American Intelligence and Belarusian Emigration against Soviet Byelorussia during the Cold War

Authors

  • Evgenii V. Kodin Smolensk State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.411

Abstract

By the end of the Second World War, about 200 thousand Belarusians ended up as refugees in Western Europe. A significant part of them were repatriated to the Soviet Union, more than one thousand moved to the USA, another fifteen hundred — to other non-European countries. In 1951, the number of Belarusians remaining in Europe was sixty thousand people. Belarusian emigration, as well as the emigration from other Soviet Republics, immediately came to the attention of the US Central Intelligence Agency within the framework of a document developed in 1948 by the State Department entitled “Utilization of Refugees from the Soviet Union in U. S. National Interests”, which was supposed to “fill in the niches in our current intelligence, in public information, and in our politico-psychological operations”. The Central
Intelligence Agency was supposed to develop and quite generously finance the intelligence and propaganda projects and programs important for the agency. The leadership of the Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic (in exile) headed by its chairman Nikolai Abramchik was to be responsible for staffing the necessary number of agents from among the emigrant Belarusian youth to infiltrate into Belarus and for distributing information among the national European emigration. However, this did not cause any expected “resistance movement” within the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic contrary to the intended actions of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Rada. By the end of 1961, the projects of the Central Intelligence Agency in Belarus conducted since 1951, including the most famous AEQUOR, which involved infiltrating agents into the territory of the republic, were closed.

Keywords:

Central Intelligence Agency, Belarusian post-war emigration, Rada of Belarusian People’s Republic, Cold War, Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
 

Author Biography

Evgenii V. Kodin, Smolensk State University

Dr. Sci (History), Professor

References

Литература

Fisher G. Soviet Opposition to Stalin. A Case Study in World War II. Cambridge, 1952, 230 p.

Gardzіenka A. Belaruskaia Tsentral’naia Rada (BTsR): stvarenne — dzeinasts’ — zaniapad (1943–1995). Mіnsk, Knigazbor Publ., 2016, 478 p. (In Belarusian)

Kalush V. In the Service of the People for a Free Byelorussia: Biographical Notes on Professor Radoslav Ostrowski. London, Abjednannie, 1964, 92 p.

Kodin E. V. Abramchik i Ostrovskii: bor’ba za liderstvo v srede belorusskoi poslevoennoi emigratsii. Slavianskii al’manakh, 2021, no. 1–2, pp. 253–270 (In Russian)

Kodin E. V. Nachalo britanskogo poslevoennogo belorusovedeniia. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2022, vol. 67, issue 3, pp. 983–997 (In Russian)

Kodin E. V. Prezident Belorusskoi Narodnoi Respubliki (v emigratsii) Nikolai Abramchik i TsRU: poslevoennoe sotrudnichestvo. Pichetovskie chteniia — 2020: voiny v istorii chelovechestva. K 75-letiiu Pobedy nad fashizmom. Minsk, BGU Press, 2020, pp. 111–118 (In Russian)

Litskevich O. “Rukh zusіm nezalezhnitski…”. Belaruskaia dumka, 2009, no. 8, pp. 74–81 (In Russian)

Loftus J. America’s Nazi Secret. Walterville, Trine Day, 2010, 513 p.

Loftus J. The Belarus Secret. New York, Knopf, 1982, 196 p.

Lukashuk A. Fіlіstovіch. Viaartan’ne natsyianalista. Minsk, Nasha Nіva Publ., 1997, 79 p. (In Belarusian)

Proudfoot M. European Refugees: 1939–1952. A Study in Forced Population Movement. [S. l.], Faber and Faber, 1956, 542 p.

[Ragula B.] Against the current: the memoirs of Boris Ragula. Montreal, Ithaca, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005, 185 p.

Solov’iov A. Belorusskaia Tsentral’naia Rada: sozdanie, deiatel’nost’, krakh. Minsk, Navuka i tekhnika Publ., 1995, 176 p. (In Russian)

Vernant J. The Refugee in the Post-War World. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1953, 827 p.

Downloads

Published

2023-12-30

How to Cite

Kodin, E. V. (2023). American Intelligence and Belarusian Emigration against Soviet Byelorussia during the Cold War. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 68(4), 974–990. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.411

Issue

Vol. 68 No. 4 (2023)

Section

World History

License

Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.