Andrey Vlasov (1901–1946) — army commander
"Only within the ranks of the anti-Bolshevik movement is our true Motherland being built. It is the duty of Russians — their obligation — to fight against Stalin, for peace, for a New Russia. Russia is ours. The past of the Russian people is ours! The future of the Russian people is ours!" — with these words the former Red Army general Vlasov addressed his compatriots in an open letter during the grim hour of the Soviet Union's savage struggle against the treacherous hordes of Nazi Germany. What drove him to cross over to the enemy's side? What "truth" did he profess? Why, while professing love for his people, did he become their traitor?
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov was born into a peasant family in the selo of Lomakino, Pokrovskaya volost, Sergach Uyezd (present-day Gaginsky District) of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. It is known that he studied at a theological seminary, but the Civil War broke out and prompted him to join the Red Army. He fought on the Wrangel front and against Makhno. In 1920 he was entrusted with commanding a platoon, and later a company. After completing a senior command school, he became a battalion commander in 1928. The military path captivated him, opening opportunities not only to excel in a field where he had demonstrated his abilities, but also to attain high social standing. In 1930 he was issued a Communist Party membership card. His career advancement was assured. Tall, lean, and wearing round spectacles, he looked above all like an intellectual of the people — approachable in the manner of a school principal or a trade-union official. Vlasov and his wife Anna returned to his native village of Lomakino almost every summer, gathering relatives around the table; he loved group singing to the accompaniment of an accordion, which he played with some skill. He had many conversations with fellow villagers about the peasants' needs and the hard life on the collective farms, and it never occurred to him to conceal his sympathy for the passportless peasant man, bound hand and foot by endless obligations and directives. The Vlasov family's izba (traditional wooden house) was no different from those of the neighbors; everything was the same as everyone else had. Andrey Andreyevich was certainly respected in his village — and more than that, people were proud of him. And why not? By 1938 he was already commanding a division in the Kyiv Special Military District, recognized as one of the best in terms of combat readiness, for which Vlasov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Appointed chief military adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he carried out his mission in China with success, for which he was awarded China's highest order, the Yun-Hui. On his return he took command of a mechanized corps headquartered in Lvov. That is where the war found him. Vlasov's corps fought in encirclement but broke free — unlike many units that were destroyed. The battle-proven general was appointed commandant of the Kyiv Fortified Region, and again he did not disappoint, fighting to the last possible moment and breaking out of the encirclement. Vlasov was flown to Moscow on a special aircraft; Stalin received him in the Kremlin and appointed him commander of the 20th Army, covering the approaches to the capital. Such a degree of trust meant a great deal. In early 1942 the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda published portraits of the generals who had distinguished themselves in the Battle of Moscow. Vlasov's portrait appeared second in the row, immediately after Western Front commander Georgy Zhukov. In April 1942 Vlasov flew to the headquarters of the Volkhov Front to relieve the 2nd Shock Army, which had been encircled. The army was utterly exhausted by continuous fighting; tanks and artillery became bogged down in swamps and quagmires amid impenetrable forests where an early spring had arrived. In all likelihood, Supreme Headquarters erred by finding no solution to help the army and relying solely on the lucky army commander, who had just been promoted to lieutenant general. Something went wrong. Realizing that there was no way out other than death, Vlasov surrendered to the enemy. Yes, this did not happen by accident and quite possibly was not born of cowardice. Vlasov, like thousands of the discontented, had reasons to settle scores with Stalin and, at the same time, with Soviet Power. Dekulakization, famine, forced collectivization, mass show trials, the suspicion and relentless surveillance of anyone who held an independent opinion, the party's iron grip — all of this could not pass without fateful consequences. And when Vlasov, by arrangement with the occupiers, began assembling his Russian Liberation Army — the ROA — not only at gunpoint but of their own free will did many of his compatriots join him. Yet by rising against Stalin and the Soviet system in the name of a new Russia without the Bolsheviks, the Vlasovites thereby set themselves against the entire people, against their entire Motherland, in service to Hitler. Vlasov and his new army found themselves at odds not only with logic but with conscience, and they paid the price as accomplices of the fascists and as traitors. After the war Vlasov was tried and hanged.