THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY: COLLABORATIONISM AMONG RUSSIAN EMIGRANTS IN EUROPE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War caused numerous wave of emigrants from Russia mostly considered as being in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate. The main paths from Russia agreed with the retreats of the White Army, hence the name of this emigration as White. Many white emigres believed it was their duty to remain active in combat against the Soviet Union, with the hopes of "liberating" Russia. They formed various organizations for this purpose such as the Russian All-Military Union, the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, and the NTS. This ideology was put into practice during the Second World War. The task of this paper is to overview the main forms of collaboration of Russian emigration in Europe with the Nazis, to analyze the motivation of such behavior and to compare the most outstanding activities: participation in the Winter war 1939-1940, participation in the Russian Liberation Movement and the Russian Liberation Army under command of A. Vlasov and participation in the Russian Corps in Serbia. The author comes to conclusion that hoping to conduct independent policy the Russian White emigration failed to understand that they were not an independent actor of the international relations, but the means of propaganda and a tiny part of the Nazi machine. And this is the tragedy of more than 20 thousand people serving in military troops and those who worked for the Nazis during the Second World War.