‘It takes a Russian to beat a Russian’: the National Union of Labor Solidarists, nationalism, and human intelligence operations in the Cold War

Abstract

This article reconstructs the CIA’s exploitation of the Natsional’no Trudovoi Soyuz, a right-wing Russian nationalist organization, as a part of ‘rollback’ and ‘stay-behind’ covert operations against the Soviet Union during the 1950s. Operations such as these relied on the notion that far-right nationalism presented a potent counter to international communism. The article explores postwar ties between American intelligence and the NTS in a shared effort to ‘roll back’ the borders of communism. It likewise discusses the ability of Soviet counterintelligence to intercept, penetrate, and sabotage nationalist networks and their operations backed by Western governments.