Soviet Defectors in Germany after World War II

Full text / tables, figures

Introduction

International migrations to and from the post-war Soviet Union (repatriation and emigration) have garnered considerable attention from numerous scholars. During perestroika, Viktor Zemskov revealed this issue to Soviet readers when he wrote about the difficulties that repatriates confronted in the Stalinist USSR^[1]. In the 1990s, he continued to study this question, using statistical data gathered by the Soviet bureaucracy^[2]. Alexey Sheviakov represented the traditional Soviet viewpoint on this matter, stressing that post-war emigration flows from the USSR were the result of Western policy^[3].

The well-known Russian historian and demographer Pavel Polian has advocated another point of view. Polian stresses that Stalinist policy was one of the reasons behind the Second Wave of Soviet emigration and the phenomenon of defectors^[4]. Nonetheless, he has also critiqued some aspects of the works of Nikolai Tolstoy, the author of the famous book Victims of Yalta^[5].  

The fates of post-World War II Displaced Persons (DP) are at the center of Mark Wyman’s book^[6], which has received many positive reviews. He has analyzed the social, economic and political circumstances with which Displaced Persons had to contend. Michael Marrus has also written about the European refugee problem during the Cold War, proving that this phenomenon was linked to political and social processes^[7]. Ted Gottfried, meanwhile, has devoted his book to the fates of Jewish DPs^[8]. Using documents from the International Refugee Organization, Gerard Daniel Cohen describes post-war categorizations of political and humanitarian refugees^[9].

A number of studies also touch on the issue of defectors from the USSR. We can highlight a study of Gordon Brook-Shepherd, well-known British journalist^[10]. He actively used materials of his personal contacts with Soviet defectors.

A very thorough analysis of this phenomenon, based on the use of CIA archives, is presented in an article by American historian Benjamin Tromley. He shows that defection to the West was often caused not by political reasons, but by other reasons (including the desire to avoid punishment in the Soviet Union). A significant role was also played by the higher standard of living in the leading Western countries, which attracted many defectors^[11].

These soldiers serving in Eastern Germany undertook the decision to depart to the West on the basis of various factors. Among these were the broadcasts of western radio stations, which could be picked up in Eastern Germany: this subject has been investigated by Patrick Major^[12]. An analysis of Radio Liberty’s^[13] information policy during the Cold War is presented in the article by Alexey Antoshin^[14]. The theme of the struggle of intelligence agencies in Eastern Germany during the Cold War has been examined by John Morrison^[15]. Simo Mikkonen’s and Marina Moseykina articles, dedicated to how the American secret services used emigrants from the USSR to further their own goals, are also worthy of note^[16].

I have used documents from several American archives. Among them is the Boris I. Nicolaevsky collection at the Hoover Institution Archive on War, Revolution and Peace (Stanford). This particularly famous Social Democratic historian and archivist had close connections with former Soviet military officers. The most useful sources in these archives are the personal letters of new political refugees from the USSR. Personal texts are perhaps the most valuable sources in historical research, in this case offering an ideal perspective on the political choices made by Soviet émigrés in the Cold War. I have also used some personal letters and memoranda at the Bakhmeteff Archive Research (Columbia University). The Russian émigré press is also utilized, since analysis of the numerous articles written by refugees gives us a rather accurate picture of their ideological attitudes.

The Emergence of the Phenomenon of Post-War Defectors

Since the USSR’s legislation on emigration bore a pronounced prohibitive character, it was virtually impossible to legally depart the country to a new permanent place of residence. In such conditions, a few individual Soviet citizens began to flee to the West, employing various means to do so. At the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, Germany became the center of a new stream of Soviet emigration. The representatives of this stream were known as defectors (perebezhchiki). This term (used by the Russian émigré press in Europe and the US) included different types of people. Among them were some prominent nevozvrashchentsy (non-returners), such as the Soviet officer Grigory Klimov (author of the book The Song of the Winner), Viktor Kravchenko, who published a book entitled I Chose Freedom about the Stalinist terror, and several others. The defectors were also deserters who fled the Soviet corps in Germany across the frontlines of the Cold War. Many of these individuals ended up in DP camps. Their relationships with former Vlasovites were extremely complicated. In order to distinguish these two groups, the press began to call those who were abroad as a result of the Second World War (former prisoners of war, ostarbeiters and Vlasovites) ‘new émigrés’, while defectors were dubbed the ‘newest’ émigrés from the USSR. This phenomenon quickly attracted the attention of the Western and Russian émigré press.

One of the first attempts to analyze the defectors was an article by Marc Weinbaum, the editor-in-chief of the Russian-language newspaper Novoe russkoe slovo, the most influential Russian émigré publication in America. Weinbaum tried to direct the attention of Western societies and the Russian diaspora to the fate of defectors. He wrote about their appalling lives in German DP camps, which had driven some to suicide. Weinbaum pointed out that Soviet agents used this situation to organize propaganda in favor of repatriation: this in turn led to new tragedies because repatriates became victims of the Stalinist regime. The Russian journalist stressed that it was necessary to write petitions to Congress and the Department of State because “refugees from the Stalinist Eden were the best examples for anti-communist propaganda.”^[17]

The American and Russian émigré press tried to create an image of large-scale political emigration from the post-war Soviet Union. For example, in 1949 the “Bulletin of the League for the Struggle for the People’s Freedom,” published by Russian anti-communists in New York, wrote about “more than 20,000” defectors^[18]. However, the real picture was much more complex. In October 1949, the Russian émigré Oleg Anisimov discussed this problem with an officer of the British Intelligence Service. The British specialist on security operations pointed out that there were really very few defectors from the Soviet Union in the British zone of Germany^[19]. The Russian émigré wrote about this to his comrade Boris Nicolaevsky in a personal letter, but it was practically impossible to find such data in the émigré press: anti-communists tried to prove that defectors were a very significant phenomenon.

It was also very difficult to check data published by the popular American press. In 1950, the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote about 800-900 deserters who fled from the Soviet army to Western Germany^[20]. These data were based on an interview with Alexander Trushnovich, one of the leaders of the Natsionalno-Trudovoi Soiuz (NTS), a prominent Russian émigré political organization. However, it behooves us to note that the NTS organized propaganda oriented towards Soviet troops in Germany. They published leaflets (some of which imitated the official propaganda brochures of the Soviet authorities) and called on Soviet soldiers and officers to form anti-communist organizations^[21]. Thus, it seems probable that NTS propagandists might very well have overestimated the number of Soviet refugees^[22].

In Search of Identity: Attempts at Ideological and Organizational Unification of Defectors

The leaflets published by the NTS told their readers in the army that this would be their last chance to escape to the West, since it was highly likely that some of them would be arrested by Soviet security personnel. Some soldiers grasped this chance. In 1948, Captain Pavlovsky and Lieutenant Grigoriev left their units for Western Germany, where they came into contact with Major Vasily Denisov and Lieutenant Colonel Miroshnikov (resident in the Fishbeck DP camp in Hamburg). Gradually they formed a small political group, the center of which was located in northwestern Germany (Hamburg, Oldenburg, and Hannover). They began to publish the journal Kolokol (The Bell) in Hamburg: the title was taken from the famous 19^th century publishing project by Aleksandr Herzen and Nikolai Ogarev.

It was this group that organized the First Conference of Post-War Political Refugees in Hamburg in September 1951. The participants were about 30 Soviet military officers and soldiers, consisting of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Tatars. The conference was visited by journalists from different European newspapers, who dubbed the leaders as “major D.” (Denisov) and “lieutenant colonel Ershov” (probably, Miroshnikov). They formed an “Executive Committee of Post-War Refugees from the Soviet Union.” The task of this new organization was to offer moral, cultural and material help to refugees. The Committee planned to monitor the living conditions in DP camps and help refugees find jobs. 

The former Soviet military officers also claimed that their movement had deep historical roots. They began their history with the Decembrists (1825). They stressed that in the 19^th century, as now in the 20^th, the leaders of the opposition in Russia were officers. For them, the Soviet commander Michail Tukhachevsky was a victim of Stalinist tyranny who had fought for the “freedom of the people.”^[23] In doing so, Denisov and Pavlovsky were exploiting the great popularity of Tukhachevsky among Soviet officers. They themselves had belonged to the Soviet armed forces and shared in its special psychology: Tukhachevsky was one of the symbols of this corporate culture. They perceived the repressions directed against him and others commanders as terror against the Soviet army and its traditions. Nonetheless, as supporters of a democratic way forward, they also rejected the restoration of the Russian Empire and its social and economic foundations^[24].

This group united only a small cross-section of the defectors. Other new Soviet refugees also actively participated in émigré political activities but did not join the Hamburg group. For example, the officer Sergey Malakhov had the grand ambition to be the leader of all the defectors. In 1952, he signed an open letter devoted to the political unification of the Russian diaspora. He had a peculiar position on the national question, one of the most discussed problems among Russian émigrés, admitting a right to independence for all nations of the Soviet Union after the collapse of communism^[25]. Malakhov was also known in the Russian diaspora as a writer: his drama Flyers was performed by the New Theatre in New York^[26]. However, he had a very troubled relationship with the group headed by Vasily Denisov: their personal ambitions led to constant strife.    

Conflicts between different groups were especially visible during an attempt to create a united organization for the defectors during a conference held in Munich in November 1952. The organizing committee consisted of two groups: the Hamburg group headed by Denisov and the Munich group (its leader was Grigory Klimov, who published the journal Svoboda)^[27]. The conference was financed by Alexey Milrud-Tomson, who was accused by his opponents of being an agent of the CIA or the German BND^[28]. He supported Klimov, as a result of which members of the Svoboda group received most of the money: indeed, they dominated the conference. Later, the leaders of the Hamburg group (Denisov, Captain Pavlovsky, Captain A. Ermakov and others) sent an open letter to the émigré press, describing the atmosphere of corruption and fear at the conference. Klimov and his comrades promised to send their opponents to the eastern sector of Berlin, where they would be victims of the Soviet secret service^[29]. The resolutions of this conference reflected the sentiments of Klimov and his comrades: they were based on a conservative ideology and strongly criticized all versions of socialism^[30].

Denisov and his supporters argued that there were deep ideological reasons behind this conflict. To their minds, Klimov proposed to forge an “ideocratic” state in post-Bolshevik Russia. Denisov and his group did not agree with such a model. They were supporters of a democratic state based on law and equal rights. In their opinion, it would be necessary to eradicate the atmosphere of fear in a future Russia. They thought that every person should have a right to defend his or her own political position. To the Hamburg group, Klimov’s “ideocratic” state was similar to fascism and Nazism: Denisov and his adherents were confident that it would result in a totalitarian dictatorship. Could this be a real alternative for post-communist Russia, asked this group of defectors?^[31]   

However, only a minority of the Russian diaspora supported Denisov’s position. Most émigré political groups shared a different viewpoint: for instance, the conservative Parisian Vozrozhdenie journal and NTS leaders supported Klimov’s political line^[32].

 For Denisov and his comrades, it was very difficult to find common ground with such political groups. Equally, some left-oriented émigré organizations which fought for a democratic Russia also had problematic relations with the Hamburg group. We may note, for example, that Sojuz borby za osvobozhdenie narodov Rossii [The Union of the Struggle for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, SBONR], formed by the veterans of Vlasov’s army^[33], also did not support the Hamburg group. The personal political ambitions of émigré leaders placed great obstacles before cooperation^[34].

However, this was not the only reason for the constant infighting. Denisov and his comrades tried to prove that there were no contradictions between themselves and the Second Wave of Soviet emigration (consisting of Soviet soldiers who were captured by the Nazi Army, ostarbeiters and collaborators, especially former Vlasovite soldiers). They stressed that representatives of the Second Wave had attended the conference in Hamburg in September 1951 and spoke about “solidarity” between the two groups of Soviet émigrés^[35]. The real situation was, however, significantly more convoluted, since the defectors had problems getting along with the Second Wave. Former Nazi prisoners and ostarbeiters were insulted that the defectors attracted so much attention in the Western press while hundreds of thousands of DPs were stuck in camps. Some defectors had enjoyed a high social status in Soviet Union as members of the bureaucratic apparatus: thus, to their opponents, they shared responsibility for Stalinist policy^[36]. On the other hand, it was very difficult for veterans of the Red Army who had won the Great Patriotic War to cooperate with former Vlasovite and Nazi soldiers, since the latter were considered to be nothing less than traitors and enemies. Later, when the Central Association of Post-War Émigrés was formed, Denisov’s group refused to elect F. Arnold because “he was not a soldier of the Soviet army. He was a soldier of Hitler’s army.”^[37] 

Among the defectors, some actively tried to integrate into the Russian diaspora. For example, a steady contributor to Novoe russkoe slovo was Captain Boris Olshansky. He was also a lecturer at the Club of Russian Youth in New York^[38]. Olshansky succeeded in obtaining an American visa in 1952 and lived in Washington, DC, although he later came to a tragic end^[39]. However, many defectors had no real opportunity to immigrate to the USA, remaining in DP camps in Europe for many years.

This situation was connected with the moral tragedy of defectors. The majority of them were alone in the Russian diaspora. Previous waves of Soviet émigrés belonged to different social and professional groups (officers of the White and Vlasovite armies, Cossacks, etc.), and they tried to preserve their identities while abroad. However, no ‘defectors community’ arose. In 1952, agents of the American secret services undertook efforts to create a structure that would unify the defectors, leading to the creation of the Central Association of Post-War (from 1957, ‘Political’) Émigrés (TsOPE), which was led by Klimov, Arnold and others. In the 1950s, this association published the journal Mosty (Bridges) in Munich: its pages were frequently filled with pointed attacks on the artistic Soviet intelligentsia for their cooperation with the communist regime^[40]. TsOPE held political conferences which critically analyzed the Soviet economic practices that underwrote the low living standards in the USSR^[41]. However, the artificial nature of this organization, which was created from on high rather than as a result of the initiative of the defectors themselves, meant that it was rather fragile: as a consequence, it fragmented in 1963. As the prominent émigré writer Vladimir Jurasov^[42] wrote, the defector was alone when he decided to leave the Motherland and continued to be alone in the West^[43]. This led to deep psychological crises, disillusionment and suicides.

Defectors and the West

Defectors found that the western states adopted a very contradictory policy towards them. Earlier, the US and Great Britain had helped the Soviet Union to organize the repatriation of Soviet citizens who found themselves in Europe during World War II. The Second Wave of Soviet emigration might have been on a larger scale, but Moscow tried to return Soviet citizens to the USSR via the Yalta Conference agreements (February 1945). In 1946–1947, repatriation became more limited: the US adopted special legislation to admit DPs into the country^[44]. Nevertheless, many old émigrés sharply criticized the international organizations attempting to aid the DPs. Thus, Baroness S. V. Panina, who herself helped many new émigrés from the USSR, declared: “I am made acutely ill by the [situation of] DPs, often intolerably so, because at the same time I am conscious of my own powerlessness and poverty. What they [the international organizations] are doing with them is both criminal and idiotic. UNRRA^[45] is simply a criminal organization fabricated by the Bolsheviks, while IRO^[46] is not much better.”^[47]

However, at the end of 1940s, the administrative system in control of the DP camps in Germany began to change: the camps were taken from the jurisdiction of international organizations and efforts were made to integrate the inmates into the West German economy. As the émigré M. A. Miller (who was also critical of UNRRA and IRO) remarked, the change positively affected the situation in the camps: “after the IRO chaos, disorder and mass abuses, order immediately arrived and a system was introduced.”^[48]

The atmosphere of the Cold War pervaded the relationship of the West with the defectors. Some of them (Grigory Klimov, for instance) gradually began to arrive at anti-Western positions. Klimov wrote about the evolution of American policy regarding the defectors, charting their initially cautious course: at first, they did not believe that the defectors were honest, but the CIA later started to use the defectors for propaganda purposes. However, in Klimov’s opinion, insincerity on the part of the American secret service agents working with the defectors led to the use of immoral methods: thus, people who had ‘opted for freedom’ were quickly disillusioned by the West and were prepared to return to the Soviet Union, regardless of the threat of repression^[49].

The defectors tried to prove that the majority of Soviet people did not share anti-Western sentiments. The First Conference of Post-War Political Refugees in Hamburg proclaimed that Stalinist power had not succeeded in this and that the Soviet people continued to have “friendly feelings” towards America. Furthermore, the officers claimed that these sentiments among ordinary people were a serious obstacle to the foreign policy of the Stalinist regime^[50]. In reality, however, the matter was far more complicated. Studies by Russian historians have shown that Stalinist policy in this respect was quite successful. The Soviet people truly believed that it was necessary to defend their Motherland against American aggression^[51]. 

Conclusion

Thus, the emergence of the phenomenon of post-war defectors from the USSR became one of the important symbols of the beginning of the Cold War. Among the defectors were both representatives of the Soviet bureaucratic apparatus and soldiers and officers who deserted from Soviet military units stationed in Germany. Once in Germany, the defectors often ended up in Displaced Persons camps, but the relations between them and the representatives of the “second wave” of Soviet emigration were difficult.

The phenomenon of defectors was actively used for their own purposes by the special services of both the USSR and Western countries. Information about Soviet agents among the defectors appeared in the Western press. The CIA’s policy towards them evolved, and the West gradually began to seek to use their political potential. However, this was hindered by the mood of the defectors themselves, some of whom gradually became disillusioned with the values of Western democracy and sharply criticized US foreign policy.

^{1 V. Zemskov, “K voprosu o repatriatsii sovetskikh grazhdan. 1944–1951 [On the issue of repatriation of Soviet citizens. 1944–1951],” Istoriia SSSR, no. 4 (1990): 26–41; V. Zemskov, “Rozhdenie vtoroi emigratsii [The Birth of the Second Emigration],” Socis, no. 4 (1991): 4–7.}

^{2 V. Zemskov, “Repatriatsiia sovetskikh grazhdan i ikh dal’neishaia sud’ba [Repatriation of Soviet citizens and their future fate],” Socis, no. 5 (1995): 5–6.}

^{3 A. Sheviakov, “ ‘Tainy’ poslevoennoi repatriatsii [“Secrets” of post-war repatriation],” Socis, no. 8 (1993): 3–10.}

^{4 P. Polian, Zhertvy dvukh diktatur [Victims of two dictatorships] (Moscow: ROSSPEN Publ., 2002).}

^{5 N. Tolstoy, Victims of Yalta (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1978).}

^{6 M. Wyman, DP: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–1951 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1998).}

^{7 M. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees From the 1st World War Through the Cold War (New York: Temple University Press, 2002).}

^{8 T. Gottfried, Displaced Persons: The Liberation and Abuse of Holocaust Survivors (Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century Books, 2001).}

^{9 G.D. Cohen, In War’s Wake: Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).}

^{10 G. Brook-Shepherd, Sud’ba sovetskikh perebezhchikov [The fate of Soviet defectors] (New York: Vremya i my Publ., 1983).}

^{11 B. Tromly, “Ambivalent Heroes: Russian Defectors and American Power in the Early Cold War,” Intelligence and National Security 33, no. 5 (2018): 642–658, https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2018.1442296}

^{12 P. Major, “Listening behind the Curtain: BBC Broadcasting to East Germany and Its Cold War Echo,” Cold War History 13, no. 2 (2013): 255–275.}

^{13 Recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation.}

^{14 A. Antoshin, “U.S. and “Turkestan” Political Exiles during the Cold War: Information Policy of Radio Liberty in Soviet Central Asia,” RUDN Journal of Russian History 21, no. 4 (2022): 509–525, https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-8674-2022-21-4-509-525}

^{15 J. Morrison, “Intelligence in the Cold War,” Cold War History 14, no. 4 (2014): 575–591.}

^{16 S. Mikkonen, “Exploiting the Exiles: Soviet Emigres in U.S. Cold War Strategy,” Journal of Cold War Studies 14, no. 2 (2012): 98–127; M. Moseуkina, “Lithuanian diaspora in Uruguay during the beginning of the Cold War,” Quaestio Rossica 12, no. 1 (2024): 160–173, https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2024.1.871}

^{17 M. Weinbaum, “O zabytykh liudiakh [About forgotten people],” Novoe Russkoe Slovo (1951, July 18): 34–45.}

^{18 Hoover Institution Archive on War, Revolution and Peace (thereafter – HIA), Boris Nicolaevsky collection, box 471, folder 32. O. Anisimov to B. Nicolaevsky 15.10.1949.}

^{19 Hoover Institution Archive on War, Revolution and Peace (thereafter – HIA), Boris Nicolaevsky collection, box 471, folder 32. O. Anisimov to B. Nicolaevsky 15.10.1949.}

^{20 L. Rue, “West Germany gives refuge to 35.000 Russians. 800 of them desert from Soviet Army,” Chicago Daily Tribune (1950, December 5): 5–7.}

^{21 Forschungsstelle Osteuropa an der Universitat Bremen. Historisches Archiv (thereafter – FSO UB. HA), f. 27 (Kushev). Leaflets.}

^{22 B. Tromley, “The Making of a Myth: The National Labor Alliance, Russian Emigres, and Cold War Intelligence Activities,” Journal of Cold War Studies 18, no. 1 (2016): 80–111.}

^{23 “Pervaia konferentsiia poslevoennykh politicheskikh bezhentsev [First Conference of Post-War Political Refugees],” Socialistichesky vestnik, no. 9–10 (1951): 182.}

^{24 Idid.}

^{25 Novoe russkoe slovo, 1952, February 10.}

^{26 Novoe russkoe slovo, 1952, March 16.}

^{27 A few years before this, old Social Democrat émigrés had been attempting to turn Svoboda into their press organ. As we can see in letters by the famous Menshevik D. Yu. Dallin, the socialists rendered financial support to the ‘new’ émigrés who published Svoboda and sent their articles to the journal for publication. See Bakhmeteff Archive Research at Columbia University (BAR). Vladimir M. Zenzinov collection. Box 1. Folder “Correspondence. C-F.” D. Dalin to V. Zenzinov. 30.08.1948. However, on the whole the editorial board of Svoboda preferred to cooperate with the NTS and other right-wing organizations.} 

^{28 Aleksei Milrud was the son of the reputable Russian journalist Mikhail Milrud, one of the editors of the newspaper Segodnia, which was published in Riga in the 1920s and 30s. In the Second World War, Aleksei worked with the collaborator press in Riga, such as the journal Novyi Put and the newspapers Za rodinu, Russky vestnik and Volia naroda, the latter of which was the organ of the Vlasovite Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia.} 

^{29 “Pravda o konferentsii ‘noveishikh’ [The Truth about the Conference of the “Newest” Emigrés)],” Socialistichesky vestnik, no. 6 (1953): 122.}

^{30 R. Abramovich, “Komu nuzhny takie fal’shivki? [Who Needs Such Falsifications?],” Socialistichesky vestnik, no. 11–12 (1952): 194.}

^{31 “Noveishaia emigratsiia protiv fashistskogo antimarksizma [The Newest Emigration against Fascist Anti-Marxism],” Socialistichesky vestnik, no. 1 (1953): 13.}

^{32 R. A., “Pravda o konferentsii ‘noveishikh’ [The Truth about the Conference of the ‘Newest’ Emigrés],” Socialistichesky vestnik, no. 4 (1953): 75–76.}

^{33 A large number of documents on the history of SBONR can be found in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) in the collection of Nikolai Troitsky, one of the leaders of this organization (fond 10015).}  

^{34 HIA, Boris Nicolaevsky collection, series 248, box 477, folder 25. V. Denisov to B. Nicolaevsky. 20.03.1952.}

^{35 “Vo imya svobody i demokratii [In the name of freedom and democracy],” Socialistichesky vestnik, no. 9–10 (1951): 181.}

^{36 HIA, Boris Nicolaevsky collection, series 248, box 478, folder 12. M. Dutikov to B. Nicolaevsky 18.03.1948.}

^{37 Kolokol, no. 1–2 (1953): 25.}

^{38 Novoe russkoe slovo, 1952, April 10.} 

^{39 Boris Olshansky (1910–1958) was born in Voronezh to a surgeon and a teacher. After the early death of his father, he began to work as a labourer, nurse and builder, among jobs. Graduating from the faculty of mathematics and physics at Kharkov University, he worked as a teacher and wrote for the Soviet press. As an officer in the engineering corps during the Second World War, he was injured twice. After demobilization, he remained in the eastern part of Berlin and worked as a teacher in a Russian school. In 1947, he fled to the West, where he published works in the Russian émigré press, like the journals Chasovoi, Sotsialistichesky vestnik and others. Between 1952 and 1956, he lived in the USA, but then returned to the USSR, residing in Kazan. There, he partook in propaganda work organised by the Soviet secret services in order to discredit anti-communist émigrés. He died in unclear circumstances after the KGB started to suspect him of having links with Western intelligence agencies (see V. Rudolf, “Po povodu vozvrashchenstva [Regarding the return],” Svoboda, no. 4 (1959): 24–25).}

 ^{Novoe russkoe slovo, 1952, April 10.}

^{40 Mosty, no. 2 (1959): 316.}  

^{41 Litsom k litsu. Materialy 2-i politicheskoi konferentsii TSOPE [Face to face. Materials of the 2nd political conference of the Center for Optimization of Economic Policy] (Frankfurt-am-Maine: Izdatel’stvo Tsentral’nogo ob`edineniya “Politicheskie emigranty iz SSSR” Publ., 1961).}

^{42 Vladimir Yurasov (real surname Zhabinsky: he also used the pseudonym V. Rudolf) (1914–1996). Born in Romanian territory, in the USSR he worked in a factory and then entered the literature faculty of the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History (LIFLI). In 1937, he was arrested and sentenced to 8 years in a prison camp: however, he evaded imprisonment, using forged documents in order to survive. He fought in World War II as a colonel. After the war, he served in the Soviet military administration in Germany, fleeing to western Berlin in 1947. There, he worked for the émigré press and Radio Liberty. He was the author of the novel Parallaks.}

^{43 G. Bashkirova, G. Vasiliev. Puteshestvie v Russkuiu Ameriku [Journey to Russian America] (Moscow: Politizdat Publ., 1990), 108.}

^{44 L. Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust: The Evolution of a United States Displaced Persons Policy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); O. Burianek, From Liberator to Guardian: The U.S. Army and Displaced Persons in Munich, 1945, PhD diss., Emory University, 1992; H. Genizi, America’s Fair Share: The Admission and Resettlement of Displaced Persons, 1945–1952 (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1993); R. Daniels, “Admitting Displaced Persons: 1945–1950,” in Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 98–112.}

^{45 UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.}

^{46 International Refugees Organization.}

^{47 BAR, A. Tyrkova-Williams collection, box 2, folder “Panina S.V. 1948–1950.” S.V. Panina to A. V. Tyrkova. 30.03.1949.}

^{48 BAR, Nikolai P. Vakar collection, box 3, folder “Arranged correspondence of N. Vakar.” M. Miller to N. Vakar. 23.06.1950.}

^{49 G. Klimov, Pesn’ pobeditelya [The Song of a Winner] (Krasnodar: Peresvet Publ., 2002), 679–683.} 

^{50 Ibid.}

^{51 E. Zubkova, Poslevoennoe sovetskoe obshchestvo: politika i povsednevnost’. 1945–1953 [Post-war Soviet society: politics and everyday life. 1945–1953] (Moscow: ROSSPEN Publ., 1999), 128–130.}

About the authors

Alexey V. Antoshin

Author for correspondence.
Email: alex_antoshin@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6093-2219
SPIN-code: 6285-4494

Dr. Habil. Hist., Professor of the Department of Oriental Studies, Department of International Relations

References

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