4.1

constant element that will become clear throughout the study.

The West's attitude in dealing with émigrés and defectors has not wlways been fortunate to say the least, going from the forced repatriations at the end of WW II (see p. 8) to the way the INS (mis) handled the 1981-82 wave of Polish Solidarity refugees (some were émigrés, others were defectors; see p. 59.2) to the West German reaction towards the 1985 and 1986 flood of refugees ( 3rd World and East European refugees alike (see p. 59.1 & 59.2 ) to finally the often miserable way of life Soviet bloc refugees have in camps located in the FRG, Austria or Italy. This kind of situations does not go unnoticed by the Soviet bloc authorities which have been greatly exploiting them as a "royal dog bone." This uneasy feeling on the part of the West towards refugees permeates and influences the treatment they will obtain.

It should also be mentioned that returnees have not always taken the decision to go back completely of their own free will. Some varying degree of interference by Soviet bloc authorities at different stages did certainly assist in bringing about "induced returns." The latter were often the result of a systematic repatriation policy and effort decided by Soviet leaders and implemented by the secret services of the USSR and its allies (see p. 10 & follow. ). Some even dare to go as far as to contend that the Kremlin has been pulling the strings on a number of Soviet agents in the United States by organizing the returns of émigrés to Mother Russia that occurred during the winter of 1986.

This should suffice to demonstrate that the phenomenon of "returning" to the countries of real socialism cannot simply be reduced to a decision taken by a disappointed Soviet bloc émigré who decides to return because he or she feels homesick or lonely, or, by a repentful defector going back to more reassuring shores, even if this means trouble with the authorities.

Nor does this diminish in any way the fact that many returnees have faced

4.2

real personal problems that have led them to take that decision without interference of the authorities of their former homeland. In fact, a separate section in this paper will be dealing with problems that may lead to or have triggered off reemigrations and redefections.

The crux of the matter is that reemigration and redefection are perceived quite differently by the United States and the Soviet Union and its allies. Whereas the former will summarize its position with "This being a free country, people are free to travel to and from the United States whenever they choose, and are free to choose their place of residence" (10), the latter country will not only consider these acts as deeds of treachery against the Motherland, but will also put every redefection and reemigration to good use so as to discredit and undermine its opponents to a maximum extent (11). It will be another goal of this study to demonstrate which role returnees have been and still are playing in this political war game with high stakes.

II. RETURNEES IN PERSPECTIVE.

Before World War II.

5.

Once the Bolsheviks had succeeded in their October 17 coup d'état, it became imperative from their standpoint to clear the political scene of any form of opposition. Lenin considered all émigrés as counterrevolutionaries and a double danger for his regime. On the one hand, they were seen as a threat to Soviet security while, on the other, they formed a serious threat to the infant Soviet regime. Emigrés were indeed a reservoir of potential agents the West could use to penetrate the Soviet Union and, at the same time, only Soviet émigrés, regrouped and united, could set up a provisional government and, under the right circumstances, return to Russia to depose the Bolsheviks and become the successor of the Communist party regime (12). Therefore, Lenin instructed Dzerzhinsky and his Cheka organization to monitor the Russian émigrés abroad and to neutralize them effectively. In light of those instructions, Dzerzhinsky created the 'Counterespionage Department' in early 1920, whose main task was to conduct 'neutralization' operations against real and potential resistance forces outside the USSR (13).

The policy of destabilization and destruction was implemented through manipulation and penetration of the émigrés and had as main goal to induce the émigré population, and above all its leaders, to return home where they could be disposed of quickly and without notice (14). As such, this was a perfect example of counterintelligence measures aimed at discovering the hostile intentions of the Russian émigrés and executing the necessary

6.

actions for their neutralization (15). In the early 1930s another collateral function was added to the means to combat the external oppostion: destruction of émigré circles through kidnappings and assassinations. In 1931 General

Kutepov, a White Russian émigré leader was kidnapped by Soviet agents in Paris

Russian

in broad daylight and in September 1937 the same fate met yet another prominent White Russian officer, General Miller, leader of the Union of Tsarist Veter

ans.

The earliest reemigration or redefection campaign was initiated during the New Economic Policy (NEP) period of 'peaceful coexistence' as described by the Donovan Emergency Commission (16) in its report of March 1956 on the Communist redefection campaign:

"An amnesty for exiles was proclaimed in 1921, as a result of which it was later stated that 121,000 émigrés returned in 1921 alone, followed by some 60,000 in the next nine years. Soviet sponsored organizations and publications, penetrated by Soviet intelligence agents, functioned in support of this campaign." (17)

Another well prepared and carefully executed operation was called TRUST.

Harry Rositzke describes the operation as follows:

"TRUST was the code name for the Monarchist Union of Central Russia
(MUCR), ostensibly a powerful anti-Soviet organization within the
Soviet Union. The operation began when an underground leader came
out to the West in 1921 to establish liaison with the Whites outside.
He told them what they wanted to hear: that the MUCR was a strong,
well-organized resistance movement; that unrest was growing and that
the Bolshevik regime was on the verge of collapse.

The Whites, and the British and the French, were sucked in. First
rate up-to-date intelligence came out of Russia in a steady stream.
TRUST messages passed from Berlin and Paris to Moscow and back in a
week. The TRUST provided border crossing points for agents sent in
from the West, and more and more émigré operations were channeled
through TRUST facilities. The game went on for several years.
[...]

The notorious anti-czarist and anti-Bolshevik terrorist, Boris Savin-
kov, .... was urgently invited by his top agent inside to come back
to Russia in early 1924 to lead a revolt in Georgia against the Red
Regime that had been badly shaken by Lenin's death in January. He
returned on a forged Italian passport along a TRUST safe route via
Berlin and Warsaw. He was trapped in a safe house near Minsk." (18)

7.

The efforts to neutralize or annihilate the politically active and potentially dangerous exiles continued relentlessly during the thirties, the most spectacular event being the assassination of Leon Trotsky in August 1940 (19).

With regard to pre-WW II Soviet defectors, it must be said that the methods of dealing with them were simple and brutal. Once people like Bajanov, Bessedovsky, Agabekov, Barmine and Raskolnikov had defected, the OGPU and its successor, the NKVD, were put on their trail as bloodhounds, with the aim of eliminating the traitors (20). These attempts at eliminating defectors included traps to lure them back into Soviet power. This was the case with Aleksandr Barmine, who was a diplomat stationed in Athens in the 1930s. He was invited to go to dinner on a Soviet ship, the 'Rudzutak' which had docked at Piraeus (21). An identical trick was being planned to forcefully bring Alexander Orlov, a high-level NKVD officer whose last post before defection in 1938 was adviser to the Republican Gmment in Spain, back to the Soviet Union for liquidation (22). Stalin indeed boasted about having a very long arm that would catch up with defectors sooner or later. This dreadful image would verify itself in the cases of Ignace Reiss, Walter Krivitsky and Viktor Kravchenko (23).

In June 1937, Stalin also had a law passed subjecting the close relatives of any 'non-returner' to exile in Siberia even if they knew nothing about the non-returner's intention to defect, while a KGB administrative decree subjected close relatives of any KGB officer who defected to a ten year prison term. If any state secrets were disclosed after such a defection, the relatives were liable to execution (24).

The KGB would resume its liquidation of political émigrés with refined