Grebenkin I.N.

Between chaos and epic: The first year of the Volunteer Army. Review of A. S. Puchenkov’s book “The first year of the Volunteer Army: from the emergence of ‘Alexeyev’s organization’ to formation of the Armed Forces in Russian South (November 1917 — December 1918)” (St. Petersburg, Vladimir Dal Publ., 2021, 813 p.). Pp. 181–185.

UDC 94(47)(048)

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2025.86.1.019

 

Abstract. This is a review of a monograph by St. Petersburg historian A. S. Puchenkov, who is a well-known specialist in the history of the Russian Civil War. The book presents one of the most dramatic subjects of the history of the Civil War in the South of Russia — the emergence and struggle of the White Volunteer Army in 1918. The novelty of the study is due to the originality of its tasks, the main one being to discover the connection between the events of 1917–1918 and the final defeat of the White Army in the Civil War. Thus, on the pages of the book the author consistently shows how during the first year of the civil confrontation in the South of Russia there was a rivalry between the “red” and “white” state projects.

The study involves a great number of historical sources from archives and museum collections of Russia and abroad. The author has analyzed a wide range of literature, which allows him to make reasonable conclusions about the state-of-art knowledge of the issue. The Volunteer Army emerged at the end of 1917 as a conspiratorial officer organization, which was a consequence of the deep crisis of the Russian state in the revolutionary era. The political program of White Volunteers consisted in total rejection of revolutionary democracy and of Bolshevism, in which its leaders saw the causes of Russia’s destruction. The book presents a gallery of historical portraits of the leaders of the Volunteer Army that defined its image in 1918: M. V. Alekseev, L. G. Kornilov, A. I. Denikin, S. L. Markov, M. G. Drozdovsky, and others. Much attention is paid to the major military operations in the North Caucasus: military actions in the Don in early 1918 and the First and Second Kuban campaigns of the Volunteer Army. Analyzing their military and political results, the author notes the deep contradictions that existed in the relations between the representatives of the volunteer command and the governments of the Cossack regions of Southern Russia. High conflict, clash of interests and ambitions were an inherent feature of the entire White movement and the Volunteer Army in particular. The results of the 1918 campaign for the White south of Russia can hardly be recognized as successful, while the opposite opinion is extremely superficial. The qualitative state and internal contradictions of the armed formations of the White Movement predetermined its crisis and final defeat in 1919–1920. A. S. Puchenkov’s new book is evidence of a new stage in the development of Russian historiography of the Civil War, where objective research prevails over ideology and political adherence.

 

Keywords: Russian Revolution, Civil War, White Movement, Volunteer Army.

 

Bibliography

 

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