Smenovekhovtsy

The Smenovekhovtsy ("Сменовеховцы") is the name for a political movement in the Russian émigré community that began shortly after the publication of the magazine "Smena Vekh" (translated "Change of Signposts") in Prague, in the year 1921. [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/04a.htm] This publication had taken its name from the Russian philosophical publication "Vekhi" ("Signposts") published in 1909.

The thoughts published in the "Smena Vekh" periodical told its White émigre readers: "The Civil War is lost definitely. For a long time Russia has been travelling on its own path, not our path", "Either recognize this Russia, hated by you all, or stay without Russia, because a "third Russia" by your recipes does not and will not exist", "The Soviet regime saved Russia - the Soviet regime is justified, regardless of how weighty the arguments against it are", "The mere fact of its " [the Soviet regime's - ed.] " enduring existence proves its popular character, and the historical belonging of its dictatorship and harshness"."

The ideas in the publication soon evolved into the "Smenovekhovstvo" movement which promoted the concept of accepting the Soviet regime and the October Revolution as a natural and popular progression of Russia's fate, something which was not to be resisted despite perceived ideological incompatibilities with Leninism. The "Smenovekhovstvo" admonished its members to return to Russia predicting that the Soviet Union would not last and would give way to a revival of Russian nationalism. cite book
last =Laqueur
first =Walter
authorlink =
coauthors =
year =1996
title =The Dream that Failed : Reflections on the Soviet Union
publisher =Oxford University Press
location =USA
id =ISBN 0-19-510282-7 p. 188]

They supported co-operation with the Soviet government in the hope that the Soviet state would evolve back into a "bourgeois state". The cooperation was important for the Soviets, since the whole Russian 'White diaspora' included 3 million people. ["Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924". Robert C. Williams "Slavic Review" Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), p. 581] The leaders of "smenovekhovstvo" were mostly former Mensheviks, Kadets and some Octobrists. The leader of the group was Nikolay Ustryalov ["Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924". Robert C. Williams "Slavic Review" Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), p. 584] On March 26, 1922 the first issue of "Nakanune" ("smenovekhovtsy" newspaper) was published; Soviet Russia's first successes in foreign policy were praised. Throughout its career, "Nakanune" was subsidised by the Soviet government. Alexey Tolstoy had become acquainted with the movement in Summer 1921. In April 1922 he published an open letter to emigré leader N.V.Chaikovsky, and defended Soviet government for ensuring Russia's unity and preventing attacks from the neighbouring countries. ["Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924". Robert C. Williams "Slavic Review" Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), p. 591]

Conservative émigrés such as those in ROVS were opposed to the "Smenoveknovstvo" movement, viewing it as a promotion of defeatism and moral relativism, as a capitulation to the Bolsheviks, and a desire to seek compromise with the new Soviet regime. Repeatedly, the Smenoveknovtsi were accused of ties with the Soviet OGPU, which had in fact been active in promoting such ideas in the emigré community. Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin commented on the "Smenovekhovstvo" movement in October 1921, "The Smenovekhovtsy express the moods of thousands of various bourgeois or Soviet collaborators, who are the participants of our New Economic Policy"."

There were other émigré organizations which, like the "Smenoveknovtsy", argued that Russian emigrées should accept the fact of the Russian revolution. These included the monarchists (Mladorossi) and the Eurasians (Evraziitsi). As with the Smenovekhovtsy, these movements did not survive after World War II.

Notable Smenavekhites

* Alexey Tolstoy

Bibliography

* Hilda Hardeman, Coming to Terms with the Soviet Regime. The "Changing Signposts" Movement among Russian Émigrés in the Early 1920s, Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994.
* M.V. Nazarov, The Mission of the Russian Emigration, Moscow: Rodnik, 1994. ISBN 5-86231-172-6
*"Changing Landmarks" in Russian Berlin, 1922-1924" by Robert C. Williams in "Slavic Review" Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec., 1968), pp. 581-593

Notes

ee also

*Nikolay Ustryalov
*National Bolshevism