Berdychiv Prisoners: Arrest of General A. I. Denikin and Staff Officers of the Southwestern Front during the Kornilov Affair. August-September 1917

Abstract

Using the materials from periodicals from 1917, as well as the documents and memoirs devoted to the “Berdychiv episode” of the Kornilov Affair, this article covers one of the episodes of the Kornilov Affair (or Kornilov Putsch) at the Southwestern Front. The arrests of Lieutenant General A. I. Denikin, Commander of the armies of the Southwestern Front, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General S. L. Markov, and other staff officers supporting General L. G. Kornilov resulted from the Affair at the end of August 1917 in Berdychiv. The article pays special attention to the position of the Executive Committee of the Southwestern Front and the heads of the Enlistment Office of the Southwestern Front, who considered it necessary to investigate the participation of Denikin and his associates in the Kornilov Affair, and then to conduct a military and revolutionary trial over the conspirators in Berdychiv. Having been established by the Provisional Government, the Special Commission of Inquiry, headed by I. S. Shablovskii, upheld the opposite position. The Commission succeeded in obtaining the decision of the Government and Bureau of the Military Department of the Central Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies to transfer the “Denikin Group” from Berdychiv to Bykhov. This transfer at the end of September almost ended in tragedy.