Throughout history conquest states have been based not only upon coercion but also to a greater or lesser degree on a mode of cooperation or at least acquiescence on the part of the subordinate population. Accommodation has taken many forms. The most stable and long-lived conquest states have sought to co-opt and integrate local elites into the ruling classes. As a political tactic this approach has offered distinct advantages over physically exterminating them. Co-optation facilitates in several ways the rule of the power center over its periphery. Using local elites to administer their own people helps to diminish the humiliation of foreign rule and offers opportunities for upward mobility for the talented and ambitious who otherwise might seek alternative and illegitimate paths to power. Although there are obvious material advantages to cooperating with the dominant power, motivations are often mixed and may vary considerably. In addition to opportunism, there may be a desire to mitigate the harsh conditions of occupation. Considerations of a “lesser evil” have been known to play a role; that is, accepting the domination of one state in order to avoid a worse fate. Or, finally, there might even be the temptation to play Athens to Rome, to influence the more primitive but stronger dominant power to accept the more enlightened cultural leadership of the conquered. But to be truly successful the policy of cooperation must be carried out from above with a high level of tolerance for cultural deviance. This has not always been the strong point of ruling elites of conquest states.
By their very nature conquest states also engender resistance. The two phenomena – cooperation and resistance – are mirror images of each other. Like cooperation, resistance has also displayed a wide range of expression. Traditionally the spectrum has extended from open rebellion through “social banditry” to the “hidden agendas” of everyday life. The motives of those who resist may also vary considerably. The humiliation of being defeated and conquered, the loss of status and property, persecution by the conqueror, opposition to what is perceived to be unjust or unfair distribution of state obligations like taxation and recruitment have all served often in combination to spur passive or violent resistance. Perhaps the most powerful motivation for resistance, and the most difficult to document, is the sheer hatred of control by “the other” who exhibits a degree of difference or foreignness that evokes the most powerful kind of emotional response. But resistance has often been directed as forcefully against the local supporters of cooperation as the conqueror. Under certain circumstances this may give rise to a kind of incipient civil war within the conquered territory. The forces of resistance frequently appeal for external assistance to further their cause. Indeed, the very fact of their having been defeated and occupied virtually requires them to seek allies among powers equal to those of their oppressors.
In the twentieth century cooperation with a conquering power became known as collaboration. M. I. Semiriaga, the author of the first comprehensive work in Russian on the subject, makes clear in his introduction how collaborationism differs from cooperation. For him the former became the politicized and ideologized synonym for betrayal and treason while the latter retained its older definition of the necessary and unavoidable contact and relations under wartime conditions between the local population and the occupying power. As a Red Army veteran and fierce critic of fascism, Semiriaga insists that cooperation of certain individual citizens of Nazi Germany and its allies, especially as intelligence agents, with the anti-fascist powers, the USSR, Britain and the United States, was not collaborationism but a higher form of patriotism. Clearly, for him – although he does not openly state it – the cooperation of local communist and other left wing elements with the Soviet occupying authorities in order to undermine the postwar coalition governments in East Central Europe also was not collaboration. In short, Semiriaga views collaborationism as a the product of a very specific set of historical circumstances limited in time and place. His definition is restricted to those who during the Second World War placed the interest of the aggressive fascist occupying forces above that of their own country and at its expense. Given the predatory, racially murderous and ruthlessly exploitative character of Nazi Germany, it is easy to agree with his assertion that anyone who actively assisted this regime in pursuing its “New Order” did betray the interests of his or her own country and the most fundamental values of humanity.
The subject of collaborationism as defined by Semiriaga is sufficiently important and complex to warrant the broadly comparative and extensive treatment it receives at his hands. But before examining his valuable contribution, it is worth pausing for a moment to raise the issue of whether his definition is not too limited without suggesting that he should have written a longer or different book. The object of this brief diversion, then, is to explore some of the problems raised by his historically specific definition of collaborationism and the sharp distinction he makes between cooperation or collaboration on the one hand and resistance on the other.
If we accept for the sake of argument Semiriaga's narrow definition of collaborationism as an act of treason or betrayal of one's country and the basic interests of its people by rendering assistance to an external occupation force, two questions remain unanswered. First, how to define legitimacy, that is the criteria by which authority is recognized and accepted by the population of a country. Second, how to define the basic interests of the people. The spread of the French Revolution outside the borders of France was greeted initially as a liberating force by large numbers of individuals in neighboring states and as far distant as the provinces of partitioned Poland. One may assume that Semiriaga would consider this reception a form of cooperation. Although the actions of individuals who supported the French armies and served in administrations under French control were in the legal sense engaged in treasonable activities, their actions could be justified in ideological terms as serving the basic interests of the people by providing them with such fundamental rights as equality under the law and liberty of conscience. At different moments within different countries under French protection, the burdens of supporting international wars against the enemies of France and the presence of French troops even before the establishment of a Napoleonic Empire, began to raise serious doubts among the liberated-subordinated population. Under Napoleon the distinction between cooperation and collaboration was further blurred. Was it in the basic interests of the Spanish people to accept the reactionary leadership of the clergy and landowning elites to fight the French who had introduced widespread reforms that were subsequently annulled by a restored absolutism? And what of the Poles who supported the French until Napoleon's downfall while most of the Germans came to oppose him? When did cooperation give way to collaboration on the one hand and resistance on the other?
To be sure, Semiriaga is not unaware of the complexity of the historical circumstances that engendered collaborationism. Among the prerequisites that he examines are the ideological division of Europe between the wars, the dilemma of the national minorities, the destabilizing effects of population transfers, the racial appeal of Nazi propaganda to the Auslandsdeutsch and the virtual civil war in the USSR marked by deportations and collectivization. Some of these factors he treats rather more cursorily than others. The analysis of the international communist movement as part of the ideological split in Europe is one of the weakest sections. In particular the dubious role of the Comintern in Spain is ignored, although its activities during the Civil War contributed not only to a polarization of European intellectuals but a paralyzing fear on the part of liberal-democratic governments that the United Front and collective security were merely covers for subversion and revolution.
On the other hand Semiriaga's analysis of the situation in Ukraine is subtle and balanced. He points to the long and troubled relationship between Russian and Ukrainians. In the interwar period it became more problematic due to Soviet policies of political repression and collectivization. He carefully sorts out the programs and factions of the Ukrainian nationalist organizations and their tangled relations with the Polish, German, Czech and Soviet governments during the period from 1938-1941. He is particularly critical of the NKVD organs for having provoked armed rebellion in West Ukraine in 1939 by their savage treatment of Ukrainian population. In subsequent chapters he makes clear the differences between the collaboration of the Bandera and Melnik groups. After a brief flirtation with the Nazis the Banderists were committed to fighting both the German and Soviet forces while Melnik's group remained firmly attached to the Germans until the end. Perhaps most surprisingly, Semeriaga concludes that in 1946 “the national policy of the OUN did not contain anything that was undemocratic”. (p. 521) In the postwar period of fighting in Ukraine, he also exonerates the OUN and the UPA of antisemitism or anti-Russianism. This does not lead him to deny or justify the collaborationism of the Banderists with Nazi Germany. But he states that during the civil war from 1946 to 1953 both the Soviet and Ukrainian nationalist sides resorted to cruel methods and pursued uncompromising ends. In the end he asserts that the most effective way to oppose demands to rehabilitate the Banderists is to make certain that there is no rehabilitation of Beria's Chekists.
Another of the great merits of Semiriaga's book is its broadly comparative approach. He covers all aspects of collaborationism throughout Europe. The organization is thematic rather than chronological. He begins by analyzing the collaborationism of puppet governments in France, Bohemia, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway as well as German administrations in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and Poland. This is followed by chapters on collaborationism and national relations in occupied Europe; the armed formations of collaborationists; their participation in terror; economic, social; cultural and scholarly activities; collaboration in neutral countries, Turkey, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, and a final chapter on the trials and punishment of the collaborationists. The organization has the advantage of reinforcing the comparative dimension, but it also creates a great deal of repetition and overlapping.
One main unifying thread in the narrative is the ideological and administrative chaos of Nazi occupation policies that made collaboration a confused, often contradictory and risky set of responses. Semiriaga provides abundant evidence that this was due to the absence of any systematic planning for the “New Order”, the rivalry of competing Nazi bureaucracies, Hitler's idees fixe on racial matters, the different motivations of the collaborators themselves and the Nazi determination to fight the war insofar as possible at the expense of the occupied countries while sparing the civilian German population from making sacrifices.
Another unifying thread is the essential difference that Semiriaga asserts distinguished collaborationism in the Soviet Union from that of other European countries. In his view the Soviet citizen was much less likely to collaborate out of sympathy with fascist ideology or Nazi Germany and more for political and nationalistic reasons. Here his argument approaches that of John Armstrong who many years ago made the distinction between collaborationism in Eastern and Western Europe along similar lines. This meant that collaboration was more extensive in national republics along the western and southern perimeter of the USSR and more intensive in the early period of the German occupation when there was still a basis for hope among some elements of the population that they would be permitted to create independent governments. In addition, the absence in the USSR of any private enterprise made industrial collaborationism virtually impossible. Unlike Western Europe where the dominant form of collaboration was political and economic, in the occupied USSR it was military. In the West the collaborationist units, where they existed, were composed of volunteers, while in the East they were filled with former prisoners of war and were less trusted by the Germans. In light of these Eastern peculiarities, Semiriaga attributes the weakness of Vlasov's appeal – he rejects the term “movement” – to its necessary reliance on ideological considerations. He refutes the optimistic claims of Vlasov's German handlers that a great opportunity was missed. Vlasov's slogans like socialism without Bolshevism rang hollow as long as his German sponsors were stripping the country of its productive resources. His claims that the Russians had been dragged into the war to defend the interests of the Anglo-American capitalists was patently absurd. Moreover, he did not come out in favor of a federal structure until his Prague manifesto in late 1944. For Semiriaga the appeals of the old Russian emigration were even more pathetic. In a revealing comparison, Semiriaga contrasts the courageous if misguided struggle of Bandera who fought alone and with few illusions for freedom and national independence of Ukraine with Vlasov who relied wholly on his alliance with the Nazis without ever trying to mount a partisan movement of his own against the Soviet forces.
What is accorded to Bandera is withheld from the Polish Home Army (Armija krajowa). Semiriaga freely acknowledges the Soviet responsibility for the Katyn massacre. But he does not draw the obvious conclusion. He ignores the similarity to the Banderists of the Home Army's policy of identifying two enemies, the Nazis and the Communists. On the other hand he does make distinctions among the collaborationist states. He saves his strongest condemnation for the Romanians even though his description of their activities in Ukraine (Transnistria) is more restrained than it could have been.
One of the most striking innovations for a Russian audience is the extensive and detailed analysis of the Holocaust as part of the chapter on collaborationism and the terror. Aside from a country by country review which implicates local police units in the slaughter, Semiriaga finds space to mention the “tragic” fate of Raoul Wallenberg, the savior of thousands of Budapest Jews who was arrested as “a spy” by the Soviet forces and perished in a Soviet prison under murky circumstances.
A work of this scope and complexity is bound to raise questions of emphasis and interpretation. But most of these are, from the point of view of this reader, incidental to the main thesis of the book, if not to the history of the second World War. More serious is the matter of documentation. The author has command of a very large body of secondary literature in many European languages. German is especially well represented. He has worked in a number of Russian and German archives. Occasionally he even cites the American National Security Archives. But many direct quotations remain undocumented, not to speak of long stretches of narrative that appear to be based on primary sources. While it is impossible to have read everything, there are significant omissions of important secondary accounts particularly in English and French. Unfortunately, there is no bibliography. There is a good selection of photographs and a forty page appendix of mostly unpublished documents. The overall impression is of a passionate and honest account that will long remain the definitive work on the subject in Russian.