Soviet defectors in Western Germany at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s and Mensheviks-emigres

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of defectors from the Soviet Union in the first years after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The author focuses on the attitude of the old Russian Social Democrats, who were in exile in the United States, toward the defectors. The article draws on documents from the Hoover Institution’s War, Revolution, and Peace Archives (Stanford, USA), the Bakhmetev Archives of Russian and East European Culture at Columbia University (New York, USA), the Archives of the Center for East European Studies at the University of Bremen (Germany), and others. The author shows that a group of Soviet defectors who were in Displaced Persons camps in Germany came into contact with representatives of the Menshevik émigré center in the late 1940s. On the basis of this group, the German Department of the League of Struggle for People’s Freedom was created, which claimed to act as a key Russian émigré organization with a democratic orientation. The article shows that the defectors received funding from the USA, various foundations and non-governmental organizations through the mediation of the old Mensheviks. The result of this action was the exposure of the leader of the group of defectors Major Vasily Denisov as an agent of the Soviet secret services. The article proves that this case was not an isolated phenomenon: a number of defectors broke with anti-communist émigré organizations and decided to return to the Soviet Union. The author comes to the conclusion that the reason for this was the disappointment of many defectors in the values of Western democracy, their critical attitude to the spiritual atmosphere within Western societies and the political elite of the USA.