The National Committee of the American Slav Congress as a Partner of the Soviet Union during World War II

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of the largest political organization among the Slavic diasporas of the United States — the American Slav Congress (ASC), created in 1942, its structure, activities, ideology, relations with the Soviet Union, primarily with the All-Slavic Committee. ASC’s activities during World War II consisted of propaganda actions in support of Second front opening as fast as possible, of liberation of Slavic peoples and restoration of sovereign national states in Central and Southeast Europe, in support of F. D. Roosevelt’s 1944 presidential campaign, of collecting war relief for the USSR and the Allied forces in Europe. ASC also called for increasing war production and non-admission of strikes. From J. V. Stalin’s point of view, Slavic movement after the end of World War II should have remained anti-German. The American Slav Congress had been supporting Soviet foreign policy at the expense of several Slav organizations, first of all Polish American, leaving the ASC.