The Resurgence and Failure of the White Army in the Russian Civil War in 1919

A military analysis of the Russian Civil War with emphasis on the Army of South Russia under General Anton Denikin

The Resurgence and Failure of the White Army in the Russian Civil War in 1919

This paper analyzes the Russian Civil War in 1919 and asks 'why' and 'how' the White Army failed in the Civil War despite its resurgence from approximately March 1919 to October 1919. Subsequently, this paper also analyzes the failures of the Red Army throughout this time and their resurgence in late 1919, which lasted until the end of the conflict.

The thesis of this paper is that the White Army’s failure was due to the strategic miscalculation by Denikin to advance on Moscow instead of attempting to advance eastward and join the front line with of Kolchak's in the east, political failures that alienated the population and allies, and finally a lack of necessary reserves. Despite their numerous shortcomings and mistakes, the Bolshevik's ability to mobilize significantly larger reserves was instrumental in their success. Also instrumental was the alliance with Ukrainian Anarchist insurgent Nestor Makhno, who provided an additional 100k troops to the front line against Denikin.

The Russian Civil War in 1919 was a complicated, multi-faceted, and chaotic conflict where politics was highly influential on the state of military affairs for both sides. The major actors of the Civil War in 1919 were the Red Army, under Supreme Commander of the Red Army, Jukums Vācietis, the Armed Forces in South Russia under Anton Denikin (which was a merger in January 1919 of the previous Volunteer Army and Don Army), and finally the Russian Army under Supreme Ruler of the Russian State Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. Kolchak was recognized as the supreme ruler of all white armies active at the time (Denikin, Yevgeny Miller, Nikolai Yudenich), but the focus of this paper is on the Southern Front with Denikin as opposed to the Eastern Front with Admiral Kolchak. This is for several reasons: firstly, Denikin's forces were closer to the heartland of Russia, the territory of European Russia with its major industrial cities, agricultural lands, and larger population density. Kolchak occupied Siberia and the steppes of central Asia. Secondly, Denikin's advance in 1919 was so significant that it threatened to topple the Bolshevik government completely; Kolchak never had this opportunity.1 Thirdly, there are a plethora of reasons for Denikin's successes and equally as many factors for his downfall, which made the Southern Front more dynamic. Fourthly, the primary sources on the

1 Brian Murphy, Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920 the Key to Victory (Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2014).

Southern Front are more plentiful and rich in detail. White Army General Pyotr Wrangel's lengthy and detailed Memoir 'Always with Honor' provides excellent details of the conflict from Denikin's inner circle. Sources from the Red Army's perspective are derived from officer commissar and political reports, as Red Army generals were in large part purged after the Civil War or later in the 1930s by Stalin and were not able to write memoirs.

This paper is divided into four sections. The first section deals with the failures of the Red Army, which created a massive White Army. The second section deals with the consistent strengths of the White Army that, when bolstered by the Red Army’s failure in the previous section, allowed for the resurgence on the Southern Front. The third section deals with the shortcomings of the White Army, with some issues being chronic and some being situational for the army. The fourth and final section details how the Red Army launched a successful counter-offensive against the White Army, which would lead to their defeat and a victory in the Civil War for the Bolsheviks.

The most significant error on the part of the Bolsheviks in 1919 was not a military error but the political attitude to the Cossacks in South Russia. Initially, the Cossacks were open to making peace with the Bolsheviks. When General P.A. Krasnow came to power as Ataman of the Don Cossacks after the withdrawal of German occupation forces following Germany's defeat in WWI to the Entente:

“Several of Krasnov's Cossack units had opened talks with their Red Army opponents, and on 24 January, the Red Army's 9th Army could announce that four companies of Cossacks had come over to them in full strength”2

However, tensions flared up again when the Soviets occupied the area of the Northern Don. The authors of RCW noted that the Cossacks argued that they disbanded their forces under the pretense that the Don area would not be occupied by the Soviets. The Red Army also wished that the Cossacks disarm instead of simply dispersing back to their villages with the potential of uprising again. Moreover, the Red Army needed to get to Denikin through the Don region. More significantly, the Bolshevik regime had an agenda of 'decossackization' of the territories, compounding the Cossack question into a military and political issue. However, evidence points to the Cossacks being more interested only in the integrity of their own territory:

“ever since the formation of the Volunteer Army on the Don in November 1917, the Cossack rank and file had made it clear that they were more interested in defending Don autonomy and the Cossack way of life than overthrowing the Bolshevik”3

This observation was reflected by General Pyotr Wrangel, a White Army commander under Denikin. In late 1918, the Cossacks fought under the Whites but in smaller numbers, and General

2 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

3 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

Wrangel had this to say about the state of the White Cavalry forces before the full-scale Cossack Revolt began in Spring 1919;

“ The cavalry of the volunteer army consisted solely of Cossacks, who, once their native village was won back, would fight far less whole-heartedly.“4

The Cossacks lacked strong loyalty to either the whites or Soviets and instead saw themselves as an autonomous group similar to other smaller ethnicities that attempted independence movements during the Russian Civil War, like the Georgians and Ukrainians. Despite their relative indifference to both the Red and White causes, the Cossacks were labeled ‘counter-revolutionaries .'The Don Buro, a bureaucratic entity created by the Bolsheviks to administer the Don Cossacks, conducted itself under the following assumptions:

“The Donburo based itself on two considerations: (1) the counterrevolutionary nature of the cossacks in general; and (2) the victorious advance and power of our army. The Cossacks were open counterrevolutionaries who had to be destroyed and the Red Army capable of doing this - that was the main thought of the Donburo”5

With this perspective, the Cossacks were subject to a policy of terror. Looting, robbery, butchering and repression became the norm. The terror was arbitrarily implemented . This repression along with the occupation of Cossack land, is the trigger that fired the Don Cossack revolt:

“Apart from that, there was a whole series of occasions when commissars were not called to account for stealing from villages and homesteads, getting drunk, abusing their authority, using all sorts of force against the population, seizing cattle, milk, bread, eggs and other products for their own use; they would also denounce people to the Revolutionary Tribunal if they complained”6

The Don Buro Was responsible for convincing the Soviets that decossackization policy was the correct policy to pursue. The Don Buro was kept far from the front and, therefore, deeply out of touch with the population they were supposed to govern, as the Political Section of the Southern Front was de facto in charge of administering the lands of the Don because of the military front with Denikin. This policy preference from the Don Buro was a mistake as the initial attitude from the Soviets deviation from the typical Soviet policy and would have had a better chance at preventing the Revolt:

4 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

5 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

6 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

“Since June 1918 it had been Bolshevik policy to rely not on village soviets in the countryside, which could all too easily fall into the hands of ideological opponents like the SRs, but 'Committees of the Poor'; thus giving a political voice only to the poor and landless, deemed the most likely to support the Bolsheviks. Thus a willingness to establish 'Cossack soviets' rather than Committees of the Poor, enfranchising all Cossacks, was a considerable concession and a clear departure from class-war based policies.”7

Additionally, the Cossacks were to be the subjects of Soviet plans to bring them into the Soviet fold. One plan was to from the Don Buro was to dismember the region and attach a significant amount of land to the province of Tsaritsyn.8 From this, the Cossack lands, especially the north, which the Soviets deemed poorer and disconnected from the Cossack south, would come into the Soviet fold. Populations from outside the Don would be resettled in these lands to further Sovietize them. This act of social engineering was sure to meet resistance and is evidence of how class-conflict ideology clouded the judgement of the Soviet administrators.

Eventually The Bolsheviks and Red Army were divided on the issue. Some red army commanders believed that these counter-revolutionaries would have sprung up again in revolt no matter how they were treated; with or without terror.

Comrade Syrtsov states in a report from the Don region in 1919 on the insurrection in the Veshenskaya region that "any policy other than the quick and decisive neutralization of the counter-revolutionaries, other than the policy of terror, would not have controlled the situation; but that terror could not be made sufficiently real 'for a number of reasons'."9

Eventually, Lenin took notice of the effects of the terror and heavy-handedness in Soviet policy he previously decreed on the population and began to reverse the decossackization policy. In one report, he warned that:

“we must be particularly careful about interference in suchlike details of daily life, which has absolutely no effect on politics in the wider and sense and greatly annoys the local population”..10

7 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

8 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

9 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

10 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

And “the worker peasant government.. Has no intention of decossackising anyone by force, it is not against the Cossack way of life, but leaves the honest working Cossacks their sanitsas and villages, their lands, their right to wear whatever uniform they like.”

Comrade Sokolnikov, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front, also found that the Donburo’s arguments buttressing the policy of decossackisation to be arbitrary in a report in 1919:

“The groundless accusation that the Cossacks were counterrevolutionary is, of course, the product of immature reflection”...11

Furthermore, he argues in his report the whole of the Cossack region is rich, and the south is not in a unique situation to make it any less pro-Soviet. Thus, the social engineering plan from the Don Buro was bound to be useless and only create issues. On this he writes:

“Such a resettlement would be difficult to implement, politically harmful, and, of course, would provide a permanent justification for insurrection”12

“The Donburi and the Civilian Administration paid no attention to this and did not bother to get to know the life of the region in which they were establishing Soviet power; for this the region paid dearly, such disregard of our usual Bolshevik practice and experience"13

Other bureaucracies and Red Army generals mirrored Lenin and Sokolnikov’s opinions. However, this policy turnaround was too late since the Cossacks rose in large numbers in the spring of 1919. This revolt dramatically bolstered Denikin’s forces, and by the end of May and beginning of June, Denikin had taken Tsaritsyn from the Bolsheviks.14 A report on the size of Cossack forces, according to Red Army sources, is as follows;

“According to the most conservative figures, 100 000 men left for Novocherkassk and Rostov, all of whom were enemies already armed.”15

Sokolnikov had the hindsight to also notice that the relative success, or stability of the front line in the South against Denikin prior to the new Cossack insurrection, was not due to military

11 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

12 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

13 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

14 1. A. I. Denikin and Catherine Zvegintzov, White Army (London, U.K.: Faulkner Pub., 1992).

15 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

victories but in large part “could be explained in the main by the dislocation of the Cossacks, and changes in their mood.”16

In summary, the political failure to rectify the policies and situation with the Cossacks spawned an enormous revolt in Southern Russia which aligned themselves with Denikin and gave the White Army in Southern Russia the soldiers it needed to push against the Soviets and begin taking territory. A.I Reingol’d, a member of the Bolshevik Don Regional Revolutionary Committee, reflected this fact in a letter to Bolshevik leadership dated July 1919:

“The difficult condition of our Southern Front is an inevitable consequence of the shortsighted policy which has been implemented in the Don in regard to the Cossacks.”17

Lenin’s regime was severely threatened by this renewed push from the South coupled with the offensive by Admiral Kolchak in the East in Siberia. The White Army resurgence put the young Soviet regime on its back foot. Denikin was able to take the city of Orel on October 13th, 1919, threatening Moscow.18 The dire situation the Red Army found itself in from the spring to fall of 1919 was due not so much to military malfeasance as it was this catastrophic political failure.

We see this is the case in January to March of 1919, T. Khodorovskii writes in a report titled ‘why we were defeated on the Southern Front’ in August 1919 that the successes the Red Army saw in January to March of 1919 were due to the following factors:

“1. our numerical superiority over the enemy and our technical advantage compared to theirs

“3. demoralization among the Cossack ranks, caused, for the most part, by Krasnov's attempts to drag those Cossacks attached to their villages and homesteads, into a distant march northwards, beyond the borders of the Don region.”19

He goes on to detail how the momentum shifted in March due to the Cossack revolt:

“Starting in March, however, the situation began to change noticeably, in a way harmful to us. Steadily, but at a rapid tempo, numerical superiority and technical advantage began to move from us to the enemy.”20

16 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

17 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

18 1. A. I. Denikin and Catherine Zvegintzov, White Army (London, U.K.: Faulkner Pub., 1992).

19 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

20 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

In April, Khodorovskii remarked that Denikin’s forces then outnumbered the Reds in May 1919. This is in regard to the amount of troops that only the 9th army had compared to the size of the Cossack force opposing it:

“Overall, the enemy had roughly double our resources on 12 May. And, in the situation on the Don front the advantage in cavalry was particularly important; the enemy had 11 720 sabres against our 2602.”21

When it came to the Cossacks, a report to Lenin by A.L. Kolegaev, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council, highlights that the political work in the Don Region was simply not being done, though it was of extreme importance to subdue the Cossacks for military reasons. This is a political and organizational problem.

“the need to organise our rule on the Don and the work of the Revolutionary Committee is tremendously important, in the sense that we need to establish a realistic and permanent set-up for putting our policies into practice. This work is at present not being done and we are exposing our rear areas. What had been achieved is now falling apart, with four out of five members of the Revolutionary Committee absent,”22

Disorganization and miscommunication for Reds:

A second issue for the Red Army on the Southern Front with Denikin was the defective organization of the military, extremely tardy communication, and lack of all kinds of supplies. During the middle of 1919 the Red Army lacked manpower for the front against Denikin as all focus was placed on the East against Kolchak.23 The Red Army was then chipped away by Denikin’s reinvigorated push, lack of reinforcements, and a typhus epidemic.

T. Khodorosvskii, in the same detailed report as mentioned earlier titled 'Why We Were defeated on the Southern Front' (12 August 1919), describes in detail these issues and how destitute the Red Army was at this time. Here, he describes how the forces in the South were whittled away, and there was a desperate need for reinforcements:

“During the course of May the army continued to shrink, partly because of typhus, partly because of the bitter battles for control of the Don. It was quite clear to the Revolutionary Military Council of the 9th Army that with such forces the Army not only could not

21 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

22 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

23 Brian Murphy, Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920 the Key to Victory (Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis, 2014).

attack, but could not hold the left bank of the Donets, which from the middle of May was already subject to occasional cavalry raids.”24

A.L. Kolegaev mirrors this in a telegram to Lenin on May 21st, 1919. The ‘counter-insurgency expeditionary force’ was the army responsible for dealing with the Cossack uprising.

“Khvesin, Head of the Counter-insurgency Expeditionary Force, informs us that the thousand cadet commanders who have arrived along with the other reinforcements, barely cover our losses from sickness or desertion.”25

He goes on to mention that telegrams from the Revolutionary Military Council of the 9th Army were sent to Southern Front HQ of the situation but the reports were ignored up until the point of catastrophe having already struck:

“I do not know who to blame, but these figures were not taken on board by the organisations to whom they were addressed and the southern front continued to believe that our early numerical superiority had been maintained, even though in the course of March up to 15000 men had been transferred from the 8th and 9th Armies to fight the insurrection, which was bound to weaken these armies on the main front even more.”26

Organizational issues stemmed primarily from the absence of the Southern Front Commander Gittis. He was stationed in the Donets Basin in Kupyansk and ordered to occupy the region by Supreme Commander Vatsetis. Khodorosvskii had this to say about this idea:

“I do not want to be so brave as to criticise this plan, but must point out that the trip of Commander Gittis to Kupyansk and his absence for more than six weeks from Kozlov (the HQ of the Southern Front) meant that the work of the Southern Front practically stopped, something quite inevitable since no one can take the place of a front commander when there are crucial organisational and supply problems which can only be resolved by someone with sufficient military and business experience.”27

Because of the complete absence of a single unified leadership in the Southern Front during this time:

24 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

25 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

26 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

27 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

“Mechanically each army was given directives, without taking into account the extent to which the army was in a state to carry out these orders. The HQ of the Southern Front was completely unaware of the real situation at the front.”28

On May 23rd, Commander Gittis sent a telegram to his forces that reflected the total breakdown in communication and organization on the Southern Front, as he ordered the 9th army to attack against a ‘weak’ enemy. This was nowhere close to being feasible. This is his telegram:

“The break in the front must be liquidated whatever happens and in the most energetic fashion. The enemy opposite the 9th Army is weak, occupying the right bank of the Donets with a weak scrappy line, broken in places and reinforced by a small, mobile group moving from place to place. It is this group that has crossed the front.”29

In response to this, Khodorosvskii mentions that:

“We were astounded by this telegram. The next day we informed the Front HQ that interrogations of prisoners, fugitives and captured documents made clear that opposite the 9th Army stood the Third Khoper Corps comprising five to six mounted divisions and an infantry brigade, as well as seven mounted divisions, plus a further five to six divisions in the process of being moved there. Either the HQ or our Army were misinformed;”30

An Army commissar named N. Suglitskii on the Southern front mirrors the dire need for reinforcements in his report to the Central Committee on May 19th, 1919:

“I must tell you that our strength has now come down to 80-100 infantry per regiment, instead of the former strength of 2000 as they were in the winter.”31

“Spanish influenza and typhus have accounted for many of the losses, and we have suffered many casualties in battles. When we tried to force the Donets - because there was no reserve and only our division got across on its own - we lost up to 2000 men - prisoners, drowned and killed. The men who were exhausted, without any support from nearby units, had to retreat willy-nilly under pressure from the enemy, who were six times stronger. He threw 4 divisions against us, and two very strong detachments of Kalmyks and men from the Kuban”32

28 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

29 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

30 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

31 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

32 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

Reinforcements were scant because of the focus on Kolchak’s advancement from the East. This likely had a strong effect on morale, as the soldiers of the southern front lacked many things and likely seemed forgotten by their commanders and government. The importance of Kolchak is evidenced by Suglitskii comment:

“We are looking forward to receiving reinforcements and can see that it will be a long time before that moment comes, since all our forces are directed against Kolchak.”33

Another Bolshevik military failure of the Don was that they were extremely tardy in mobilizing the non-Cossack peasantry in the parts of the region they controlled to reinforce their Southern Front. Khodorosvskii proposed multiple times to HQ that they begin conscripting the non-Cossack peasantry as soon as possible, but these were ignored. It was revealed that there was the apprehension of mobilizing even the non-Cossacks in the area, which the Bolsheviks previously believed they would have a better relationship with because they feared they would turn against the Bolsheviks. Essentially, the breakdown of the political relationship between the Bolsheviks and the Cossacks made the Bolsheviks extremely cautious of the entire population of the Don region.

From May 26th to 27th, the Southern Front was completely Broken, Denikin was rapidly advancing, and the entire Red Army was in retreat. In a desperate attempt to save the situation, Commander Gittis ordered the immediate conscription of the Cossacks in the northern territory they held. This was an interesting choice as Gittis made no mention of mobilizing non-Cossack groups, reflecting the confusion and poor planning of HQ as this was likely an argument that had been raging for weeks. This mobilization went exceptionally poorly, as they could not properly supply these troops, and the Red Army was still retreating while mobilizing the land they were currently losing.34 Khodorosvskii writes about it here:

“Only when our armies had cleared out of a good half of the Don Oblast did we receive orders from the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front to mobilise all those under 37 in a band some 50 versts wide behind the front. Of course, mobilisation carried out in these circumstances did not succeed. We took people from the fields and the work shops, gave them no uniform or boots, and put them in no cohesive military units, and threw them at the front. No useful purpose was served, and the losses were colossal. At the same time, much of the local population, as the enemy approached, simply fled, and escaped our mobilisation. In fact it is generally true that a retreating army cannot carry out a mobilisation.”35

33 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

34 Francesco Benvenuti, The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

35 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

In his detailed report, Khodorosvskii blames the defeat not on the soldiers themselves. From his perspective, he states that the Red Army conducted itself with bravery in a fighting retreat. Although, he is likely not correct that morale was no issue at all, as desertion was a common plague for the Red Army throughout the Russian Civil War. However, he is right to state it was not the key factor in the Red Army’s defeat in the South. The desertion and morale issue will be analyzed later in this essay. With the evidence provided in his report, he states this:

“We were defeated as a result of the most dreadful organisational collapse, the absence of any kind of creative military thinking for the whole time we were on the Don”36

The Red Army was ill-prepared for the uprising. Already, they struggled to communicate and organize when their only enemy was Denikin. The rebellion from the Cossacks in March dramatically swayed the situation in Denikin's favor as

“Only at the end of March, when the uprising had taken hold of a large area, did the commander of the Southern Front take charge of the forces confronting the rebels, in Army Command 9. This order was a fateful mistake and this is why: at the moment it was issued almost the whole of the Army HO, and equally all the army apparatus, was based in Mikhailovka, but the Army Commander with several executive officers was in Morosovskaya. To command an expeditionary force, yet formed into any final units, in the absence of the Army HO and executive command, presented huge difficulties.”37

Beyond this, first aid and doctors were rare on the front lines, and the Typhus epidemic, which substantially affected both the Reds and the Whites on the Southern Front, exacerbated the situation. Khodorosvskii had this to say in his report:

“When I arrived with the 9th Army at the start of April I was horrified at what I found - barracks, hospitals, shelters overflowing with victims of typhus. For every division of six regiments (and if the division had three brigades then there were nine regiments) there was one, or at best two doctors, and the regimental 'coolers' were being used as a medical unit. Not only were there no doctors, but no medical orderlies and no nurses.”38

Morale, Discipline and quality of Soldiers and Command

36 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

37 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

38 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

The low morale and discipline factors were so common that when a group of reinforcements were sent to assist in the Cossack rebellion in May, reinforcements that were desperately needed, there was hesitation to send them to the front for fear they would desert or change sides over to the Whites once they entered combat. A.L. Kolegaev’s pessimistic report highlights this troubling reality for the Red Army:

“The 33rd Division has just arrived. I think it would be completely wrong to throw the whole or part of this division against the insurgents, since we do not yet know its true worth: we must first establish how far it is battle-worthy, whether it is politically reliable and how far it is technically prepared, since normally from the 11th Army, whence it has been transferred, units arrive in a demoralized state, and we shall not allow ourselves to send reinforcements to the enemy rather than to our own units.”39

One Ukranian division arrived at the front, and the report is even more pessimistic about its capabilities. Kolegaev writes on this division in particular:

“Discipline has been completely lost. More than 30 per cent of the Red Army men have run off. Practically the whole command staff are not fit to hold their posts from the regimental commander down. The commission concludes that the regiment cannot exist with such a command staff.”40

In another section of his report, Kolegaev tells of how the men have resorted to looting the local population for basic supplies like clothes and food. He made attempts to stop the behavior by complaining to the Southern Front High Command out of worry that the local population would continue to turn against them. He describes the state of the army as follows:

“They are simply in rags - there is no other word to describe them. Faced with the lack of uniform they requisition things from the local people, sometimes by robbing them, and that poisons people's minds against us. I have shouted and made a great fuss to get someone to attend to this, for there is neither tobacco, nor sugar, nor fat bacon, to say nothing of uniform or forage for the horses.”41

Another political commissar foresaw the changing tides of the front in a letter to the central committee in May 7th 1919 when he stated:

“I wish to draw to your attention that the situation on our front will be disastrous if exceptionally energetic measures are not taken to improve supplies, both of food and of forage for our horses. I personally quite realise my shortcomings in both these respects,

39 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

40 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

41 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

but nevertheless would suggest that you must find more adequate solutions to our difficulties... The men have nothing to eat for two days at a time and it demands superhuman skill to keep up their morale.”42

“To sum up: I am using the word 'disastrous' without any exaggeration, absolutely using the full meaning of the word. The men are so worn out with cold and hunger that we really may expect dire consequences if no one is able to supply the men and their horses. There is a great lack of horses.”43

Another issue for the Red Army was the lack of experienced personnel. The Red Army general staff and officer core had a significant deficit in personnel across all its fronts44. In HQ, the general staff was strained in its work, likely contributing to the rash decision making, which was also in part a consequence of telegram delays, as previously discussed. Field officers were killed at nearly twice the rate of the normal soldiers.45 These two excerpts from the Red Army Commander in Chief Vatsetis to Lenin in April 1919 highlight their weaknesses:

On officers in the field: “Everywhere and on every occasion they are in the front rank of the combatants - often out in front - and they are the first to get killed. This has a particularly bad effect on the outcome of a battle, since units are deprived of their commanders right at the beginning of the fighting, so that they are left without leaders at its end, and consequently lose much of their effectiveness in action.”46

On HQs: “In the various headquarters there are not enough people to work who have proper military training. In the General Staff we are more than 70 per cent short of the required establishment, and at the front the shortage of trained specialists may reach as high as 82 per cent. It means that in the headquarters the whole burden of work requiring military training and specialized knowledge falls on the 15 to 35 per cent who are in post. As a result of this we get a great overload of duties for those working in the General staff”47 Additionally, sectarianism, party politics, and a culture of paranoia led to purges of military commanders. The Red Terror was in full, beginning in 1918; it lasted until 1922 and claimed the lives of at least tens of thousands as a conservative estimate, but some estimates go beyond 1

42 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

43 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

44 Brian Murphy, The Russian Civil War: Primary Sources (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

45 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

46 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

47 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

million.48 Individuals would settle financial, political, or personal disputes with rivals, including those in the Red Army's general staff and officer corp. Therefore, the arrests were often arbitrary and baseless. Red Army Commander Chief Vatsetis complained in his report of several comrades who were suddenly removed from their positions and either incarcerated or exiled. The Red Army was already operating with a minimal amount of experienced leadership, and the political climate only exacerbated the situation. One can only assume this would have a dire consequence on the Red Army’s military effectiveness. Vatsetis says the following on the arrests of Comrade Teodori and Comrade Selivachev:

"when we had to fight against the Czechoslovak Teodori gave invaluable service as Military Director of the Operations Section..”49

“In the last few days Comrade Selivachev has also been arrested, whom it was intended to appoint to command the Eastern Front. Selivachev I knew even before the war, and he was never a monarchist; quite the opposite - under the monarchy he was one of those who was persecuted. Taken together both these arrests make it look as though hostages are being taken in advance ...”50

The Red Terror led to large-scale lawlessness for the Russian people as well, with robbery and arbitrary conduct by Red Army soldiers and Cheka against ‘counterrevolutionaries’ and especially deserters.51 This policy of terror created simmering discontent amongst the population. Left-SR groups, which were Soviet but not Bolshevik aligned, held significant grassroots power among the population and spawned peasant revolts in Bolshevik-held territory. Though they were defeated militarily in 1918, they still "won majorities in many periodic elections to soviets, both urban and provincial.”52 The Bolshevik government “frequently called further, unscheduled, elections and manipulated them in a variety of ways in order to achieve electoral success”.53 In one complaint by Peasants in the Penza Province in March 1919, the letter questions the legality of local Soviet authorities who were not lawfully elected and abused their power;

“Did this overly small cell consisting of eight people posses the legal right, having gathered the community into our local school building, to deprive us of the right to vote, solely on their own judgement and not with the consent of the general

48 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

49 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

50 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

51 Brian Murphy, The Russian Civil War: Primary Sources (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).

52 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

53 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

assembly of citizens, as occurred in the elections of the present village authorities”.54

It took several years after the Civil War had ended for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power and repress the citizens enough to stamp out any revolt. The discontent in the general population made for very weak morale and dedication to the Bolshevik cause in the army and political and security issues behind the front lines that could were only resolved with force and occupation.

What strengths did the White army posses in Spring/mid 1919?

The success of the Whites was a direct consequence of the disaster that was the Don front for the Bolsheviks. Among all the issues already spelled out in detail, the most significant blunder of the Bolsheviks was the political blunder with the Cossacks. The Cossack Uprising could have been prevented with adequate and non-sectarian policies by the Bolsheviks, or at least postponed it until the Red Army’s situation and fronts were in a more favorable state. The organizational disaster on the Southern Front would have continued to cripple operations, but Denikin’s advance was due to his excess forces. The disorganization of the Red Army only assisted Denikin’s offensive but did not create a scenario where it was possible.55 In 1919, Denikin captured Tsaritsyn on 30 June, Kyiv on August 31st, and Orel on October 13th, 1919, threatening Moscow. The White resurgence was in full swing, as Kolchak in the East was able to enter the Volga region and seize Ulfa on March 4-14.56 The editors and authors of the book The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives analyze the situation as follows: [On the decision making of Red Army Supremer Commander Vatsetis]

“But it is equally clear that his eyes were still as much on Kolchak and the Eastern Front; all available reserves had been concentrated there, for Kolchak had begun his offensive against Ufa in March 1919 and on 28 April the Red Army staged what was at first a successful counter-attack. Had there not been a rebellion by the Don Cossacks, Vatsetis's concentration on the Eastern Front would have been perfectly sensible; for it was the Don rebellion behind the Donets front line which enabled Denikin to advance so dramatically, and that rebellion was the result of a political rather than a military failure.”57

Denikin made enough progress from the end of 1918 to early 1919 to establish a core base of territory from which to administer a government and use its resources. General Wrangel states as

54 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

55 1. A. I. Denikin and Catherine Zvegintzov, White Army (London, U.K.: Faulkner Pub., 1992).

56 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

57 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

follows on north Caucasia: “ General Denikin’s armies now had a base, an extraordinarily rich piece of territory, a big reserve force, and everything that was necessary for the troops.“ The latent potential of Denikin’s army when combined with the Cossacks was significant enough for a White resurgence;

“By May 13th, Denikin’s Army occupied all of the Don region, Donbass, and part of Ukraine.” His full control of the Don allowed sufficient supplies in arms, equipment and ammunition for time in the middle of 1919.58

Denikin amassed substantial momentum from conscripting new troops from conquered territories as he continued to capture Soviet lands. His army included Cossacks, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, and more ethnic groups from the southern areas of the former Russian empire. Also, the army replenished itself by capturing enemy arms, artillery, armored cars, motorized trucks, etc.59 Denikin’s White army was constantly expanding, with new regiments being formed and units being created into new ones. His organizational capabilities and that of his general staff were substantially better than those of the Red Army.60 The organizational work was also constant and efficient. His commanders and officers were better trained, with nearly all of them being veterans of the Great War and many being lifelong career soldiers.

Additionally, the White Army made far better use of Cavalry than the Red Army. One Red Army report on the defeat on the Southern front writes that...

“Denikin made a great use of Calvary, which was essential in Southern Russia as the land was flat and open, and had little railways.”61

In the flat and open steppes of South Russia, with few railroad lines, fast cavalry could outmaneuver infantry, especially if their communication between units was poor. Denikin concentrated pushes and rerouted his units to different parts of the front quickly and consistently when needed. The massive Cossack cavalry forces made for excellent quick reaction forces and could exploit vulnerabilities in lines as well as capitalize on defeated units by pursuing them and forcing a more severe route. Finally, the White army received some support, though temporary, from France and England, which added to their supplies. General Wrangel writes in mid-1919 that:

58 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

59 RICHARD LUCKETT, White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War (New York, New York: ROUTLEDGE, 2018).

60 RICHARD LUCKETT, White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War (New York, New York: ROUTLEDGE, 2018).

61 V. P. Butt et al., The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (New York, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

“The help which France and England had promised had begun to materialize. Boats laden with war materials and drugs, this of which the Army was in great need, had arrived in Novorossiisk. They promised us tanks and airplanes. “62

The Downfall of the White Army from October 1919 onwards

The explosive uprising of Cossacks in the Spring of 1919 gave the White Army of Southern Russia the initiative it needed to launch multiple offensives throughout the year. Despite the victories of the White Army in the spring up to approximately October of 1919 for the White Army, General Wrangel paints a different picture of the situation based on his strategic foresight, which ended up being correct. The March on Moscow and the taking of Tsaritsyn with the help of the Cossacks was, to General Wrangel, a Pryyhic victory overall. At the time of capturing North Caucasia in late 1918 to early 1919, Wrangel often noted the better position of the White Army of South Russia. The enemy was on the run; the White army was winning victory after victory in small and medium-scale battles, looting the equipment and supplies from their enemy and replenishing their forces with troops from their base in the entire Caucuses region.

This created momentum for the White Army and Deniken decided to press on and march on Moscow. This momentum was kept up until around October of 1919. At that time, Wrangel's tone became pessimistic. This is because Wrangel disagreed with Denikin's plan to march on Moscow and instead thought it strategically better to prioritize linking up with Kolchak in the east. Wrangel repeatedly made efforts to change Denikin’s mind, as he foresaw the White Army over-extending itself and the window of opportunity to link with Kolchak diminishing as time went on. Wrangel’s strategic plan was described in this report to Denikin:

“The crying need to join forces with Kolchak's army simply stared us in the face...I sent the commander in Chief a report in which I detailed the situation from my point of view...63

“In my opinion, since the enemy's forces were infinitely superior to our own, we ought not to operated simultaneously in several directions, but should take decisive action against their weakest spot. Actually, this spot could only be Tsaritsyn on the Volga. From there we could effect a junction with Kolchak's army. I decided that we would have to give up our operations in the coalfields. If we shortened our front on the right bank of the Don by about 150 km and took the initiative in the direction I had indicated, it would be all that we could manage. Otherwise, the initiative would fall to the enemy, and they would be threatening our base.”64

62 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

63 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

64 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

The Red Army was heavily distracted on defeating Kolchak, and therefore, the victories in the south were likely temporary ones, should the overall strategic position not be strengthened in such a significant way. There were victories and defeats throughout spring, and often, too many troops were lost in battle. Wrangel says this about the battle for Tsaritsyn in May and June of 1919, which was finally won on June 30th and, on the surface, would be a major victory for the Whites;

“Three weeks later we were at the gates of Tsaritsyn. But at what a price! We had traversed three hundred kilometers of salty steepe-land which lacked water and vegetation of any sort; the whole time we had been fighting the enemy, who occupied strongly fortified positions on many points. The nearer we got to the town, the more stubborn was the resistance of the Red, whose ranks were constantly being reinforced with arrival of fresh troops.”65

And on the ensuing battles for the town itself, which several attacks from the Whites to finally take, Wrangel wrote; “The failure of our attack and the number of our casualties cause and intense anxiety,”66

Later in July, after taking Tsaritsyn, the Red Army counterattacked, and again, the White Army suffered heavy losses. On the Tsaritsyn

“On july 26th the enemy began an offensive. They lost a large number of men and part of their artillery, but they forced our 4th company to retreat. The next day this company resumed the offensive and routed the Reds, though sustaining heavy losses”67

A recurring theme from Wrangel's perspective is the near-infinite reserves that the Red Army can draw upon. In Spring of 1919, the Red Army was deprived of valuable reinforcements, as discussed in the section on Red Army primary sources. However, by Summer and onwards, the Bolsheviks finally realized the seriousness of the situation on the Southern Front, and the tardy bureaucracy of the Bolsheviks finally decided to act on the reinforcement issues on the Southern Front. Wrangel describes the lost opportunity to link with Kolchak in this excerpt:

“The enemy was continually threatening Admiral Kolchak's front. The Reds foresaw their danger if we should occupy Saratov, so they concentrated many divisions there, taking them from the Siberian front. The consequences of General Denikin's strategic efforts were now becoming obvious. He had rejected the plan that I had proposed from the very first, after the liberation of Caucasia, and had thrown our troops into the Donetz coalfield area. Suddenly, circumstances had forced him to transfer a large number of troops to Tsaritsyn, but he was

65 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

66 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

67 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

already too late, for Kolchak's Army was in flight by then, and the enemy’s entire force was massed against us.”68

The Bolsheviks had begun desperately conscripting poorly trained peasants en masse to defend against Denikin’s advancements and repel Kolchak. The Bolsheviks were extremely fortunate that their revolution claimed the Russian demographic heartland, and therefore, their population size was simply much larger than that of their enemies who occupied the Southern Steppes of the former Russian Empire and Siberia.

Moreover, Wrangel rightly believed that Denikin was extending the front line too far and too quickly in his attempt to take Moscow. After taking Tsaritisyn he wrote a report to Denikin. Here he talks about its content:

“In the report which I presented to the commander-in-chief, I stressed once again the danger of increasing the length of the front line without having the necessary reserves and a well-organized rear. I proposed that we should entrench ourselves on the Tsaritsyn-Ekaterinoslav front for the time being so that the Volga and the Dnieper would be covering our flanks. Then we could detach the troops necessary for operations in the south-east in the direction of Astrakhan, and at the same time concentrate three or four cavalry troops at our center round about Kharkov. When the time was ripe these troops could be used nearer Moscow. At the same time the rear had to be organized, the regimental cadres enlarged, the reserve forces increased, and new bases established.”69

On the Tsaritsyn front, it was difficult for Wrangel to push past the city because, despite the poor morale of the Red Army soldiers, the White Army of Southern Russia simply lacked the necessary reinforcements to push past Tsaritsyn. At the time, this was because Denikin did not prioritize the section of the Tsaritsyn front, he considered it a flank as his main objective was push through the center of Russia and capture Moscow as soon as possible. Denikin’s forces managed to take Kiev, Kursk and Orel in October. However, the rapid advance did three things for the Whites that were fatal; first, it overextended the front line; second, it made the general staff ignore defensive measures such as reinforcing cities or creating strongholds for logistics in the rear; third, it ignored chaos behind the lines. Due to these military and administrative failures and the mass conscription underway by the Red Army, in late November 1919, the White Forces stopped along the entire front. On this timeline, Wrangel writes:

“General Denikin’s army continued its rapid march towards Moscow. It took Kiev, Kursk, and Orel. Our cavalry was at the gates of Voronege. All Southern Russia, with its wealth of provisions of all kinds, was in General Denikin’s power, and we heard of new successes daily. But it had been clear to me for a long time, and I had not hidden

68 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

69 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

my opinion from the Commander-in-Chief, that we were building on sand, we had bitten off far more than we could chew. Our front was too long in comparison with the number of our forces, we had no organized bases and no strongholds in our rear.“70

In the rear of Denikin’s advance, the Ukranian Anarchist Makhno Additionally, the lands were not consolidated nor garrisoned sufficiently, as there was already a deficit of reinforcements on the front, and consolidation of the recently conquered territories was not a priority. The only priority for Denikin was spearheading towards Moscow. Wrangel reflects that at the height of Denikin’s push, after taking Kiev, Kursk, and Orel;

“Disorder was at its height in the country. The local authorities had no idea how to make themselves respected; abuse of authority was the order of the day.”71

Despite these issues coming to bear in late 1919, General Wrangel said Denikin seemed unconcerned and certain that his plan would work. This was a reoccurring theme with Denikin, as evidenced by Wrangel numerous attempts to adjust the overall goal to be to focus on the East and link up with Kolchak;

“After dinner I had a two hours tete-a-tete with Denkin. In his opinion everything was going splendidly. The possibility of a sudden change in our luck seemed to him to be out of the question. He thought the taking of Moscow was only a question of time, and that the demoralized and weakened enemy could not make a stand against us.”72

“I drew his attention to the movements of the brigand Makhno and his rebels, for they were threatening our rear. ‘Oh, that is not serous, we will finish him off in the twinkling of an eye’.”73

Political issues eventually came to the forefront of Denikin's alliance with the Cossacks in late 1919. Denikin’s personal politics were of a highly disagreeable nature. He was constantly worried about ‘separatists’ from the Ukraine, Cossacks, and Georgians. Additionally, he cut ties with the Polish in 1919, a later ally in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War, for fear they would claim Russian land. Denikin’s political collisions with the Cossacks throughout 1919 were especially problematic since, as previously described, the Cossacks were instrumental in the White Army resurgence of 1919. Behind the lines and in HQ, however, this alliance was more uneasy than the Bolsheviks knew. Wrangel summarizes Denikin’s attitude to the Cossacks, which remained unchanged throughout the campaign, as such;

“Headquartesrs showed the rankest intolerance towards the Cossacks and all others who did not blindly endorse their point of view. Denikin’s motto, “Russia, one and

70 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

71 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

72 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

73 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

indivisible”, a vague and obscure phrase on the whole, was to be everyone’s watchword. Those who held any other opinion, or were reputed to do so, were stigmatized as separatists. Anyone was called a separatist who had fought the Reds under the Ukranian flag, or who had taken service with the Hetman, this included a very large number of officers who were now serving in the Volunteer army.”74

In 1919, the political issues between the White Russian Army and the Cossacks came to a head when, in July 1919, the Cossack (Kuban) government made an alliance with a mountain tribe called the Medjilis, a development which Denikin considered treason in a letter he wrote to Wrangel. Relations had been strained as “the Rada had become more demagogic than ever and was putting up a fierce opposition to the Commander-in-Chief" over the course of the Fall of 1919.75 In his letter, Denikin ordered that Wrangel arrest any traitors. Interestingly, Denikin’s decision on this matter was made in October, though the Cossacks made this alliance back in July, as this was when the letter was sent to Wrangel, a day before he set out for the capital of the Kuban Cossacks, Ekaterinodar. One of the individuals on the list of ‘traitors’ was a member of the Cossack Rada, an oligarchic governing body of the Cossacks made up of elites of the region. His name was Kalabukhov. Arresting such an individual would be highly problematic and difficult. Wrangel describes the effects of this order as such;

“I learnt from them (*Generals Naoumenko and Kokrovsky) that General Denikin’s telegram had been like a match to gunpowder. Ataman, Government, and Rada were all furious... General Pokrovsky urged me to make a coup d’etat, dissolve the Rada, arrest the miscreants, and have them shot. I absolutely forbade him to attempt any such measure...The Kuban Government demanded the revocation of the order... the same day I received a formal order from General Denikin: I was to adhere strictly to his telegram. Therefore, I ordered General Pokrovsky to have Kalabukhov and the chief offenders arrested and court-martialed.”76

Wrangel was successful in this soft coup d'état, as General Pokrovsky disarmed and arrested the chief offenders and the Rada had handed over Kalabukhov. The constitution of the Kubanian/Cossack government was revised, and power was shifted to the Ataman, who held a stronger pro-Denikin and less pro-autonomy attitude. Wrangel was of the opinion the entire ordeal could have been avoided with more diplomacy and a less rigid, sectarian stance from Denikin. Peasant revolts arose due to Denikin’s poor administration, including in Cossack territories. The politics between the Cossacks and the White Army arguably could have been avoided but certainly distracted the high command of the White Army from the front, which needed the utmost attention. General Wrangel made several trips to the Cossack capital of Ekaterinodar during 1919 to engage in diplomacy, while his commanding officer Denikin

74 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

75 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023). Pg 79

76 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

undermined the alliance twice, once in early 1919 and again in October 1919. When Wrangel finally returned to the front, he described it as such:

“The situation had grown much worse since my last visit to Headquarters. The enemy’s cavalry had penetrated our front line at the junction of the Army of the Don and the Volunteer Army, and was now threatening the rear of the latter. Orel and Kursk had been abandoned and the front was rapidly drawing in on Kharkow... the peoples discontent grew with our reverses. General Youdenitch’s offensive on Petrograd had petered out, and the fragments of his army were falling back towards Esthonia. In Siberia, Kolchak's beaten Army was in rapid retreat. The storm was brewing.”77

“Peasant revolts were raging behind the lines in the governments of Ekaterinoslav, Poltava, and Kharkov, and Makhno and his bands were molesting the troops. General Chatilov agreed with me that the situation was hopeless.”78

Another political failure of Denikin’s command that Wrangel highlights is the mishandling of the ‘agrarian question’, which was a series of related socio-economic issues related to laws on land ownership for both the landed aristocrats of pre-soviet Russia and of the land-owning peasants. The civil rights of peasants and aristocrats, as well as serfdom and property rights, had historically been an enormous political issue for Russia. The Bolshevik promise to obliterate all property rights and instate a total reorganization of land with the promise of a freer and fairer society was a powerful piece of propaganda. It helped mobilize the ‘poor peasants’ who owned no land whatsoever to side in overwhelming numbers with the Bolsheviks.

The White Army’s answer to land reform was, however, non-existent. With no real alternative, no middle path of reform that was not radical, Wrangel makes the argument that the White Army missed out on gaining the support of the large population of land-owning peasants in the countryside. This could have had the potential to 1) conscript more of the population or earn more volunteers and 2) prevent peasant revolts in the rear, which occurred in late 1919 due to both poor administration by the Whites and lawlessness. In October of 1919, Wrangel notes that even during Denikin's rapid approach to Moscow and the mounting successes of the offensive;

“ the agrarian question was more bitter than ever. The government itself knew only too well what it wanted to do about it. Its underpaid representatives were often dishonest.”79

When Wrangel succeeded Denikin in 1920, he undertook the issue of land-reform but by then the White Army of South Russia was defeated and only held Crimea. Though it is uncertain as to whether a policy of land-reform could have changed the fate of the White Army when it was at its peak in its march on Moscow, it certainly needed to be addressed in order to deprive the

77 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

78 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

79 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

Bolsheviks of one of their most powerful pieces of propaganda against the old regime. Additionally, there was a need to rejuvenate the economy for the population devastated by the lawlessness of the civil war.

Evidence shows that the peasants deeply desired an economic alternative to the Soviet system. Wrangel notes that when newspapers crossed the border into Soviet territory, mentioning the fact that his administration was working on land reform issues, he was visited by peasants who snuck across the border and inquired about his policies. This is what gave Wrangel the drive to focus his political efforts on land reform. Before these meetings, it was not a priority but only an issue that he would address at some point. On these visits, he wrote that;

“The peasants told me that the whole population of their district was tired of the Soviet system and Communism-all, that is, except the beggars and the disorderly elements. The peasants wanted peace, order, and a normal state of affairs to be restored to the countryside. They wanted laws concerning the land and self-government to be promulgated, putting local government and the administration of the land into their own hands... on these conditions only, they declared, would the peasants agree to recognize the cause of the Russian Army as their own an as the national popular cause.”80

Another political failure for the white movement was the treatment of the population. Lawlessness and robbery were a problem for the White Army as it was for the Red Army. General Wrangel notes that his colleagues would allow their troops to loot from towns and villages. Though Wrangel repeatedly made a personal effort to punish those under his command who would abuse their power, he could not convince his colleagues to do the same:

“Destitute of everything, they re-equipped themselves at the expense of the countryside, showing not the slightest respect for other people’s property. And it was impossible, at any rate at the beginning of the Civil War, to prevent such outrages.”81

“General Pokrovsky (and, unfortunately, he was not he only one), either could not or would not follow my example, and consequently I had to give up the idea of prohibiting this lawlessness. Everything was considered permissible. The result of this state of affairs was disastrous.”82

The White army failed to win over a more significant amount of the population due to the lawlessness in which they conducted military and occupation operations and the failed opportunity to conduct reform and present the people with a more thought-out political alternative. Nevertheless, Wrangel notes several times in his memoirs that he was greeted with

80 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

81 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

82 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

cheers and often even gifts such as wine, cigarettes and more from the peasants he encountered as he conquered territory.83

General Pyotr Wrangel's quotes were used in this paper because of the depth and detail of his memoir, as well as the honesty he seems to display in all the aspects of the conduct of the White Army of South Russia. His position as a general under Denikin, and then Denikin's successor, makes him an ideal option as a primary source, as he had much to criticize Denikin for and witnessed much. Other commanders pictured Denikin the same way. Denikin was harshly criticized in a report titled; “what went wrong with Denikin’s Army” by General Aleksandr Lukomskii, who was a military commander and Chair of the territories Denikin controlled.

“Did you ever.. Allow anyone to express opposition to your actions? No not at all!. One dared with confidence to contradict you only in private; otherwise each of us risked falling out of favor.”84

“You turned a blind eye to the activities of such gentlemen as General V.L. Pokrovskii and Genral Shkuro”. 85 These commanders were infamous for committing cruelties on the population.

Additionally, he criticized the overall corruption of the officer corps. There was a lack of ‘idealists’ in the revolutionary period, and meager pay took a toll on the constitution of the officers.

He criticized Denikin's foreign policy toward the newly independent states that sprung up from the Russian empire or gained new land like Poland and Romania. Denikin cut out many potential allies because of his stubborn desire to restore the Russian territory of 1914. Lukormskii states that such a policy was foolish because it could only require ‘real force,' which Denikin overrated in his army given its situation.86 He also criticizes Denikin’s ’crucial’ land reform policies, which were almost non-existent because of lawlessness behind the lines.87 What land laws did exist were more or less the status quo of the previous regime. Although Lukomskii disagreed with this statement, the opinion of another White Army general, General Romanovskii, was as follows;

83 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

84 Jonathan W. Daly and Leonid Trofimov, Russia in War and Revolution, 1914-1922: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 2009).

85 Jonathan W. Daly and Leonid Trofimov, Russia in War and Revolution, 1914-1922: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 2009).

86 Jonathan W. Daly and Leonid Trofimov, Russia in War and Revolution, 1914-1922: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 2009).

87 Jonathan W. Daly and Leonid Trofimov, Russia in War and Revolution, 1914-1922: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 2009).

“when the front line began to collapse, Romanovskii told me;“Our failures at the front and the uprisings in the rear are explained above all by the fact that our policies were too far to the right, in particular, they favored land lords.”88

In Lukomskii’s opinion, Denikin’s position of a softer reform was correct, the problem was that “all that was necessary was to establish firm order in the rear”.89

Either way, Denikin failed in his land reform efforts. Romanovskii likely agreed with Wrangel’s more thorough reforms when he replaced Denikin in April 1920. The testaments of Lukomskii mirrored the political and leadership issues Wrangel had with Denikin , despite Lukomskii having different opinions for land reform.

Bolshevik response to Denikin’s Advance

As for what the Bolsheviks did that changed the trajectory of the Southern Front, the numerous failures of Denikin already being said, the Bolsheviks did three things: 1) Allied with the Ukrainian Insurgent Nestor Makhno, 2) a successful counter-offensive against Kolchak in the East, leading to his capital of Omsk being taken on November 2nd 1919 3) the mass mobilization of reserves, though several months tardy to the Cossack uprising, by the inefficient Bureaucracy of the RSFR.

Nestor Makhno and the Bolsheviks were never on good terms, but when Denikin finally reached Makno’s Ukrainian territory and the two armies collided, Makno decided to offer integration of his own forces into the Red Army. The Bolsheviks finally seemed to have learned from their sectarian political mistakes in the Left-SR peasant revolts and Cossack Revolts and accepted the offer.90 Mahkno justified this action as putting the “revolution's interests above ideological differences".91 This alliance would last until Mahkno’s usefulness was up in late 1920, and the White Army of Southern Russia defeated.92

A significant factor for the success of Denikin's rapid offensive was the focus of the Bolshevik high command on the East against Kolchak. Throughout the second half of 1919, with superior materials and manpower, the Red Army was able to break past the Urals, capture Omsk, and proceed quickly to win the Eastern Front.93 This allowed the Red Army to divert more troops to the Southern Front. Again, had Denikin decided to focus on the Tsaritsyn portion of his front and

88 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

89 Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, Always with Honor (Columbia, South Carolina: Self, 2023).

90 Francesco Benvenuti, The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

91 Skirda, Alexandre. Nestor Makhno--anarchy’s cossack: The struggle for free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2004.

92 Skirda, Alexandre. Nestor Makhno--anarchy’s cossack: The struggle for free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2004.

93 Francesco Benvenuti, The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

link with Kolchak, it is unknown if this could have saved Kolchak, but this was a possibility that the Red Army deeply feared. Both Red Army Supreme Commanders, Jukums Vācietis, and then his successor Sergey Kamenev (who took over in July 1919), expressed worry about the Southern Front.94 Vācietis sought to stop the Eastern push altogether in order to confront Denikin. Kamenev disagreed and thought progress on both fronts could be achieved at the same time, which proved to be true, but while Kamenev was operating in the East, he was drawing plans to make sure that Denikin never linked with Kolchak.95 When Kolchak was largely defeated, and that pos

sibility faded, Denikin had already reached Orel and threatened Moscow. 96

Additional reinforcements arrived at the Southern Front when the Bolsheviks, with their poor communications and organization, finally realized the severity of the situation in the South. The Response by the Bolsheviks to mass mobilize the population from the large pool available to the regime in the Russian heartland exacerbated the problem of over-extension for the White Army of South Russia.

From these primary sources, one can see that the reason for the downfall of the Armed Forces of South Russia included the over-extension of the front line, lack of reinforcements and dwindling supplies, political confrontation with the Cossacks, lawlessness behind the front lines, including raids by Ukrainian Insurgent Makhno, political failures with the population and most importantly, a strategic miscalculation to prioritize taking Moscow over creating a united frontline with Kolchak. This evidence also shows that the Red Army was able to replenish its reserves and outnumbered the White Army, which had overextended its line in the advance in Moscow. Additionally, the alliance with Nestor Mahkno, who raided Denikin behind the front line, was instrumental in curtailing a further advance and in allowing a Red Army counterattack to make a White Army victory by the spring of 1920 a distant possibility.

94 Andrej Sergeevič Bubnov et al., The Russian Civil War, 1918-1921: An Operational-Strategic Sketch of the Red Army’s Combat Operations (Philadelphia ; Oxford: Casemate Publishers, 2020).

95 Leon Trotsky and Charles Malamuth, Stalin (London: Hollis and Carter Ltd, 1947).

96 Leon Trotsky and Charles Malamuth, Stalin (London: Hollis and Carter Ltd, 1947).

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