“American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” and negotiations on the political unification of emigration from the USSR in the context of the Korean War

The article is devoted to the negotiation process initiated by the "American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia" on the political unification of emigration from the Soviet Union, which took place in the early 1950s. The article is based on materials from the State Archives of the Russian Federation (Moscow, Russia), the Archives of the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace (Stanford, USA), Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European Culture (New York, USA), Department of Special Collections, Georgetown University Library, the Archives of the International Institute of Social history (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). The main groups of historical sources used in this article are the minutes of meetings of emigrant forums, official statements of the American Committee and emigrant associations, personal correspondence of Russian emigrants, memoirs, periodicals. Considerable attention is paid to the ideological guidelines of the American Committee, its political goals, personnel and governing bodies. The reasons for the start of the negotiation process, the course of meetings in the West German cities of Fussen, Stuttgart and Wiesbaden and their results are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the position of Ukrainian political organizations on the possibility of agreements with Russian emigrant groups. The conclusion is substantiated that the political elite of the United States was aimed at finding compromises between Russian emigration and political groups of immigrants from various republics of the Soviet Union. It is proved that the key role in the failure of these negotiations was played by the national question, the differences between the positions of Russian emigrants and groups representing various republics of the USSR on the issue of the future of a unified state after the collapse of the communist regime. At the same time, it is shown that the positions of political organizations representing various peoples of the USSR were also different. Some of them advocated a compromise with Russian emigrants to unite the efforts of anti-communist forces. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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