The American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism and Soviet Emigration in Europe

Abstract

The American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism was established as a public organization in 1951. Its aim was to assist the anti-communist emigration from the Soviet Union in its struggle to overthrow the Bolshevik regime. Americans generously financed anti-Soviet activities among European emigration. Their main “concern” was 250,000 former Soviet citizens living in West Germany in the status of displaced persons. The creators of the Committee deemed the Soviet emigres as one of their most important allies in the Cold War. The Committee intended to neutralize disconnection of the Soviet emigration by creating a central émigré organization in West Germany as the coordinating body in the anti-communist struggle. Such an integrated organization was to receive moral and material support from the Committee. In 1951–1952, the American Committee put a lot of effort into organizing and holding meetings of emigrant political associations that took place with its full financial support in the German cities of Füssen (January 1951), Stuttgart (August 1951), Wiesbaden (November 1951), Starnberg (June 1952). The final goal of creating a single anti-Bolshevik front among the emigration from the USSR was not achieved. However, the experience was significant. The committee gained good knowledge of the structure of emigration, its internal attitudes and problems. After the conference in Starnberg, the center of gravity in the work of the Committee’s work with emigration was shifted to New York. Most of the conferences and all activities of emigration were relocated to Munich, where the Munich Institute for the Study of the USSR operated.