After the German defeat at Moscow, some German experts on Soviet affairs, as well as some officials of the Reich, began to feel more and more convinced that Germany could win only if the Russian national anti-Stalinist forces could be rallied.137 But this project ran counter to the official doctrine of the master race and the subhumans. The German experts in charge of psychological warfare against the USSR thought that if a "Russian de Gaulle," a Soviet general, could be found, the Red Army's anti-Stalinist forces would rally around him.
A search for such a general started in the prison camps. That was how Vlasov was found. He had commanded the Second Shock Army and had been captured on the Volkhov Front in July 1942. Vlasov was reputed to be one of the most capable Soviet generals. In 1942 he turned forty-two. He had served in the Red Army since 1919 and was a party member. His peasant background and excellent army record gave him impeccable credentials. At one time he had commanded the Ninety-ninth Infantry Division, which was considered the finest in the Kiev Military District before the war. During the defense of Kiev he had commanded the Thirty-seventh Army and, during the Battle of Moscow, the Twentieth Army. Then he had served as deputy commander of the Volkhov Front and finally as commander of the Second Shock Army. Those were Vlasov's outstanding credentials.138 For a while, Stalin himself had wanted to assign him to command the Stalingrad Front.139 Vlasov enjoyed an excellent reputation in the army because on three occasions he had extricated his troops from German encirclement. He was also distinguished by great personal courage.
What led him to accept the Nazi offer? To judge from documents that survived and accounts by his contemporaries, Vlasov was deeply disillusioned with the Stalin regime. He had witnessed all the prewar purges in the army. Also, he had been one of those who had to bear the bitter burden of defeat during the first year of war. The incompetence, brutality, and irresponsibility of the top leadership caused him to rebel inwardly. This inner break with the Stalinist system ripened under the tragic conditions of captivity. Vlasov became involved in the Germans' game, hoping to come out of it with an independent Russian national army allied with Germany. One cannot help but wonder at his political naivet6. From the start he made a fatal mistake: nothing but destruction awaited Russia upon Hitler's victory. There was no reason whatsoever to expect help from Germany in the struggle against Stalin. Hitler's war was directed, not against Stalin personally or bolshevism alone, but against the very existence of Russia as a nation.
The Soviet Union was part of a coalition that included the Western democracies, the United States and Great Britain, and the resistance movements. Nazi Germany was a deadly threat to all of them. Vlasov enjoyed a certain sympathy from some Wehrmacht officers, who had been assigned to use him and his reputation for propaganda purposes and who invested considerable effort in supporting him as the aspiring leader of an independent anti-Stalinist movement.
Undoubtedly, although Vlasov genuinely expected to benefit from his alliance with the Germans in his struggle against Stalin, the Germans never considered him an ally. He was a veteran Soviet general and, in his own fashion, a Russian patriot. And that was precisely what aroused the Nazis' mistrust of him. For the Nazis he could be nothing more than a means to help them attain their ends. As in the case of the national legions, it was only the exigencies of war that led the Germans to authorize the formation of the Russian Liberation Army, the ROA. The Nazis trusted neither of these formations. They used some of them to fight partisans in the occupied Soviet territories and the resistance movements in the West. But as a general rule the Nazis feared using these units against the Red Army, considering their defection likely.
Whether Vlasov had read Mein Kampf or merely heard of it, German cruelty to Soviet prisoners of war and "Eastern workers" should have led him to question the morality of being in league with the Nazi racists. It is true that no such scruples had prevented Stalin from signing the German— Soviet pact and later waging a joint struggle with the Nazis against the
Polish resistance. There was another historical precedent. During World War I the Bolsheviks had openly favored the defeat of tsarist Russia in the war with Germany, employing the slogan 'Turn the imperialist war into a civil war." Moreover, they had accepted financial aid from the German General Staff. But when Vlasov decided to lead a struggle against Stalin, his choice of allies was no less important than the struggle itself. In fact, it was not he who made the choice: the German officers, concerned with the outcome of the war, chose him from among dozens of Soviet generals in German captivity. They made the selection at their own risk, hoping that the Nazi leaders would understand Vlasov's value in rallying the Russian army against the Soviet regime.
From his first leaflet, drafted by German propaganda specialists and signed by him on September 10, 1942, at the Vinnitsa prisoner of war camp, a leaflet calling on the Soviet intelligentsia to join forces in the struggle against Stalin and his clique, Vlasov allowed himself to be used for Nazi propaganda aims. Contrary to the facts, he said that the executions of Soviet prisoners and brutality toward them by the Germans were nothing but "false propaganda." In this "open letter," he called for an alliance with Germany, which was highly misleading, of course, for Germany had no intention of allying itself with Vlasov. It is true, however, that the German officers had told Vlasov otherwise.
At the end of 1942 the Germans authorized and helped in the formation of a Russian National Committee, but they hid the fact that they only needed the organization for propaganda purposes. Among the several dozen Soviet generals held prisoner, only a few agreed to participate in the committee, among them Major General V. F. Malyshkin, former head of the general staff of the Nineteenth Army, taken prisoner in the Battle of Vyazma; Major General F. I. Trukhin, former head of the operations section of the general staff of the Baltic Military District; and Major General Ivan Bla- goveshchensky, commander of a coastal artillery unit. The propaganda section of the committee was entrusted to M. A. Zykov, and foreign relations to G. N. Zhilenkov.
On December 27, 1942, the Russian National Committee published its program, the so-called Smolensk Manifesto.140 It had thirteen points, including the following demands: abolition of the kolkhozes and transfer of the land to the peasants; reinstitution of private trade and professions; an end to forced labor; freedom of speech, assembly, and religion; and release of all political prisoners. The manifesto called on Red Army soldiers and officers to join the ranks of the Russian Liberation Army, "which is fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Germans." It also referred to Germany as a nation which, under Hitler's leadership, sought to create a new order in
Europe, free of Bolsheviks and capitalists. Although this manifesto was named after the city of Smolensk, it was actually written in Berlin.141 Soon after the publication of the manifesto, Vlasov was allowed to speak in several occupied cities. At a public meeting in Mogilev he demanded that the Germans make known their intentions concerning Russia. He also said, 'The Russian people lives, has lived, and will live. It can never be turned into a colonized people." Hitler forbade any more public speeches by Vlasov in occupied Soviet territory. In a memorandum, the Fiihrer defined Vlasov's movement as solely an instrument of German propaganda. The overwhelming majority of "Eastern soldiers" were sent west.
How deeply disappointed Vlasov and his collaborators were over German policy may be seen from some of their public statements. Malyshkin complained to an audience of 5,000 Russian emigr6s gathered in the Wagram Hall in Paris: 'The German command has not succeeded in persuading the Russian people that the German army is only fighting against bolshevism and not against the Russian people itself." Malyshkin called on the Germans to change their policies and asserted that Russia had never been and would never be a colony. He added: "Russia can be defeated only by Russia."142 This sentence, borrowed from Schiller's Demetrius, became the trademark of all Vlasovite propaganda.