In the summer of 1944, shortly after the attempt on Hitler's life, Himmler, who had been one of the principal opponents of the Russian Liberation Army, had the idea of using Vlasov's movement to serve the interests of Germany, which at that point was heading toward defeat. On September 16 he met with Vlasov; as a result of this meeting the idea of a Russian political movement fighting alongside the Germans against the Stalin regime was revived. The decision was made to create a Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR). Vlasov was assigned to bring into this committee all the "national committees" already established under German auspices. Himmler promised that the KONR would be recognized as a provisional government once the German army had reconquered Soviet territory. Naturally, Himmler could easily promise anything he wanted. For him the main thing, of course, in view of the horrendous losses Germany had incurred, was to deploy additional military forces against the Red Army—be they Russian, Turkic, or anything else, as long as they would fight for the Reich. In addition, the KONR could be used for propaganda purposes. The KONR was under the direct control of Himmler's secret police apparatus, which in June 1944 had kidnapped and murdered the ideologist of Vlasov's movement, Zykov.
On November 14, 1944, the KONR met in Prague and adopted the so- called Prague Manifesto, which called for the overthrow of Stalin's tyranny, liberation of the peoples of Russia from the Bolshevik system, and restoration of the rights won in the "popular revolution of 1917." Included among the manifesto's goals were an end to the war and an honorable peace with Germany. The future regime was portrayed as a free state of all the people, "without Bolsheviks or exploiters."143
The KONR program curiously combined recognition of the necessity for, and legitimacy of, the 1917 revolution with condemnation of the Bolshevik betrayal of revolutionary ideals. That point of view was a seductive one for many Russian and Soviet intellectuals, who favored ideas of socialism but rejected the excesses of the Stalinist dictatorship. The future social and political order in Russia was presented as a strong centralized state (national labor) which would carry out tasks typical of a welfare state, providing social justice, equality, and a guaranteed standard of living. Specific to the Soviet situation was the demand for dissolution of the kolkhozes and a return to private enterprise.
In the opinion of Boris Nicolaevsky, a well-known political writer and Menshevik leader, the central idea of the Vlasov movement "was not the formation of an army to lead an armed struggle against Stalin's dictatorship but an attempt at creating an anti-Bolshevik program on the basis of a democratic program, not narrowly nationalist or separatist, but federalist, oriented toward Russia as a whole."144
Vlasov's movement was a very complex phenomenon, born under exceedingly unfavorable historical conditions, a fact that left an indelible mark upon it. Its complexity can be seen, for example, in the documents of the movement and the speeches of its leaders. Having decided to become allies of the Nazis, they were forced to abide by certain rules and pay tribute to Hitler's policies. This is not, however, the only reason for the anti-Semitic views of several prominent leaders, such as Zhilenkov and Malyshkin.145 The curriculum of the ROA propaganda schools included a special anti-Semitic segment which repeated Nazi propaganda word for word.146 However, in drafting the Prague Manifesto, Vlasov and others firmly resisted all pressure to include anti-Semitic slogans in the program.147 It would seem that Nicolaevsky was right that the KONR's call for an end to the "criminal war" led by the Soviet Union and British and American plutocrats against Germany amounted to nothing but the parroting of Nazi propaganda. It has been argued that without such wording the manifesto could never have been published.148
Should Vlasov be considered an anti-Stalinist and the head of a political movement? There can be no unequivocal answer. Probably Vlasov, the Soviet generals who rallied to his cause, and the majority of his closest collaborators were convinced anti-Stalinists. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there was some freedom of choice for the Soviet generals in German captivity. General M. F. Lukin, former commander of the Nineteenth Army, was offered the leadership of the future "Russian army" by the Germans. Lukin countered with an offer he knew to be unacceptable to the Nazis, and they did not approach him again. He survived the war, then spent a number of years in Soviet prison. But General Karbyshev, who also refused to collaborate with the Germans, was frozen to death at Mauthausen.
It is difficult to avoid the impression that the program of social reforms camouflages the most important fact of the time when it was conceived: Vlasov had no chance whatsoever of freeing himself from the Germans, who wanted to use him, the ROA, and the KONR solely for their own purposes. Vlasov understood that the moment had passed, that Germany had lost the war. But he harbored naive hope, encouraged by the "Soli- darists" of the NTS (National Labor Alliance of Russian Solidarists), that a conflict was inevitable between the Soviet Union and its Western allies. These illusions, incidentally, were shared and supported by the entire Nazi leadership. Vlasov counted on reaching an understanding with Great Britain and the United States, but his hopes were doomed.
At the end of January 1945 the KONR armed forces were formed. At Hitler's request, Vlasov was named commander. He never succeeded in bringing under its banners all the "Eastern troops" and other German formations in which Soviet citizens and emigr6s were serving (numbering approximately 1 million all together). How many men did Vlasov's army have? Estimates vary: it is probable that at most he had between 50,000 and 60,000 men. In any event, at the end of April 1945 the First Division had 20,000 men; the army consisted of two divisions, neither fully equipped, plus reinforcement units.
The composition of the divisions was heterogenous. The First Division, according to an American researcher, consisted of a certain number of soldiers from the Kaminsky Brigade who had taken part in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising and some SS men from Byelorussian units of the Siegling division who had fought against the Allies in the West.149 The Vlasovites deny this allegation. The majority, however, had served in "Eastern units" of the German army or had been Soviet Ostarbeiter, prisoners of war, or refugees from the USSR. The Second Division, which was only in the process of formation, consisted of "Eastern battalions" from Norway, and former prisoners of war and Ostarbeiter. Among ROA troops there were some war criminals. But it would be unfair to label the whole army as such.
The Vlasovite command made great efforts to recruit to their army among the Ostarbeiter, but the task was not an easy one. Colonel Koreisky of the ROA, who attended a meeting in Sosnowiec (Upper Silesia) to celebrate the publication of the Prague Manifesto, later recalled:
The Ostarbeiter would walk in front of us, barefoot, dirty, with tears in their eyes. Colonel Kromiadi could not bear it and began to cry. These slaves of the Germans, our sons and brothers, went silently by, every now and then giving us a glance full of revulsion. A young girl yelled at us, 'Traitors."...