The ambition of Russia’s current government to work out a new Russian ideology is quite easy to explain. Communism, which perpetuated the Russian Empire in the form of the Soviet Union, no longer has sway with the masses. General Denikin, while in emigration, admitted openly that if he had known that the Bolsheviks would preserve the empire, he would never have fought them.
However, today the red ideology can be accepted only by part of Russia’s society, and this part is not a large one. Where would one put the oligarchs then? According to the Moscow-based political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky, Putin is also one of them. For this reason a somewhat unnatural ideological amalgam was attempted uniting the “white” and the “red” ideas, which are largely incompatible.
However, these two ideas have a certain common foundation that permits consensus, at least in principle. This foundation is, for one, the imperial chauvinism, which has grown markedly within Russia’s Communist Party. Another component is the colossal suspicion with regard to the West and democratic society. There is also the subconscious belief that the nations of the former empire are inferior to Russians and that the Russian nation has a special right to manage the lives of the rest of the people in the region and bring to them the “light” emanating from either the communist or Russia-centered chauvinist idea.
The first steps to hammering out this kind of ideological amalgam, a sort of ideological mosaic on an imperial basis, were taken a long time ago. Putin succeeded in uniting the Moscow patriarchate and the fiercely anticommunist and anti-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Not all Russians residing abroad accepted this. Many believers were disgusted at what they felt was a “union of Cheka officers and the White Guard.”
In this context the visit Putin paid to the tombs of Denikin and Ilyin was perfectly purposeful. If you think about the red Kremlin stars coupled with the White Guard tricolor and Russian generals wearing sickle and hammer on their sleeves and the imperial eagles in the cockades, the picture becomes more complete. So Putin’s and Medvedev’s interest in Ilyin’s completely reactionary imperial political philosophy was not spontaneous.
Back in the early 1990s the well-known Nikita Mikhalkov, whose ancestors were the Russian tsars’ lackeys and left a lasting legacy in the Mykhaklov dynasty with their attitude to the powers that be, was not prevented by this fact from teaching people to love the proletariat. He also wrote the texts of the USSR anthem followed by one for the Russian anthem (the music was the same). He tried, in vain, to help Alexander Rutskoy, the then vice president of the Russian Federation, develop a liking for Ilyin’s works.
It should be mentioned that Ilyn’s writings are the most consistent line of argument justifying the Russian Empire as a kind of modern-time Byzantium that is on a mission to resist the “morally corrupt West” and block any intentions of the nations both inside and just outside the empire to go “anarchic,” i.e., independent.
However, Putin’s liking for Ilyin’s heritage contains a sensitive nuance. Leonid Mlechin, a Moscow-based historian and writer, quotes an interesting letter to Ilyin written by Roman Gul, a White Guard migr . In his letter Gul accuses the philosopher of publishing laudatory articles on Adolf Hitler and of his out-and-out anti-Semitism. Putin has found nice company in Ilyin! Where is the “anti-Nazi” commission set up by Medvedev looking? The whole thing smacks of a bad propaganda farce by the Kremlin.
In many ways General Denikin symbolizes not only the fiasco of the White movement, but also the inevitability of this failure. In the multinational Russian Empire the slogan of the “one and indivisible” offered no chances for victory. When many people who did not even like the Bolsheviks that much saw what Denikin’s forces were doing in Kyiv (executing Ukrainian intellectuals, banning the Ukrainian language, and disbanding the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences), and in Ukrainian villages (executions and physical punishment), they were more scared by Denikin’s blunt chauvinism than by the atrocities perpetrated by the Bolsheviks.
When the Denikinites, while on a march toward Moscow, started “installing order” in villages by using gallows and ramrods, Lenin brightened up in the Kremlin, contently rubbing his hands and saying: “That’s it! The peasants are now ours!”
Former Russian Imperial Guard General Karl-Gustav Mannerheim, who had defeated the Communists in Finland, was able to seize Petrograd at one stroke. However, he demanded from his former comrades-in-arms to recognize Finland’s independence. Denikin said in response that Mannerheim, the traitor, would be the first one whom he would have hanged after the victory over the Bolsheviks. Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak also refused to comply. Poles proposed joining forces with Denikin against the Bolsheviks in exchange for recognition of Poland’s independence. Although his mother was Polish, Denikin replied haughtily to the Polish leaders: “I don’t trade in the fatherland.” Another military leader, General Nikolai Yudenich, whose army was mainly based in Estonia, flatly refused to recognize Estonia’s independence. The outcome of this blunt chauvinism is well-known.
Fighting against the Bolsheviks, Denikin sent very large forces to “pacify” the peoples in the Northern Caucasus. At least a third of his army was dealing with the Chechens, Ingushes, Karachais, etc. Denikin’s generals acted there exactly the same way as Yeltsyn’s and Putin’s generals did in Chechnya in the late 20th century.
Mikhail Bulgakov, who was then in the Northern Caucasus as a mobilized doctor, wrote in his diary: “I’d bet my life that it will come to no good. And for good reason—the villages are ruined.” Another large part of Denikin’s army occupied Ukraine. It succeeded in ousting the Red Army quite quickly and pushing the UNR’s army back. But then Nestor Makhno’s insurgents started giving Denikin great trouble in the south on the 1,000-kilometer-long front.
Denikin had a most serious enemy in Makhno. So far as the military was concerned, the Makhnovites were worthy continuators of the Zaporozhian Cossack tradition. One of Denikin’s generals said of Makhno’s army in his reports to the General Staff: “In terms of military prowess they are doing an outstanding job. Their cavalry commands admiration.” If this army had joined the UNR’s armed forces, who knows, we could be celebrating the 89th, rather than the 18th, anniversary of Ukraine’s independence this year. Once again we are returning to the “historical curse” of the Ukrainian nation—rifts and mutual non-acceptance of the leaders.
The war against Ukraine turned out to be disastrous for Denikin and the entire White movement. Interestingly, Winston Churchill advised Denikin not to deal with Ukraine but go straight to Moscow and not to scatter forces. But Denikin’s imperial instinct was greater than the elementary instinct of self-preservation. Is it possible that Putin is Denikin’s true follower in his attitude toward Ukraine? In defiance of all rational arguments and the laws of military science, the White general swooped down on the UNR. Mykola Kapustiansky, a UNR army general, described in his memories what this led to: “Unfortunately, General Denikin refused to rely on the strong support of the Ukrainian Army, bring together all the forces and march through Orel to Moscow. Instead, he made an absurd strategic decision to use his army’s left flank to fight Ukraine. Thus, he ruined both our front and his victorious raid.”
Denikin lost a great part of his army fighting Ukrainian insurgents. Simple Ukrainian men destroyed his elite regiments. With a slashing drive Makhno’s cavalry seized Berdiansk, where Denikin lost hundreds of thousands of shells and millions of cartridges. As the Russian author Sergei Semanov wrote in his novel Under the Black Banner (1993): “Makhno was known all over Ukraine through the grapevine as the defeater of Denikin.”
The UNR’s army gave battles to Denikin in the Odesa and Podilia regions, inflicting heavy losses. Besides, a great number of insurgent detachments fought against Denikinites in the Dnipro region. Denikin’s imperial venture had a predictable end—a complete failure. Denikin’s army was not only destroyed on the front but it also decayed on the inside.
A certain part of our society looks at the White movement through rose-colored glasses. But in fact, there were mass military crimes, White terror (even though it was on a smaller scale and less sadistic than what Red army did), robbery and theft, hard drinking, and drugs. Baron Pyotr Wrangel, one of the clear-headed and pragmatic leaders of White army, once said: “The voluntary army discredited itself by robbery and violence. It was a total failure. We cannot go under the same banner of a voluntary army anymore. We need some other banner. An army that is accustomed to violence and arbitrary rule, robbery and heavy drinking and led by a commander who corrupts it with his own example was unable to create Russia.”
There is one more dark side to the history of Denikin’s army, which is being hushed up by the present-day followers of the general—mass Jewish pogroms.
In his article Pytka strakhom (Torture by Fear) Vasily Shulgin, one of the ideologists of the White movement, described what was happening in Kyiv and many other big and small towns of Ukraine under Denikin’s occupation. “At night medieval life comes out and fills the streets of Kyiv. In the dead silence and emptiness of the night a heart-splitting scream is let out. It’s the Jews screaming. Screaming for fear…
“In the darkness of the street a group of armed men with bayonets appears. On seeing them, huge five- and six-storied buildings begin to howl from top to bottom… Entire streets, gripped by deadly fear, are crying in nonhuman voices, trembling over their lives. This is genuine, unfeigned horror—a true torture that the entire Jewish population is being subjected to.
“The Russian population is listening to the horrible screams coming from thousands of hearts under this ‘torture by fear.’ They are thinking: Will the Jews learn anything during these nights? Will they understand what it means to destroy states they haven’t built? Will they understand what it means to follow the recipe of ‘Karl Marx, a great scholar,’ and pit one class against another? Will they grasp what it means to implement the principles of ‘people’s rule’ in Russia? Will they understand the essence of the socialism that has produced the Bolsheviks from its depths? Will they realize what they need to do now? Will they now curse in all synagogues and houses of prayer before the face of the entire people those of their own tribe who facilitated the revolt? Will the Jewish nation repent, beating itself on the chest, its head in ashes? Will it repent of such and such sins committed by the sons of Israel in the Bolshevik frenzy?” (Quoted after Ostrovsky, Z. Evreiskie pogromy (Jewish Pogroms). 1918–1921. Moscow, 1926, p. 17-18.)
These thoughts could perfectly fit into Mein Kampf.
Did Denikin do anything to stop this, as Shulgin called it, “educational measure”? Unfortunately, history is silent on this. Denikin’s views were no different than those of Shulgin, and Shulgin’s views were similar to those of Ilyin, who is highly respected by present Russian leaders.
After Putin’s speech at the cemetery it was very significant that communists Gennady Ziuganov and Petro Symonenko did not say a word, even though Denikin’s volunteers hanged, cut into pieces, and shot Bolsheviks with great enthusiasm. But the fact that communists do not say a word about it is a totally natural thing because Denikin’s ideals about “one and indivisible” Russia have been their ideals for a long time now.
Russian communists openly declare this, whereas communists in Ukraine (I cannot bring myself to call them Ukrainian) shyly hide behind the fig leaf of the union of brotherly nations. Putin is trying to make an ideological and political synthesis of the communist and the White movement ideologies. So far he has been successful doing this on the time-tested foundnation of Russian chauvinism and great-power policy.
Until the last day of his life Denikin did not understand the reason of his defeat. It looks like his ideological followers do not understand anything about it and have not learn any good lessons from the past.
