National Alliance of Russian Solidarists
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n far-right anticommunist organization founded in 1930 by a group of young Russian anticommunist White emigre
White Emigre
A white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....
s in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
(then part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
).
The organization was formed in response to the older generation of Russian emigres (veterans of the White movement
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
) who were perceived as being stagnant and resigned to their loss in the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. The youth which formed NTS decided to take an active role in fighting communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
by studying the newly emerging Soviet culture
Culture of the Soviet Union
The Culture of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the 69 year existence of the Soviet Union. It was contributed by people of various nationalities from every of 15 union republics, although the majority of them were Russians...
, the psyche of a person living in the USSR, and developing a political program based on the concept of solidarism
Solidarism
Solidarism can refer to:*The term "Solidarism" is applied to the sociopolitical thought advanced by Émile Durkheim which is loosely applied to a leading social philosophy operative during and within the French Third Republic prior to the First World War....
.
Political Program
The solidarist ideology of NTS was built on the ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
understanding of people's collective social responsibility for each other's welfare, and the voluntary cooperation between the different layers (as opposed to classes) of society, in opposition to the Marxist concept of the class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
. It also believed strongly in the "sanctity of the individual", in contrast to Marxist collectivism
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
.
From a 1967 English language NTS pamphlet:
Unlike Communism, Solidarism provides a twentieth-century basis for dealing with present day issues. It rejects a purely materialistic approach to social, economic and political problems. It postulates that man, rather than matter, is the chief problem today. It rejects the concept of class warfare and hatred, and seeks to replace this dubious principle with the idea of co-operation (solidarity), brotherhood, Christian tolerance and charity. Solidarism believes in the innate dignity of the individual and seeks to safeguard as inalienable rights his freedom of speech, conscience and political organization. Solidarists in no way claim that their ideas represent the final answer to all problems, but they believe that man who is master of the atom bomb must also become master of himself and his destiny.
The platform did not rule out a monarchy
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
, but it refused to pre-decide the question of a free Russia's political structure (the policy of "non-predetermination" [Russian: непредрешенчество nepredrešhenčhestvo]) outside of a popular plebiscite. In this regard it was similar to the White movement
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
which deferred the decision of Russia's political structure to a constituent assembly
Constituent assembly
A constituent assembly is a body composed for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution...
. However, unlike the White movement, its successor organization ROVS, and other emigre organizations, NTS had developed a specific political program which included a definition of human rights and an economic program. This made the organization attract the attention of General Andrey Vlasov
Andrey Vlasov
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov or Wlassow was a Russian Red Army general who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.-Early career:...
during the Russian Liberation Movement
Russian Liberation Movement
Russian Liberation Movement is a term used to describe Russians during World War II who tried to create an anti-communist armed force which would topple the regime of Joseph Stalin...
, who borrowed many points from NTS's program in developing his own.
The NTS platform rejected the traditional labels of "liberal" and "conservative", claiming "We are not to the right, or to the left, we are at the front!" (Мы не справа и не слева, мы впереди! My ne sprava i ne sleva, my vperedi!) The NTS called for a "second revolution", as opposed to a "counter-revolution", believing that after Bolshevism Russia needed to be reborn and avoid returning to the mistakes of the pre-revolutionary era. At the same time, NTS rejected the views of groups such as the Smenovekhovtsi
Smenovekhovtsi
The Smenovekhovtsy is the name for a political movement in the Russian émigré community that began shortly after the publication of the magazine "Smena Vekh" in Prague, in the year 1921...
and Mladorossi
Mladorossi
The Union of Mladorossi was a political group of Russian émigré monarchists who advocated a hybrid of Russian monarchy and the Soviet system, best evidenced by their motto "Tsar and the Soviets"....
who called for a reconciliation with the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
regime, believing that Bolshevism is corrupt and incapable of evolution, therefore it needs to be eradicated, not reformed.
Some liberal critics in the Russian emigre community have accused NTS of having a fascist ideology. For instance, Dr. Marc Raeff wrote in the Slavic Review
Slavic Review
Slavic Review is a leading international peer-reviewed academic journal publishing scholarly studies and book reviews in all disciplines concerned with Russia, Central Eurasia, and Eastern and Central Europe...
(Summer, 1989, 48(2), pp. 305-306) that,
They [the NTS] rejected both Bolshevism and liberal capitalism and embraced Russian patriotism and the priority of national solidarity based on productive labor contributed by all societal sectors. They displayed a predisposition for a corporatist organization of society and a willingness to accept a temporary dictatorship in order to bring about the nation's moral and spiritual regeneration. Their ideas unmistakably resembled those of Italian fascism and Portuguese and Austrian corporatism.NTS supporters believe the organization always defended democratic participation in government (even in the case of a monarch), championed individual liberties, supported individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
, and rejected chauvinism
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
.
Membership
The NTS initially accepted young men and women only under the age of thirty (occasional exceptions were made), feeling that only the generation which could not in any way be seen as accountable for the events of 1917Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
could lead this battle. This restriction was removed by World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Members could be open or secret, the latter was a frequent option during the NTS's activity in the Russian Liberation Movement
Russian Liberation Movement
Russian Liberation Movement is a term used to describe Russians during World War II who tried to create an anti-communist armed force which would topple the regime of Joseph Stalin...
.
The NTS included not only Russians but other traditional peoples of Russia (e.g., Georgians, Balts, Kalmyks), hence the organization used the term Rossijane
Ethnic groups in Russia
Russian Federation is a mono-national state with over 170 ethnic groups designated as nationalities, population of these groups varying enormously, from millions in case of e.g. Russians and Tatars to under ten thousand in the case of Samis and Kets...
(россияне; meaning "peoples of Russia") rather than Russkie (русские; meaning "ethnic Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
") in their political programs. Many Russophiles also joined the organization, e.g., Germans, Poles, Slovenians.
The organization adopted a logo of the Russian flag with the symbol of St. Vladimir, frequently used by Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
, to demonstrate the continuity and interrelatedness of Russian and Ukrainian tradition. The trident
Trident
A trident , also called a trishul or leister or gig, is a three-pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and was also a military weapon. Tridents are featured widely in mythical, historical and modern culture. The major Hindu god, Shiva the Destroyer and the sea god Poseidon or Neptune are...
was also used by NTS as a revolutionary symbol, called the "forks of the people's anger".
Perhaps the most famous NTS member was Alexander Galich
Alexander Galich
Alexander Galich , was a Russian poet, screenwriter, playwright, and singer-songwriter. Galich is a pen name, a sort of acronym of his last name, first name, and patronymic: Ginzburg Alexander Arkadievich. He adopted this name to conceal his Jewish ancestry in the face of antisemitism in the Soviet...
, a Russian-Jewish screenwriter and bard whose anti-Soviet songs caused him to be exiled from the USSR.
Revolutionary Activity
The NTS believed that force was the only means by which the Soviet regime could be toppled, and that an internal revolution was the best means for this.The group made several attempts at sending its people into the USSR illegally before, during, and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
for the purpose of creating an underground revolutionary force in Soviet Russia. The organization, despite the support of foreign intelligence agencies, could not match the powerful network of the OGPU and NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
. The pre and post war attempts were the least successful, often ending in shootouts with the Soviet Secret police, or capture. The war period was the most successful, although there were a high number of casualties who either suffered at the hands of the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, or sleeper cells which were uncovered by the Soviet secret police.
The NTS was also actively involved in the Russian Liberation Movement
Russian Liberation Movement
Russian Liberation Movement is a term used to describe Russians during World War II who tried to create an anti-communist armed force which would topple the regime of Joseph Stalin...
during the war.
The organization adopted a new strategy after the war called the "molecular theory" of revolution, where Soviet citizens were urged (via propaganda literature and radio messages) to create "molecular revolutionary groups" no larger than three people in size in order to minimize the risk of infiltration. These groups were to keep in contact with the NTS center which was located in Frankfurt, Germany. At a ripe moment, the center would coordinate the activity of the molecules and create a revolutionary army out of them.
The NTS's "Closed Sector", the coordination center for underground revolutionary activity, was dissolved in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Propaganda
The NTS actively sent out propaganda leaflets via air balloons and other means, including direct mail. Messages with anti-Stalinist slogans and the NTS's political program were printed on leaflets, handkerchiefs, fake rubles, false books, etc.The organization also set up a radio station called Radio Free Russia. Broadcasts were made from West Germany into the Soviet zone until the West German government was pressured by the Soviet government to shut the station down.
Publications
The Posev publishing house was run by NTS as a means of publishing anti-Soviet literature. SamizdatSamizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
literature smuggled outside of the USSR was published, such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
's writings and the poems of Alexander Galich
Alexander Galich
Alexander Galich , was a Russian poet, screenwriter, playwright, and singer-songwriter. Galich is a pen name, a sort of acronym of his last name, first name, and patronymic: Ginzburg Alexander Arkadievich. He adopted this name to conceal his Jewish ancestry in the face of antisemitism in the Soviet...
and Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author song"...
. Posev (Посев, lit. "sowing
Sowing
Sowing is the process of planting seeds.-Plants which are usually sown:Among the major field crops, oats, wheat, and rye are sowed, grasses and legumes are seeded, and maize and soybeans are planted...
" in Russian) is also the name of a magazine published by NTS since 1945.
Currently, the Posev publishing house mainly publishes books on Russian history, focusing specifically on the history of the anti-communist movement.
Presidents of the NTS
- 1930-1933 Duke Sergei Leuchtenberg
- 1934-1954 Viktor M. Baydalakov
- 1955-1972 Vladimir D. Poremsky
- 1972-1984 Aleksandr Artemov
- 1984-1995 Evgeni Romanovich Ostrovsky (Romanov)
- 1997-2001 Leonid Dmitrievich Kuznechov
Soviet response
The Soviets responded to NTS's activities via several methods including arrests, assassination attempts, kidnappings, counterpropaganda, and diplomatic pressure. NTS members who were found in Soviet controlled territories were arrested. Several assassination attempts were made against key NTS members. One of them, NTS chairman George Okolovich, had his would be assassin, Mikhail Khokhlov, confess to him and defect, embarrassing the Soviet government with his media campaign. There were also several bombing attempts.Dr. Rudolf Trushnovic, a prominent NTS member of Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n origin, was kidnapped by Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
agent Heinz Glezke and smuggled abroad in a Soviet diplomatic car to the East German sector. He is believed to have died in transit as a result of the trauma from the struggle that ensued during his kidnapping.
Anti-NTS pamphlets and newsreel films were produced by the USSR. One such pamphlet was supposedly written by Constantine Cherezov, a former NTS member who defected from Germany back to the USSR. The pamphlet accuses the leaders of NTS being employees of American and British intelligence. It also labels them as drunkards, homosexuals, and gamblers who had at one point or another served the Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
regime.
In addition, the Soviet government used its international ties to pressure foreign governments to suppress NTS's activities. One such successful example is the closing down of "Radio Free Russia" by the West German government.
Songs
A song titled "The Bright Hour Knocks" (Бьёт светлый час B'ët svetlij čas) became the organization's main song, used as an anthem but never called such. It was written in the early 1930s by NTS member Michael Gnilorybov.Another song was also very popular, called "Youth" (Молодёжная Molodëžnaja) or "The Past is the Source of Inspiration" (В былом источник вдохновенья V bylom istočnik vdoxnoven'ja), written by NTS member Pavel Zelensky (Павел Николаевич Зеленский; 1904–1978) in the late 1930s. This song was also adopted by the Russian Scout organization ORYuR as the anthem of its leadership circle, which had many NTS members.
See also
- White movementWhite movementThe White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
- Russian Liberation MovementRussian Liberation MovementRussian Liberation Movement is a term used to describe Russians during World War II who tried to create an anti-communist armed force which would topple the regime of Joseph Stalin...
- Russian All-Military UnionRussian All-Military UnionThe Russian All-Military Union was founded by White Army General Pyotr Wrangel in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes on September 1, 1924...
(ROVS) - VSHSONVSHSONThe VSHSON or All-Russian Social-Christian Union for the Liberation of the People was an underground anti-Soviet organization that existed in Russia during 1964-1967...
- White EmigreWhite EmigreA white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....
- Russian All National Popular State MovementRussian All National Popular State MovementThe Russian All National Popular State Movement was a Russian political emigre organization based primarily in West Germany that sought to unite the participants of the Russian Liberation...
- MladorossiMladorossiThe Union of Mladorossi was a political group of Russian émigré monarchists who advocated a hybrid of Russian monarchy and the Soviet system, best evidenced by their motto "Tsar and the Soviets"....
- SmenovekhovtsiSmenovekhovtsiThe Smenovekhovtsy is the name for a political movement in the Russian émigré community that began shortly after the publication of the magazine "Smena Vekh" in Prague, in the year 1921...
- Evraziitsi
External links
- Official site of the NTS
- Site of the Posev publishing house
- http://ntsrs.ru/index.htmSite of the PermPermPerm is a city and the administrative center of Perm Krai, Russia, located on the banks of the Kama River, in the European part of Russia near the Ural Mountains. From 1940 to 1957 it was named Molotov ....
NTS group, which split off from the main NTS organization in the 1990s] (in RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
)