The Russian Turmoil; Memoirs: Military, Social, and Political

by Anton Ivanovich Denikin

“Not we; it was our Government,” was their reply.

In the winter of 1918, as Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, I received an offer from a group of German officers to join our army as volunteers in the ranks.

The collapse of the army cannot be explained away as the psychological result of defeats and disasters. Even the victors experienced disturbances in the army. There was a certain amount of disaffection among the French troops occupying, in the beginning of 1918, the region of Odessa and Roumania, in the French fleet cruising in the Black Sea, among the British troops in the region of Constantinople and Transcaucasia. The troops did not always obey the orders of their Commanding Officers. Rapid demobilisation and the arrival of fresh, partly volunteer elements, altered the situation.

The Grand Duke Nicholas distributes Crosses of St. George.

What was the condition of the Russian Army at the outbreak of the Revolution? From time immemorial the entire ideology of our soldiers was contained in the well-known formula: “For God, for the Czar and for the Mother Country.” Generation after generation was born and bred on that formula. These ideas, however, did not penetrate deeply enough into the masses of the people and of the army. For many centuries the Russian people had been deeply religious, but their faith was somewhat shaken in the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The Russian people, as the Russian saying goes, was “the bearer of Christ”—a people inwardly disposed towards Universal Brotherhood, great in its simplicity, truthfulness, humility and forgiveness. That people, Christian in the fullest sense of the word, was gradually changing as it came under the influence of material interests, and learnt or was taught to see in the gratifying of those interests the sole purpose of life. The link between the people and its spiritual leaders was gradually weakening as these leaders were detached from the people, entered into the service of the Governing powers, and shared the latter’s deficiencies. The development of this moral transformation of the Russian people is too deep and too complex to fall within the scope of these memoirs. It is undeniable that the youngsters who joined the ranks treated questions of the Faith and of the Church with indifference. In barracks they lost the habits of their homes, and were forcibly removed from a more wholesome and settled atmosphere, with all its creeds and superstitions. They received no spiritual or moral education, which in barracks was considered a matter of minor importance, completely overshadowed by practical and material cares and requirements. A proper spirit could not be created in barracks, where Christian morals, religious discourses, and even the rites of the Church bore an official and sometimes even compulsory character. Commanding Officers know how difficult it was to find a solution of the vexed question of attendance at Church services.

War introduced two new elements into the spiritual life of the army. On the one hand, there was a certain moral coarseness and cruelty; on the other, it seemed as if faith had been deepened by constant danger. I do not wish to accuse the orthodox military clergy as a body. Many of its representatives proved their high valour, courage and self-sacrifice. It must, however, be admitted that the clergy failed to produce a religious revival among the troops. It is not their fault, because the world-war into which Russia was drawn was due to intricate political and economic causes, and there was no room for religious fervour. The clergy, however, likewise failed to establish closer connection with the troops. After the outbreak of the Revolution the officers continued for a long time to struggle to keep their waning power and authority, but the voice of the priests was silenced almost at once, and they ceased to play any part whatsoever in the life of the troops. I recall an episode typical of the mental attitude of military circles in those days. One of the regiments of the Fourth Rifle Division had built a camp Church quite close to its lines, and had built it with great care and very artistically. The Revolution came. A demagogue captain decided that his company had inadequate quarters and that a Church was a superstition. On his own authority he converted the Church into quarters for his company, and dug a hole where the altar stood for purposes which it is better not to mention. I am not surprised that such a scoundrel was found in the regiment or that the Higher Command was terrorised and silent. But why did two or three thousand orthodox Russians, bred in the mystic rites of their faith, remain indifferent to such a sacrilege? Be that as it may, there can hardly be any doubt that religion ceased to be one of the moral impulses which upheld the spirit of the Russian Army and prompted it to deeds of valour or protected it later from the development of bestial instincts. The orthodox clergy, generally speaking, was thrown overboard during the storm. Some of the high dignitaries of the Church—the Metropolitans—Pitirim and Makarius—the Archbishop Varnava and others, unfortunately were closely connected with the Governing bureaucracy of the Rasputin period of Petrograd history. The lower grades of the clergy, on the other hand, were in close touch with the Russian intellectuals.

I cannot take it upon myself to judge of the extent to which the Russian Church remained an active force after it came under the yoke of the Bolsheviks. An impenetrable veil hangs over the life of the Russian Church in Soviet Russia, but there can be no doubt that spiritual renaissance is progressing and spreading, that the martyrdom of hundreds, nay, thousands, of priests is waking the dormant conscience of the people and is becoming a legend in their minds.

THE CZAR.