Page:Yevgeni Alekseyevich Preobrazhensky - Third Anniversary of the Russian October Revolution (1921).djvu/15

 Rh months Denikin captured almost the whole of the Ukraine, Tzaritzin, and, taking Orel, in October marched upon Tula and Moscow. Simultaneously Yudenitech was approaching the outskirts of Petrograd, and Kolchak showed signs of life, taking the offensive upon Kurgan. The danger was as great as in the summer of 1918, with this difference however, that we had now a strong Red Army, and the chief enemy in the East, in spite of a temporary respite, had received a mortal blow.

A new mobilisation on an enormous scale was decreed by the Communist Party; deadly danger again closed the ranks of the workers and peasants, and new forces gathered from all the ends of Russia were thrown against the arrogant Tzarist generals. Already in the summer, when General Mamontov's cavalry had broken through in our rear, capturing Koslov and Tambov, hoping to cause a peasant rising, it became evident that the peasantry would remain true to the government that had given them the land of the nobility. Denikin had entered upon territory where the peasants remembered still the yoke of the nobility, and this proved Denikin's undoing. The Red Army, taking the offensive along the whole front, dealt a number of crushing blows to Denikin. This time the Red banner pursued him right to the Caucasus, and to the harbour where this luckless candidate for the throne of the Tzar embarked on a foreign vessel, proceeding to London to be pensioned off by British capitalism. The remains of Denikin's army gathered in the Crimea, and Wrangel took over the command. The army of Yudenitch was defeated and