In the civil war, various forces opposed the Bolsheviks. These were Cossacks, nationalists, democrats, monarchists. All of them, despite their differences, served the White cause. Having been defeated, the leaders of anti-Soviet forces either perished or were able to emigrate.
Alexander Kolchak
Although the resistance to the Bolsheviks did not become fully united, it was Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak (1874-1920) who is considered by many historians to be the main figure in 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 Kolchak gained rich experience during the Japanese campaign and the First World War. With the advent of the Provisional Government, he briefly emigrated to the United States. When news of the Bolshevik coup came from home, Kolchak returned to Russia.
The admiral arrived in Siberian Omsk, where the Socialist-Revolutionary government made him Minister of War. In 1918, officers made a coup, and Kolchak was called the Supreme Ruler of Russia. Other leaders of the White movement then did not have as much power as Alexander Vasilievich (he had at his disposal a 150,000-strong army).
In the controlled territory, 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 his success, White was already approaching Kazan. Kolchak tried to pull as much of the Bolshevik forces as possible to clear Denikin’s road to Moscow.
In the second half of 1919, the Red Army launched a massive offensive. White retreated farther to Siberia. Foreign allies (Czechoslovak Corps) issued the Socialist-Revolutionaries who was traveling east on the Kolchak train. The admiral was shot in Irkutsk in February 1920.
Anton Denikin
If Kolchak was at the head of the White Army in eastern Russia, then Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872-1947) was the key military leader for a long time in the south. 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 interim government briefly made Anton Ivanovich the commander of the Southwestern Front. Denikin supported the Kornilov rebellion. After the failure of the coup, the lieutenant general was imprisoned for some time (Bykhovsky seat).
Freed 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 Entente countries staked, declaring war on the Soviet power after its separate peace with Germany.
For some time Denikin clashed with the Don Ataman Peter Krasnov. Under the pressure of the Allies, he obeyed Anton Ivanovich. In January 1919, Denikin became the commander in chief of the All-Union Socialist League of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia. His army cleared of the Bolsheviks Kuban, Don region, Tsaritsyn, Donbass, Kharkov. The offensive of Denikin was drowned in Central Russia.
VSYUR retreated to Novocherkassk. From there, Denikin moved to the Crimea, where in April 1920, under pressure from opponents, transferred his authority to Peter Wrangel. Then followed a departure to Europe. In exile, the general wrote his memoirs, “Sketches of Russian Troubles,” in which he tried to answer the question of why the White Movement was defeated. In the Civil War, Anton Ivanovich blamed exclusively on the Bolsheviks. He refused to support Hitler and criticized 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.
Laurel Kornilov
The organizer of the failed 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.
Initially, Lavr Georgievich Kornilov supported the Provisional Government. The main enemies of Russia, he considered the left. Being a supporter of strong power, he began to prepare an anti-government speech. His campaign in 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 of the Volunteer Army in southern Russia. In February 1918, Kornilov organized the First Kuban (Icy) campaign to Yekaterinodar. This operation has become legendary. All the leaders of the White movement in the future tried to be equal to the pioneers. Kornilov died tragically during the shelling of Yekaterinodar.
Nikolay Yudenich
General Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich (1862-1933) was one of the most successful military leaders of Russia 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 military commander.
With the onset of the October Revolution, Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich lived illegally for some time in Petrograd. At the beginning of 1919 he moved to Finland using forged documents. Sitting in Helsinki, the Russian Committee proclaimed him commander in chief.
Yudenich made contact with Alexander Kolchak. Coordinating his actions with the admiral, Nikolai Nikolaevich unsuccessfully tried to enlist the support of the Entente and Mannerheim. In the summer of 1919, he received a portfolio of the Minister of War in the so-called Northwest Government, formed in Reval.
In the fall, Yudenich organized a trip to Petrograd. Basically, the White movement in the civil war acted on the outskirts of the country. The army of Yudenich, on the contrary, tried to liberate the capital (as a result, the Bolshevik government moved to Moscow). She occupied Tsarskoye Selo, Gatchina and reached the Pulkovo Heights. Trotsky was able to transfer reinforcements to Petrograd by rail, thereby nullifying all White’s attempts 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. Having become accustomed to defeat, Yudenich settled in France and withdrew from politics. In 1933, he died in Cannes from pulmonary tuberculosis.
Alexey 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 Cossack cities, primarily in Rostov, sympathies for the socialists were strong. Ataman, on the contrary, considered the Bolshevik coup to be criminal. Having received disturbing news from Petrograd, he defeated the Soviets in the Don Army area.
Alexey Maksimovich Kaledin acted from Novocherkassk. In November, another white general, Mikhail Alekseev, arrived there. Meanwhile, the Cossacks for the most part hesitated. Many war veterans tired of the war vividly responded to the slogans of the Bolsheviks. Others were neutral towards the Leninist government. Almost no one experienced hostility towards the socialists.
Having lost hope of reconnecting with the overthrown Provisional Government, Kaledin took decisive steps. He declared the independence of the Don Army Region. In response to this, the Rostov Bolsheviks revolted. Ataman, with the support of Alekseev, suppressed this speech. The 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 a volunteer army of white generals, on the other hand, local Cossacks. The latter increasingly sympathized with the Bolsheviks. In December, the Red Army occupied Donbass and Taganrog. Cossack units meanwhile completely decomposed. Realizing that his own subordinates did not want to fight the Soviet regime, the chieftain committed suicide.
Ataman Krasnov
After the death of Kaledin, the Cossacks did not long sympathize with the Bolsheviks. When Soviet power was established in the Don , yesterday's war veterans quickly hated the Reds. Already in May 1918, an uprising broke out in the Don.
The new chieftain of the Don Cossacks was Peter Krasnov (1869-1947). During the war with Germany and Austria, he, like many other white generals, participated in the glorious Brusilovsky breakthrough. The military always treated the Bolsheviks with disgust. It was he, by order of Kerensky, who tried to recapture Petrograd from Lenin's supporters when the October Revolution was just completed. A small detachment of Krasnov occupied Tsarskoye Selo and Gatchina, but soon the Bolsheviks surrounded and disarmed him.
After the first failure, Peter Krasnov was able to move to the Don. Having become the chieftain of anti-Soviet Cossacks, he refused to obey Denikin and tried to conduct an independent policy. In particular, Krasnov established friendly relations with the Germans.
Only when surrender was announced in Berlin did the isolated chieftain obey Denikin. The commander-in-chief of the Volunteer Army did not long endure a dubious ally. In February 1919, Krasnov, under pressure from Denikin, left for Yudenich’s army in Estonia. From there he emigrated to Europe.
Like many leaders of the White movement who were in exile, the former Cossack chieftain 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 Peter Nikolaevich of the USSR. In the Soviet Union, he was tried and sentenced to capital punishment. Krasnov was executed.
Ivan Romanovsky
The 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 Kornilov’s speech and, together with Denikin, was serving his arrest in Bykhov. After moving to the Don, Romanovsky participated in the formation of the first organized anti-Bolshevik detachments.
The general was appointed deputy Denikin and led his headquarters. It is believed that Romanovsky had a great influence on his boss. In the will, Denikin even named Ivan Pavlovich his successor in the event of unforeseen death.
By virtue of his bluntness, Romanovsky clashed with many other military leaders in the Dobrarmiia, and then in the All-Union Supreme Council. The white movement in Russia treated him ambiguously. 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 saying that he blamed Romanovsky for the defeat of the All-Union Socialist League in the civil war.
Sergey Markov
In the Volunteer Army, Sergey Leonidovich Markov (1878-1918) became a cult hero. His name was given to the regiment and colored military units. Markov became famous thanks to his tactical talent and his own courage, which he demonstrated in every battle with the Red Army. The participants of the White movement with special trepidation belonged to the memory of this general.
The military biography of Markov in the tsarist era was typical of the then officer. He participated in the Japanese campaign. On the German front, he commanded a rifle regiment, then became the chief in the headquarters of several fronts. In the summer of 1917, Markov supported the Kornilov rebellion and, together 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, he, with a small detachment of volunteers, captured Medvedovka, an important railway station where volunteers destroyed the Soviet armored train, and then escaped from the encirclement and escaped persecution. The result of the battle was the salvation of the Denikin 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 the whites and a sworn enemy for the reds. Two months later, a talented general took part in the Second Kuban campaign. Near the town of Shablievka, his units came across superior enemy forces. In a fateful moment for himself, Markov found himself in an open place, where he equipped an observation post. In position, fire was fired from the Red Army armored train. Near Sergey Leonidovich a grenade exploded, which inflicted a mortal wound on him. A few hours later, on June 26, 1918, the military died.
Peter Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel (1878-1928), also known as the Black Baron, came from a noble family and had roots associated with Baltic Germans. Before becoming a military man, 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, that he captured the German battery. Once on the Southwestern Front, the officer took part in the famous Brusilovsky breakthrough.
In the days of the February Revolution, Pyotr Nikolayevich called for the introduction of troops in Petrograd. For this, the Provisional Government removed him from service. The black baron moved to the country in the Crimea, where he was arrested by the Bolsheviks. The nobleman managed to escape only through the pleas of his own wife.
As for the aristocrat and supporter of the monarchy, for Wrangel, the White Idea was an uncontested position during the years of the Civil War. He joined Denikin. The military leader served in the Caucasian army, led the capture of Tsaritsyn. After the defeats of the White Army during the march to Moscow, Wrangel began to criticize his boss Denikin. The conflict led to the general’s temporary departure to Istanbul.
Soon Petr Nikolaevich returned to Russia. In the spring of 1920, he was elected commander of the Russian army. Crimea became its key base. The peninsula was the last white bastion of the Civil War. The Wrangel army repelled several attacks of the Bolsheviks, 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 Nikolaevich. Shortly before his death, working as an engineer, Peter Wrangel moved to Brussels. There, he suddenly died of tuberculosis in 1928.
Andrey Shkuro
Andrei Grigoryevich Shkuro (1887-1947) was a nee Kuban Cossack. In his youth he went on a gold mining expedition to Siberia. In the war with Kaiser Germany, Skuro created a partisan detachment, dubbed the Wolf Hundred for the dare.
In October 1917, the Cossack was elected to the Kuban Regional Council. Being a monarchist, he reacted negatively to the news about the Bolsheviks coming to power. Shkuro began to fight with the Red Commissars, when many leaders of the White Movement had not yet had time to declare themselves loudly. In July 1918, Andrei Grigorievich with his detachment expelled the Bolsheviks from Stavropol.
In autumn, the Cossack stood at the head of the 1st Officer Regiment of Kislovodsk, then the Caucasian Horse Division. The head of Shkuro was Anton Ivanovich Denikin. In Ukraine, the military defeated the detachment of Nestor Makhno. Then he took part in a campaign in Moscow. Skin passed the battles for Kharkov and Voronezh. In this city, his campaign was choked.
Retreating from the Budyonny 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 military leader was in exile even before the complete victory of the Red Army.
Skin lived in Paris and Yugoslavia. When the Second World War began, he, like Krasnov, supported the Nazis in their struggle against the Bolsheviks. Shkuro was a gruppenfuhrer of the SS and, as such, fought with the Yugoslav partisans. After the defeat of the Third Reich, he tried to break into the territory occupied by the British. In the Austrian Linz, the British extradited Skuro along with many more officers. The white military leader was tried together with Peter Krasnov and sentenced to death.