Anton Denikin was born in Warsaw governorate into a family of a retired border guard major (his mother came from a Polish noble family). He graduated from the Kyiv Infantry Cadet School (1892), the Nicholas General Staff Academy (1899). A participant of the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. Lieutenant General (1916).

After the February Revolution of 1917, Denikin was Chief-of-Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (April to May). He commanded the forces of the Western Front (May to July) and the Southwestern Front (August). In August 1917, Denikin supported the affair of General Lavr Kornilov to eliminate the Soviets and establish a military dictatorship. By order of Aleksander Kerensky, he was removed from office and arrested.

In November 1917, he left for Novocherkassk, where he participated in the organization of the Volunteer Army. He was a member of the Don Civil Council. After the death of Lavr Kornilov (April 13, 1918), Denikin took over as the Commander of the Volunteer Army, and after the death of Mikhail Alekseyev (October 8, 1918) he became the Commander-in-Chief. 1918 saw the army under his command capture the Kuban and a significant part of the North Caucasian Soviet Republic.

Since January 1919, he took up the command of both the Volunteer and Don armies, assuming the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR). Denikin was in charge of military and civilian power in the controlled territories. In June 1919 he recognized the power of Aleksander Kolchak, who declared himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. He was appointed Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

In the summer of 1919, the AFSR forces gained a number of victories over the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in the south (they captured a significant part of Ukraine as well as Tsaritsyn). On July 3, 1919, Denikin issued the so-called Moscow Directive, the document that specified the strategy of AFSR’s assault on Moscow. In the autumn of 1919, the counter-offensive of the Red Army’s Southern Front (commanded by Aleksander Egorov) resulted in the defeat of the AFSR’s main forces.

In his last decree dated January 4, 1920, Aleksander Kolchak expressed his intention to hand over the supreme power to Anton Denikin. Denikin rejected the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. In April 1920, he had the remnants of his troops evacuated from Novorossiysk to Crimea. He handed over the command of AFSR to Pyotr Wrangel and sailed into exile.

In 1921–1926, Denikin wrote a historical and biographical work Essays on the Russian Troubles. During World War II, he rejected German authorities’ invitation to collaborate and acted in support of the anti-Hitler coalition. At the end of 1945, he moved to the USA. In 1947, he died of a heart attack and was buried in Detroit. In October 2005, his remains were reburied in the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.