Abanknote with a skull and crossbones on it! This 50 kopek note

(below) is catalogued as being issued inSouth Russia in 1918-1919 by the gov-ernment of General Anton Denikin, inparticular by the Northern CaucasusRegion Committee of the Volunteer Rev-olutionary Army. For anyone who didnot grow up learning the subtleties of

the Russian revolution, (and that wouldbe many students of modern history) thewhole subject of the Russian Revolutionand the Russian Civil War that followedis a maze of bewildering facts, figuresand often folklore. This small change-note led me to examine just a smallportion of the events surrounding theanti-Bolshevik resistance in Southern

Russia, particularly during the periodthat General Denikin was in commandof the Volunteer Revolutionary Army andinvestigating if the piratical motif of thenote was indeed applicable to Denikin.

Russian Red, White, Black and GreenThe Russian revolution of October 1917,

with the fall of the Tsarist monarchyand establishment of the communiststate, was the watershed event of Russian

General Denikin and staff. Date unknown.Image: Library of Congress LC-DIG-ggbain-29429

Anton Ivanovich Denikin 1872-1947 photograph taken in 1918. Image Wikipedia.

General Denikin - Pirate of the Revolution?The Russian Revolution and the Volunteer Revolutionary Army of South Russia by Tony James

50 Kopeks Northern Caucasus Region Committee of the Volunteer Revolutionary Army, Issuedin South Russia in 1918-1919 by the government of General Anton Denikin.

history. Nor, due to the many partisanand breakaway groups that evolved werethe opposing forces limited just to “Usand Them”. Principally there were theReds or Bolshevik Forces of the revolut-ion, and the Whites, or– the anti Bolshe-vik Forces, comprising landowners,republican conservative middle classwho were pro monarchist and united inopposition to the new Bolshevik regime.There were the Greens – originally troopswho hid in the forests in the Caucasusand Crimea to avoid mobilisation intothe army, or deserters from both Red andWhite armies such as the non politicalUkrainian nationalists, most of whomeventually joined up with the Red, Bol-shevik, forces. Then there were the Blacks- anarchist groups like the AnarchistBlack Army, led by Nestor Makhno, whowere instrumental in halting Denikin’sWhite Army offensive march towardsMoscow during 1919.

DenikinAnton Ivanovich Denikin 1872-1947

was a senior commander in the ImperialRussian Army, rising to LieutenantGeneral by 1916, he led Russian troopsduring the last Russian campaign in

Romania during WWI. He was also oneof the most important generals of theWhite Army in the Russian Civil War.After the Russian Revolution he waschief of staff firstly to General MikhailAlekseev, then Aleskei Brusilov andfinally Lavr Kornilov, He supported thefailed coup by Kornilov to sabotage theBolshevik leadership of AlexanderKerensky in September 1917 and wasimprisoned.

He was in prison for only a month,however for after the revolution in Oc-tober, Denikin escaped to Novocher-kassk in the northern Caucasus withKornilov and other Tsarist officers andformed the anti-Bolshevik VolunteerArmy under the command of Alekseev.Command passed to Kornilov and thento Denikin in April 1918. He resignedafter increasing criticism of his leader-ship in April 1920 in favour of GeneralBaron Pyotr Wrangel, and left theCrimea for London via Turkey. In 1926,he and his family moved to live in Francefrom where he continued to criticise theRussian government and write his vol-uminous memoirs of the Civil War. WhenFrance fell to the Germans in 1940, hewas imprisoned and even though he

refused to be co-opted into the Nazianti-Soviet propaganda program, he waslater allowed to live in rural exile, pre-sumably because of his seniority. In1945 he moved to New York where heremained until his death in 1947.

Volunteer ArmyThe Volunteer Army was the name

given to the anti-Bolshevik army in SouthRussia during the Civil War. It includedTsarist officers, cadets, students andCossacks. The Cossacks were membersof democratic semi-military communitiesin the Ukraine and the Don River regionof southern Russia with a fearsome rep-utation as fighters. The initial numberof recruits, 3,000 in November- December1917 rising to 4,000 in January 1918 andby September, the army had 30-35,000men. These numbers are in marked con-trast to the hundreds of thousands men-tioned in the report of the 1918 BritishMilitary Mission to Denikin and theVolunteer Army.

Ice MarchThe White forces managed to recapture

the city of Rostov on the Sea of Azov inearly December 1917. However as theBolshevik forces became better organ-ised, they put pressure on the Whitegarrison and on February 23 the RedArmy re-entered Rostov and the WhiteGeneral Kornilov began marching hisarmy through the Russian winter south-wards in a military withdrawal towardsthe Kuban region where it hoped to gainthe support of the Don Cossacks. The IceMarch is infamous for several reasons:the death of Kornilov and successionof Denikin as commander of the WhiteArmy in southern Russia and the RedTerror – indiscriminate mass execu-tions, brutality and looting on the partof the Reds which drove the Cossacks,who might have been hostile to theWhite Army, to now support them. Thisincreased the number of soldiers in theanti-Bolshevik army.

White TerrorThe part that the counter-revolution-

ary White Terror played in the RussianCivil War can be interpreted in severalways. The kindest is that armies of thistime and origin had little financial back-ing and support and therefore they wereforced to march and live off the land. Nottoo much of a strain for a village whohosts a group of 10 soldiers but an armyof 5,000 lays waste to the local economyto the point of starvation.

Another way shows the barbarity of thearmy commanders. Kornilov, is recordedas saying during the Ice March “I giveyou a very cruel order: do not take pris-oners! I accept responsibility for thisorder before God and the Russian people– the greater the terror, the greater our

50 Karbovanez Pick 6b with serial numbers from 210 (issued by Denikin and labeled as falseby the Ukrainian government.

victories” and, if needed, “to set fire to halfthe country and shed the blood of threefourths of all Russians.” Casualties dur-ing the war are estimated at 125,000Reds and 175,500 Whites. In southernRussia, the Red Terror - Cheka exe-cuted an estimated 250,000 and some300-500,000 Cossacks were killed ordeported out of around three million.

During the period of Denikin’s com-mand, the anti-Semitism of many of histroops became a problem, with the WhiteArmy, engaged in looting, rape and mur-der, used the old slogan “Strike at theJews and Save Russia.” When they re-treated southward at the end of 1919,they vented their rage on Jewish com-munities along the way.

Although the Allies put pressure onthe White Army as a price for their sup-port which tempered hostility against theJews, there were still numerous pogromscarried out and it has been estimatedthat by the time the Civil War was over,about 2,000 pogroms left an estimated100,000 Jews dead and more than halfa million homeless.

Volunteer Army financeA well- documented report of finances

of Denikin’s Volunteer Army is avail-able in “The Report on visit of British

Military Mission to the Volunteer Armyunder General Denikin in South RussiaNovember – December 1918” based onthe personal observations by ColonelBlackwood of the British General Staffof the War Office. A concise summary onpage 6 of the report declares that “fi-nances of the Volunteer Army and thecountry generally are in the mostchaotic state due to:-• Separatist tendencies of every district• The absence of credit• The absence of any form of common

coinage or currency• The total absence of any fixed rate of

exchange The Volunteer Government is noted

as having no means of issuing notes andno credit to back them. Local notes havebeen issued and guaranteed by promi-nent commercial magnates in certaindistricts such as Kislovodk and Petrovsk,but these have no value outside a verylimited area.”

In the Appendix B – Report on the Fin-ancial Situation made by M. HeymannMinister of Finance in the ProvisionalVolunteer Army Government, he saysthat “in order to obtain the necessaryquantity of coinage the High Commandof the Volunteer Army sent a mission toPersia to obtain credit from the Allieswhich could be used for the purchase ofRussian banknotes as a large quantity

1,000 Roubles issued in Rostov by GeneralDenikin Pick S418a South Russia High Com-mand Currency tokens 1919

100 Roubles issued in Rostov by General Denikin Pick S417b with watermark. South RussiaHigh Command. Currency token 1919

of Russian coinage had accumulated andcould be bought at a low rate.” The miss-ion was unsuccessful and the report goeson to state that the sum of 163,308,700roubles as well as a necessary monthlyexpenditure of 37,652,861 roubles wasneeded to continue military operations.Men of the Volunteer Army already rec-eived lower rates of pay than other com-batants involved in the conflict and itwas estimated that “225 million roubleswould be needed before the end of theyear (1918) either in Russian roublesor in Allied values which can be easilyrealized.”

Thus it was proposed that a bank ofissue be created, that would supply “acommon coinage for the whole of theregion liberated from the Bolsheviks.” Itnoted at the same time that most of thebranches of the State Bank (ImperialBank of Russia) were already issuingtheir own token coinage and this com-bined with “a large variety of every kindof substitute for coinage has caused con-fusion and difficulty in the financial sit-uation.” The bank of issue was to unite allbranches of the Government Bank andissue banknotes while withdrawing allpresent money tokens and substitutesfrom circulation. This needed a guaranteebehind it and the British report advisedthat it should take the form of Alliedcredits in various foreign banks as wellas gold that belonged to the RussianState. This pillaged gold, held by Bol-shevik agents in Germany, should nowbe returned to the State Bank.

What really happened?The detail in regional histories of the

time, never satisfy the hunger of numis-matists and the administrators of terri-tory held by the Whites were unreliable,often incompetent and left few records,the exception being, those military com-manders who had gained experienceduring WWI. Unfortunately these mili-tary commanders were allowed to haveno control over judicial, banking andstate administrative functions.

These are a just a couple of examplesof the mention of currency that I havecome across relating to Denikin:

A retired engineer K.F. Kirsta who hadbeen a labour leader in 1905 returned toaid the White Army in the Ukraine. Hefounded the Organisation for the Unifi-cation of all Trade Union Workers inKiev, repudiated strikes as a weaponand was of course highly critical of theBolsheviks. Kirsta was given a printingpress and allowed to publish a newspaper“Put rabochogo” and authorised by theArmy to exchange Soviet money for theworkers.

As Peter Kenez says in his book “CivilWar in South Russia: The defeat of theWhites”

“The ability to draw up lists of workerseligible to receive money was a powerfulinstrument for agitation.”

Next in the list of off- beat currenciesis the one that inspired this article, the50 kopek note authorised by GeneralDenikin and issued by the “North Cauc-asus Region Committee of the Volunteer

Revolutionary Army” and “For Format-ion of Shock Battalions.”

The common design was issued in 10kopeks brown and black, 50 kopeks greenand black and 1 rouble blue and black.The Ryabchenko Russian cataloguequotes reference numbers as

Rj 3179r (5502) and Rj 3180r (5503)for the 10 and 50 kopek notes. Thesesmall change coupons also translate as“official battalions of the North Cauca-sus Region.” Significant for their piratestyle, skull and crossbones motif, thesecoupons link with the lack of smallchange available to the occupying WhiteArmy when it held much of the territoryin Southern Russia.

The southern currency campaignThe Standard Catalogue of World

Paper Money, Specialized Edition, liststhe scores of issues made by both sides ofthe conflict. Many are available in somequantity and will not be very expensive,although the current Russian demandfor items of historical interest is drivingprices higher.

The South Russia issues include theDon Cossack Military Government, theissues of General Anton I. Denikin andthose of General Baron Peter Wrangel,together with a guide as to which citiesissued which notes.

The Treasury Token Issue dated 1919for 100 and 500 roubles was not issueddue to the retreat of the White Army intothe Crimea during October 1920 - mostof the troops were over the TaganachBridge by November 2. The Red Armyattacked Perkop on November 7 and onthe 11th General Kutepov ordered a gen-eral retreat as the evacuation of Sevas-topol and the Crimea continued and theRed Army took control of Odessa.

By November 14 the evacuation org-anised by General Wrangel was com-pleted using 126 vessels including shipsfrom America, France and Britain.

Denikin the Pirate, as I have chosen tocall him, had already left Russia in April,having turned over command of a Corpsof just 5,000 to General Kutepov. Boththe Volunteer Army of South Russia andof the North Caucasus – later the KubanArmy, were no more.

ReferencesStandard Catalogue of World Paper MoneyGeneral Issues and Specialised Issues 13thand 11 Editions George Cuhaj Krause Pub-licationsThe Russian Review – White Administrationand White Terror Viktor G. Bortnevski Vol 52No3 Jul 1993The Russian Civil War Evan Mawdsley Bir-linn 2008Russia’s Civil War Geoffrey Swain Tempus2000Wikipedia (referenced with reservations)

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500 Roubles. Bolshevik Russian Government Treasury Token Issue PS440. Never issued dueto the 1920 evacuation of Sevastopol