, he captured Medvedovka, an important railway station where the volunteers destroyed a Soviet armored train, and then escaped from the encirclement and escaped persecution. The result of the battle was the rescue of Denikin's army, which had just made an unsuccessful assault on Yekaterinodar and was on the verge of defeat.
Markov's feat made him a hero for whites and a sworn enemy for reds. Two months later, the talented general took part in the Second Kuban Campaign. Near the town of Shablievka, its units ran into superior enemy forces. At a fateful moment for himself, Markov found himself in an open place, where he equipped an observation post. Fire was opened on the position from a Red Army armored train. A grenade exploded near Sergei Leonidovich, which inflicted a mortal wound on him. A few hours later, on June 26, 1918, the military man died.
Pyotr Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel (1878-1928), also known as the Black Baron, came from a noble family and had roots connected with the B altic Germans. Before joining the military, he received an engineering education. The craving for military service, however, prevailed, and Peter went to study as a cavalryman.
Wrangel's debut campaign was the war with Japan. During the First World War, he served in the Horse Guards. He distinguished himself by several exploits, for example, by capturing a German battery. Once on the Southwestern Front, the officer took part in the famous Brusilov breakthrough.
During the February Revolution, Pyotr Nikolaevich called for troops to be sent to Petrograd. For this, the Provisional Government removed him from service. The Black Baron moved to a dacha in the Crimea, where he was arrested by the Bolsheviks. The nobleman managed to escape only thanks to the pleas of his own wife.
As for an aristocrat and a supporter of the monarchy, for Wrangel the White Idea was uncontestedposition during the civil war. He joined Denikin. The commander served in the Caucasian army, led the capture of Tsaritsyn. After the defeats of the White Army during the march on Moscow, Wrangel began to criticize his boss Denikin. The conflict led to the general's temporary departure to Istanbul.
Soon Pyotr Nikolaevich returned to Russia. In the spring of 1920, he was elected commander-in-chief of the Russian army. Crimea became its key base. The peninsula turned out to be the last white bastion of the civil war. Wrangel's army repulsed several Bolshevik attacks, but in the end was defeated.
In exile, the Black Baron lived in Belgrade. He created and headed the ROVS - the Russian All-Military Union, then transferring these powers to one of the Grand Dukes, Nikolai Nikolayevich. Shortly before his death, working as an engineer, Pyotr Wrangel moved to Brussels. There he died suddenly of tuberculosis in 1928.
Andrey Shkuro
Andrey Grigoryevich Shkuro (1887-1947) was a born Kuban Cossack. In his youth, he went on a gold-digging expedition to Siberia. In the war with Kaiser's Germany, Shkuro created a partisan detachment, nicknamed the "Wolf Hundred" for their prowess.
In October 1917, a Cossack was elected to the Kuban Regional Rada. Being a monarchist by conviction, he reacted negatively to the news about the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. Shkuro began to fight the Red Commissars when many leaders of the White movement had not yet had time to make themselves known. In July 1918, Andrei Grigorievich with his detachment expelledBolsheviks from Stavropol.
In the fall, a Cossack took command of the 1st Officer Kislovodsk Regiment, then the Caucasian Cavalry Division. Shkuro's boss was Anton Ivanovich Denikin. In Ukraine, the military defeated the detachment of Nestor Makhno. Then he took part in a campaign against Moscow. Shkuro fought for Kharkov and Voronezh. In this city, his campaign bogged down.
Retreating from Budyonny's army, the lieutenant general reached Novorossiysk. From there he sailed to the Crimea. In the army of Wrangel, Shkuro did not take root due to a conflict with the Black Baron. As a result, the white commander ended up in exile even before the complete victory of the Red Army.
Shkuro lived in Paris and Yugoslavia. When World War II began, he, like Krasnov, supported the Nazis in their fight against the Bolsheviks. Shkuro was an SS Gruppenführer and in this capacity fought with the Yugoslav partisans. After the defeat of the Third Reich, he tried to break into the territory occupied by the British. In Linz, Austria, the British handed over Shkuro along with many other officers. The white commander was tried together with Pyotr Krasnov and sentenced to death.
