Major Achievement of Russian Historiography of the Civil War

Abstract. The proposed review provides an overview of the book by doctor of science (History), professor of St. Petersburg State University A.S. Puchenkov “The First Year of the Volunteer Army: from the emergence of the “Alekseevskaya Organization” to the formation of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia (November 1917–December 1918)”, published in 2021 in the publishing house “Vladimir Dal’” in St. Petersburg. It is assumed that this is the beginning of a painstaking step-by-step study of the internal life of the Volunteer Army throughout the Civil War, but so far the author has focused on the first year of the existence of this army and this military-political movement. In the published work of A.S. Puchenkov gives subtle psychological portraits of the leaders of the Volunteer Army, their relationships, the influence of these relationships on the policy of the white movement and on the practice of struggle. Much attention is paid to the relationship between the leaders of the volunteer movement and the White Cossack movement, although the conflict between them reached its climax already in 1919. Describing the course of military operations in the South of Russia in 1918, the author highlighted many still poorly studied issues of history – the situation in the Kuban within the Soviet forces, the conflict between the party leadership and Commander-in-chief Sorokin. In general, the work is characterized by great accuracy in detail and the involvement of a huge number of sources.

Keywords: Volunteer army, Civil War, leaders, relationships, psychological portrait.