ABSTRACT
Anton Denikin's plan was very simple: he detailed a small group to contain any threat from the north, and loosed his main attack on the concentration of Bolshevik troops in the Terek territory, which lies between Stavropol and the Caspian Sea. The main front line, formed by the Don and the Manych, was strongly held in the west but was less well covered to the east. However, the line of lakes along the Manych river made for strong defensive positions, and the spring floods, had given the line an additional, though temporary, strength. Lenin's concern was not restricted solely to the area of the Don and the Donets basin; from the point of view of Moscow, in the spring of 1919 the greatest threat to the future of the revolution came not from the south, but from the east.
