This Orders phantom political construction therefore seems to have been, above all, a hopeful means of influencing the Duce. Some Russian migrs, like Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, were opposed to the Bolsheviks but had not directly supported the White Russian movement; some were apolitical. Their program was not one of restoration: The Young Russians, while defending the idea of a social monarchy (tsar and soviets), seek to collaborate with Russian nationalists who are working towards national recovery and defense.[47] They considered Stalins regime despotic but also thought that it had awakened national forces against machinism. The Young Russians believed that the revolution could only end with a social monarchy, a federated empire, and a managed economy.[48] In fact, Kazem-Beg made it his specialty to present Soviet policy in terms that were conducive to adoption by the Russian far right. Among the emigres were Lolita author Vladimir Nabokov, . [11] PP, La franc-maonnerie russe, August 1933, 2 p., AN/19940500/306. Five stories of White Russian migrs. In 1936, when the Committee of Russian migr Organizationsthe umbrella group for the vast majority of White Russian groups in Franceappointed its members, they included 20 generals, four colonels, two admirals, a frigate captain, an archbishop, and 23 archpriests. And Tatiana would become a factory worker's wife in France, part of a huge wave of aristocrats, intellectuals, military officers and others fleeing the brutal civil war after the revolution. The latter was perceived by many Russian officers as an ongoing case that was never finished since the day of their exile. [46] PP, report on the Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, undated, p. 5, AN/20010216/282. As the decades passed, emigres blended in with the locals. During World War II, many white migrs took part in the Russian Liberation Movement. This fragmentation among migr associations had its share of attempts at unification. [citation needed]. [27] Koutepoff: psychose Paris, February 3, 1930; Meeting organis pour protester contre lenlvement du gnral Koutepoff, sous le patronage du journal La Libert et avec le concours du Bureau International Contre-rvolutionnaire, February 12, 1930, 6p., AN/F/7/13975/1. The White Russians who fled to Germany, led by Kirill Vladimirovich, disapproved greatly of this newfound cordiality with the Soviets who had brought about their downfall. [16] A/S du Centre dUnification des Organisations Nationalistes Russes, September 1937, 2 p., AN/19880206/7. [18] The political weakness induced by the crumbling of the Russian migr community in France strengthened monarchists and fascists capacity to work together. However, the groups name may have been mere fashion: until 1930, the individual in question had only ever expressed pro-monarchist views, and the organizations declaration of principles refers solely to royalty, with no mention of fascism. Another organization, the Russian National Unification, was founded in 1926 after the world congress held that year in Paris, and in 1937 it became the Russian Central Union, which had 80,000 members worldwide, including 10,000 in Paris, a strong presence in China and Yugoslavia, and sections in Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. with men faultlessly garbed by European standards, leading him to wonder how they achieved this "deceptive appearance". The place, formerly known as Hristaki Passage, became known as iek Pasaj after the Russian flower girls took up residence. Some 958,000 people travelled from Russia on ships through Constantinople to Europe, and roughly a quarter were accepted as refugees in France. [6] The popularity of monuments for the war dead reflected not only sadness over the war dead, but also a way to bring together the often badly divided migr communities shattered across Europe, Asia and North America. Second and third-generation White Russians married locals and spoke French at home. Various youth organizations, such as the Scouts-in-Exile became functional in raising children with a background in pre-Soviet Russian culture and heritage. [5] Eventually, beginning in 1925, Nikolais cancerto which he would succumb in 1929gave the advantage to the Kirill camp. Their wounds and suffering are for Russia. [10], This was especially the case in France, the home of the largest overseas Russian community, where services honoring the events of World War I were a major part of French life after 1918, and where by honoring the Russian war dead allowed the Russian migrs in France to take part in the ceremonials, letting the migrs feel like a part of the wider French community. The transition from a national anticommunist struggle liberating Russia from Soviet powerto a global one drew many Whites into the magnetic field of fascism. [54] RG, report dated April 13, 1936, 2 p., AN/19940500/305. In the aftermath of the October Revolution and the civil war, many Russians immigrated to France. The BRTs leader in France was General Piotr Krasnov, former Ataman of the Don Cossacks, who would be hanged by the Soviet regime in 1947 for having joined the Axis forces. "But it was extremely hard," adds the 62-year-old, part of a small community of "White Russian" descendants still keeping their heritage alive, a century later. Premire parution : Nicolas Lebourg, White Russian migrs and International Anti-Communism in France (1918-1939), IERES Occasional Papers, no. Weep, weep". First and foremost, the support structures for contenders to the Romanov throne were transnational. Those who arrived in 1919 were better off economically. [56] The difficulty for Solonevich seems to have been Rosenbergs demand for radical anti-Semitic propaganda. Karl Schlgel (ed. While we know about the role some Russian emigres played in supporting the U.S.-led anticommunist struggle during the Cold War period, we still know very little about their connections with the first anticommunist organizations in the interwar period. With the White Russians in Paris. It is in this tense context that one can observe a gradual linking of White Russian communities with international anti-communist networks. M. V. Nazarov, The Mission of the Russian Emigration, Moscow: Rodnik, 1994. In France, the Leagues Nice section was led by George Reno, the son of the former Nicaraguan consul in Odessa; the younger Reno had once acted as a strike breaker in Germany and dreamed of attracting both Action franaise militants and fascist Italians. [24] SN, Le Grand-duc Cyrille, June 15, 1922; Monarchistes russes (parti du grand-duc Cyrille), January 30, 1923; Ibid., February 8, 1924; Le gnral Biskoupsky, agent principal du Grand-duc Cyrille, June 5, 1923; Les monarchistes russes et la Rpublique rhnane, August 20, 1923; Manifeste de lEmpereur de la Russie, September 1924, 2p.; Action des monarchistes russes, December 16, 1924, AN/F/7/15943/1. "They continued to speak Russian at home.". [8] Such monuments were also a way of commanding respect from the host communities with an migr newspaper saying in 1930: "Peoples honor heroes. [61] RG, Les migrs russes en France et linfluence hitlrienne sur leurs groupements, January 29, 1938, p. 1, AN/20010216/282. Sasha Sokolov (born in 1943 . When Kirill negotiated with a far-right French parliamentarian (whose name is unknown to us) for financial support for his cause, the pair agreed that in order to avoid getting into any trouble with the French authorities, the funds should be paid to Munich. 12, AN/1988206/7; A/S de Wladimir Krassinksy et de lUnion des Jeunes Russes, April 1932, 6 p., AN/20010216/283. According to the French intelligence services, the Reich hedged its bets on the prestigious thinker Ivan Solonevich, whom Alfred Rosenberg is said to have received in person in Berlin to offer him the leadership of a potential international philo-Nazi union of ex-Russian officers. [17] Prague had a large community of Russian migrs, and by constantly linking the Russian experience of World War I to the experiences of the Czechoslovak Legions was a way of asserting that the Russians had helped to make Czechoslovakia possible. The productivity of the Russian press in France demonstrates real vitality, yet its offerings were divided into multiple small print runs. In the summer of 1923, the French intelligence services observed these monarchists interest in the secessionist movement of the Rhine Republic. The moderates followed Archbishop Euloghi, who, being based in Paris, was neutral toward Soviet ecclesiastical institutions; ROVS leader General Aleksandr Kutepov demanded strenuously but in vain that Euloghi engage in anti-Soviet activities.[15]. Nor were White Russians born in China eligible to be Chinese citizens. [21] Many of the Russians in Harbin were wealthy, and the city was a center of Russian culture as the Russian community in Harbin made it their mission to preserve the pre-war Russian culture in a city on the plains of Manchuria with for instance Harbin having two opera companies and numerous theaters performing the traditional classics of the Russian stage. When Kirill published a manifesto proclaiming himself tsar, he clearly kept in mind this potential German-Russian bloc, stating that the Third International constituted the government of the USSR and that his cause of restoring a national government in Russia was in fact a genuine European question.[24]. The French branch of the Young Russians was proclaimed on March 30, 1927, and the Paris section was presided over by Prince Vladimir Krasinsky, officially the son of Grand Duke Andrei but whose paternity is rumored to be attributable to Nicholas II. Pre-World War I Paris had been a playground for Russia's idle rich. This made the white migrs a target for infiltration by the Soviet secret police (e.g. Paris in the early 20th century became a refuge for Russians, whose culture enriched the city, writes Helen Rappaport in "After the Romanovs.". [26] In 1930, the kidnapping of Kutepov on the streets of Paris by Soviet agents generated a state of psychosisin 36 hours, 200 people went to the police to reveal the truth about the caseand gave rise to a meeting organized by the French far right, including Action franaise. Sign-Up For Our Institute and Program Mailing Lists, http://russie-europe.ens-lsh.fr/article.php3?id_article=62. In 2010, he formed a rival organization called Friends of the Russian Cathedral to assist the Russian Embassy in its efforts to retrieve local heritage. Munich was a strategic choice, since the Bavarian monarchists also filled up the coffers of Kirills cause, making it possible for General Vasily Biskupskythe first White Russian to give unqualified support to Hitler and who also helped Kirill finance his rise to powerto organize this funding from Germany. Kirill Vladimirovich proclaimed himself tsar in London on November 5, 1924, to the irritation of the entire Romanov house. At 90, Orobchenko considers himself "the last White Russian of Clichy", a northern Paris suburb once home to a vibrant emigre community. The civil war scattered between one and two million White Russians -- nicknamed after anti-Communist forces -- from China to Brazil, creating diaspora communities that in some cases endure to this day. 2021, AN/20010216/282. A significant percentage of white migrs may be described as monarchists, although many adopted a position of being "unpredetermined" ("nepredreshentsi"), believing that Russia's political structure should be determined by popular plebiscite. Its conspiratorial style and opportunistic claim to perpetrate violence on Soviet territories guaranteed it a certain aura. The church continues its existence to this day, acting as both the spiritual and cultural center of the Russian Orthodox community abroad. The immigration, which started with small groups at the end of 1917, grew with the loss of Crimea to the Bolsheviks in 1920. Some did find professional work, teaching music or French. During this meeting, a public letter from Paul Taittinger, then-leader of the Jeunesses Patriotes, was read. The latter was established in 1924 as the International Entente against the ThirdInternational and maintained close links with the Russian Labor Christian Movement (Russkoe trudovoe khristianskoe dvizhenie, RTCD), itself financed by the Swiss and Dutch governments. : , 1979. [28] PP, report dated February 3, 1928, AN/20010216/168. [33], The Committees profile was moderate, setting it apart from another, more radical organization, the Ligue Internationale Anti-Communiste, which claimed to have sections in Argentina, Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and the United States. Limiting themselves to international anti-communist agitation left them powerless in 1939. Some white migrs, labeled "Soviet patriots," adopted pro-Soviet sympathies. The Russian National Union of Participants in the War (Russkii natsionalnyi soiuz uchastnikov voiny, RSNUV), a ROVS splinter group, attracted 1,000 membersa number that, when compared to the general population, is sufficient to demonstrate the special weight of these military circles. The Union of the Russian Empire, founded in 1928 as the discreetly pro-Kirill Russian Empire Union, had only 200 members spread across Paris, Nice, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, the United States, and Poland; some of its members went to fight for General Franco. Culture. The emigre community swarmed with Soviet spies, as some defeated Russian officers continued plotting a military fightback from abroad. The Russian colony in France, to use the terminology of the time, was made up of different and even conflicting political communities: monarchists hoping for a restoration of tsarism, social-democrats hoping to preserve the legacy of the February revolution, and later different groups of communist dissidents, in particular Trotskyists. [13] PP, A/S du Comit des organisations dmigrs russes, July 9, 1936, 2p., AN/19940500/307. She worked in occupied France and was considered to be the main . He was replaced by the very anti-communist Pierre Laval, who became in 1940 the second-in-command of the collaborationist Vichy government. [56] Police Administrative (PA), A/S du journal Civilisation et bolchevisme, May 16, 1939, 3 p., AN/20010216/283. "France had lost millions of men in World War I, so French entrepreneurs were very happy to have this manpower," says Alexandre Jevakhoff, a senior civil servant, historian and author of a new book on the civil war. The two rivals took different roads: Nikolai Nikolaevich fled to France and settled in his castle of Choigny near Paris, while Kirill Vladimirovich settled in Bavaria and made connections with the German monarchist and nationalist circles supported by his wife, Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Masha's interviews and video footage . Among these stillborn initiatives was the Unification Center for Russian Nationalist Organizations, comprising the Russian journal Tribune Libre (Free Tribune), the Friendship Union of Russian Veterans, the Patriotic Association of Young Russians in Paris, and the Russian Empire Union. The White Russians who had settled in Germany pushed to mobilize for the Reich: General Pavel Bermondt-Avalov, who was the leader of the Nazi-controlled ROND in 1932-1933, sent his emissaries from Berlin to Paris. Couples who had lived through a world war and a civil war now found themselves in a foreign land, often having gone from a comfortable bourgeois existence to working lowly jobs. Despite benefitting from the wealth of his American wife, the mythomaniac tendencies of this former U.S.-based leader of the Brotherhood of Russian Truth led to his downfall. The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore. 25. [20] Igor Zawadsky Krasmopolsky, Secretary of the All-Russian National Party, did actually garner support and subsidies from French far-right groups: Action franaise, Les Francistes, and Solidarit franaise all allegedly supported the All-Russian National Party at its inception.[21]. [33] PP, Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, January 12, 1933, 4p.; Ibid., Comit dinitiative international anti-bolchvique, August 1933, 2p., AN/20010216/168. It enabled the establishment of the High Council of the Monarchy (HCM), which organized its first congress in Paris the following year. Globally, however, the rise of minorities secessionism was seen with suspicion; many White Russians believed that only Germany would protect the territorial integrity of Russia. [16] Karel Kram, a wealthy conservative Czechoslovak politician and a Russophile worked together with Russian migrs to build an Orthodox church in Prague which Kram called in his opening speech "a monument of Slavic connection" and to "remind Russians not only of their former sufferings but also about the recognition on the side of the Slavs". The IABIC maintained links with the Ukrainian Anti-Bolshevik Committee, which aimed to have the Soviet republics join the League of Nations and participate in establishing a European Confederation. 9, December 2020 "Transnational History of the Far Right" Series. Tens of White Army veterans (numbers vary from 72 to 180) served as volunteers supporting Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. The White Russians in France were also involved in the proliferation of initiatives aimed at forming anti-Comintern organizations, which were closer to shadow business schemes than well-oiled ideological efforts. Five years earlier, the estimated number of members was 90,000, including 20,000 in Yugoslavia and France, concentrated in the Paris region and the Moselle-Maritime Alps axis; 50,000 in China; 5,000 in Prague and Sofia; 3,000 in New York; 500 in Berlin; 400 in Brussels and Charleroi; 200 in Lausanne and Geneva; and 100 in Vienna (PP, Union Centrale russe, August 1933, pp. We are beginning to realise with horror that the Bolsheviks have dragged us down into an abyssWe have been duped by a past of . [44], Much more serious is the case of the Mladorossy, or Young Russians. Some would flee a Europe at war; others would remain loyal to a defeated France led by Marshal Ptain; and still others would venture into the world of collaborationism. On a personal level, Kazem-Beg entertained links with Krasnov and the Brotherhood of Russian Truth.[46]. If the choice between the descendants of Nicholas II had not yet been made, the HCM clearly leaned toward Nikolai,[22] only to later reconsider by postponing the choice of king until after the fall of the USSR. [40] PP, Union des sportsmen Russes, February 1, 1939, AN/19940500/307. I am, like all the members of the Young Russian party, at your entire disposal.[63] German propaganda tried to stage a counterattack through a paper written by Ivan Solonevich and printed in Bulgaria, which promised, among other Nazi war goals, the accession of Grand Duke Kirills German son-in-law to the Russian throne.[64]. As being temporarily deprived of our Motherland let us save in our ranks not only faith in her, but an unbending desire towards feats, sacrifice, and the establishment of a united friendly family of those who did not let down their hands in the fight for her liberation, The migrs formed various organizations for the purpose of combatting the Soviet regime such as the Russian All-Military Union, the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, and the NTS. He has fond memories of the dances, shows and parties where many sought comforting reminders of home. White army veteran Captain Vasili Orekhov, publisher of the "Sentry" journal, encapsulated this idea of responsibility with the following words: There will be an hour believe it there will be, when the liberated Russia will ask each of us: "What have you done to accelerate my rebirth." Kazem-Beg was also allegedly offered 50,000 francs from Vonsiatsky to work toward the unification of Russian migrs, but he was reluctant to accept the money, as overly Nazifying his movement would make it very difficult to keep it going in France. We in a foreign land do not have a tomb of an 'unknown soldier', but we do have thousands of suffering people. [14], Between 1934 and 1936, an ossuary containing the bones of Russian soldiers killed all over the world was built in the Novo Groblje cemetery in Belgrade, which used to illustrate the theme of Serbian-Russian friendship, and which King Alexander contributed 5,000 dinars to meet the construction costs. Joseph Douillet tried to integrate the International Anticommunist Entente (EIA), also known as the Aubert League after its founder. . Aksyonov was one of the few emigres to return to Russia after Perestroika. Since they assumed the Soviet regime would last a few years at most, few worried about integrating. 89, AN/20010216/282. . "That explains why there were few mixed marriages, why few Russians demanded French nationality," says Jevakhoff. News Russian Shanghai, Belgrade and Paris. Some also came there to treat tuberculosis which was then rampant. The situation was considered serious enough to warrant close police surveillance of all Russian immigrants on the Cte dAzur. Though Nicholas II had managed to ostracize Kirill after the latters marriage to Victoria, a divorced and non-Orthodox German woman, Kirills supporters did not recognize as legitimate any debate about the succession. Lost amid the horrors of . [22] Nicolas Glady, Les partis monarchistes russes migres Paris 19191939, Bulletin de lInstitut Pierre Renouvin 9 (2000): 84100. This study is based mostly on declassified archives from the French police and intelligence services, especially the National Security Directorate, the Police Prefecture for Paris, and the Administrative Policy and General Intelligence for the rest of the territory. The parties to the war migration in 1917 were neither Crimean Turks nor Caucasian Muslims. The fact that Nice was a crucial base for the Russian emigration had an immediate political consequence. A transnational nomadism therefore emerged in the service of international anti-communism. The term is also applied to the descendants of those who left and who still retain a Russian Orthodox Christian identity while living abroad. Of its 1,000 activists worldwide, about 300 resided in France, with about half in the Paris region and the other half largely spread between Lyon and Nice. In truth-we have nothing, we have lost everything. Leben im europischen Brgerkrieg, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1995. The International Congress of Russian Monarchists was held in Bavaria in 1921 and brought together 200 figures from 33 countries. [20] PP, report dated February 6, 1930, AN/F/7/13975/1. [20] About 127,000 people living in Harbin in 1920 came from Russia, making it one of the largest Russian-speaking cites in East Asia. [25] PP, report dated September 3, 1930, 4 p., AN/19880206/7. [37] PP, A/S de la Confrrie de la Vrit Russe, August 1933, 10 p., AN/20010216/282. Evacuation Russian Army of General Baron [1] P. N. Vrangel from Crimea. Many, estimated as being between the hundred thousands and a million,[2] also served Germany in the Wehrmacht or in the Waffen-SS, often as interpreters.[3]. The 1917 Russian Revolution led to an exodus of two million " White Russians " escaping the Bolshevik "Reds". As for the choice of pretender to the Russian throne, the Italians were initially divided: Mussolini leaned toward Kirill, but the monarchy preferred Nikolai, since the Italian queen was his sister-in-law. The RNSUV was founded in 1936 by General Anton Turkul, who considered General Miller too weak a Germanophile. It was a front that brought together right-wing monarchists and pro-Hitlerites.[23]. Istanbul, which had a population of around 900,000 at that time, opened its doors to approximately 150 thousand White Russians. [51] Report dated July 27, 1937, 2p., AN/20010216/283. The most important of the emigres in Serbia was Baron Pyotr Wrangel, who led the White Russian Army in the South of the Russian Empire and, after their defeat in 1920, fled to Sremski Karlovci, a . It claimed that the White Russians could not be satisfied with wanting to defeat Bolshevism in Russia but must fight it wherever they found themselvesthat is, allied with every enemy of the Soviet Union. Audience ratings certified by ACPM/OJD. Growing up at the court of tsar Nicholas II, Tatiana Botkina's childhood was one of splendour. In addition, a significant proportion of the community were political migrants: 67.8%, compared to 0.9% of Poles and 17.9% of Italians. [54] The project was stillborn, but Solonevichs newspaper, Nasha gazeta, read in France mainly by former junior officers, still sided with the German camp,[55] as did Civilisation et bolchvisme, a Belgian White Russian newspaper published in France; Solonevich participated in and possibly also provided financial support to the latter publication. The history of Russian "expansion" into the foreign fashion market began with the break-up of the Russian Empire following the revolution of 1917. Vonsiastsky and Kazem-Beg were reportedly welcomed to Berlin by Goering and Rosenberg. Constantinople would serve as one transit point for the estimated one million people who fled the Bolsheviks after 1917, but it was to Paris and Berlin that many were headed as they scrambled to . Many symbols of the White migrs were reintroduced as symbols of the post-Soviet Russia, such as the Byzantine eagle and the Russian tricolor. Die russische Emigration und ihre Zentren 19171941, Mnchen 1994. [9] Personnalits politiques trangres qui furent victimes dattentats commis Paris au cours de ces dernires annes, March 20, 1930, 2 p., AN/F/7/13975/1. The party affirmed that, ultimately, migrs must develop reconcilable orientations on a global scale and join in an international military intervention against Moscow. Their tendency to seek to establish a miniature Russia in exile sometimes provoked tensions with the French authorities: for example, the French administration had to ask Grand Duke Kirill to stop awarding decorations that competed with those of the French state. The historical, geographical, and political situation was therefore particularly conducive to the production of transnational far-right connections. [36] The archives AN/20010216/282 contain several communiqus from the CVR translated by the PP. Michael Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism White migrs and the Making of National Socialism, 19171945, Cambridge 2005, Wallter Laqueur, Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1965, This page was last edited on 24 April 2023, at 15:10. He was thus quickly deemed to be a Soviet agent. Montparnasse, the heart of bohemian caf society in Paris, was a far cry from the grand mansions of Boulogne-sur-Seine or the richer districts of Passy and Auteuil inhabited by the Russian denizens of Belle poque Paris. [49] Alexandre Jevakhoff, Les Russes blancs (Paris: Tallandier, 2011). His regular trips to Berlin linked him to the Nazi party, and in particular to Paul Schulz, who came to be one of the Nazis main recruiting agents among Russian migrs from 1934.[60]. [18] In Germany, November 11 was not a holiday as no one wanted to honor the day that the Reich lost the war, and Totensonntag played the same role in Germany that November 11 played in the Allied nations, as the time to honor the war dead. [7] The Nice special commissioner to the SN director, Au sujet des agissements germanophiles de quelques personnages russes officiels, dont Basile Lebedeff, August 7, 1918, 4 p., AN/20010216/282. In 1926, a new organization, the Russian Legitimist-Monarchist Union, was founded in Munich to bring together all the movements that supported Kirill Vladimirovich. For the International Anticommunist Entente, the Pact was a ploy by Germany to destroy Western democracies and bring about world revolution. However, if dynastic competition was a matter that mobilized the diaspora globally, the debate over the succession essentially took place between Paris and Munich. This smaller second wave fairly quickly began to assimilate into the white migr community. In the Soviet Union, white migr (, byeloemigrant) generally had negative connotations. He continued to use the formula The Tsar and the Soviets as his slogan. The American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews said he frequented the "cafes of somewhat dubious reputation" with the explorer Sven Hedin and scientist Davidson Black to "have scrambled eggs and dance with the Russian girls."[29]. Paris provided support to the Whites by supplying them with military equipment and, notably, participated in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War on the side of the Whites. The new German republic and the new Soviet government decided to bury the hatchet and to put a stop in each others expansionist politics, signing the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922. He was also supported by General Piotr Wrangel, who had agreed to proclaim Nikolai leader of the Russian All-Military Union (Russkii obshchevoinskii soiuz, ROVS).[4]. (Taittinger would later, in 1934, play a critical role in trying to constitute a unified National Front, a group whose central notion would be revamped, this time successfully, by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972.) [1] This factor is more acute evidence than the electoral results of the French section of the Communist International (9.82% of votes in the legislative elections in 1924, 15.26% in 1936), which had long faced difficulties due to the isolationist strategy of Communism in One Country. Frances institutions functioned largely on a two-round electoral system, and it was traditional for left-wing candidates to stand down in order to place themselves in the best position. In Paris, she found a Russian Atlantis: the continued life of a great, imperial Russian culture united throughout several generations by music, literature andmost strongly of allRussian Orthodox religion.