Smenovekhovtsi

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The Smenovekhovtsy (Сменовеховцы) is the name for a political movement in the Russian emigre community that began shortly after the publication of the magazine "Smena Vekh" (which translates to "Change of Signposts") in Prague, in the year 1921. This publication had taken its name from the Russian philosophical publication "Vekhi" ("Signposts") published in 1909.

The thoughts published in the "Smena Vekh" periodical told its White emigre readers: "The Civil War is lost definitvely. For a long time Russia has been travelling on its own path, not our path", "Either recognize this Russia, hated by you all, or stay without Russia, because a "third Russia" by your recipes does not and will not exist", "The Soviet regime saved Russia - the Soviet regime is justified, regardless of how weighty the arguments against it are", "The mere fact of its [the Soviet regime's - ed.] enduring existence proves its popular character, and the historical belonging of its dictatorship and harshness".

The ideas in the publication soon evolved into the Smenovekhovstvo movement which promoted the concept of accepting the Soviet regime and the October Revolution as a natural and popular progression of Russia's fate, something which was not to be resisted despite perceived ideological incompatibilities with Leninism.

Conservative emigres such as those in ROVS were opposed to the Smenoveknovstvo movement, viewing it as a promotion of defeatism and moral relativism, as a capitulation to the Bolsheviks, and a desire to seek compromise with the new Soviet regime. Repeatedly, the Smenoveknovtsi were accused of ties with the Soviet OGPU, which had in fact been active in promoting such ideas in the emigre community. Vladimir Lenin commented on the Smenovekhovstvo movement in October of 1921, "The Smenovekhovtsy express the moods of thousands of various bourgeouis or Soviet collaborators, who are the participants of our New Economic Policy".

There were other emigre organizations which, like the Smenoveknovtsy, argued that Russian emigres should accept the fact of the Russian revolution. These included the Mladorossi party and the Eurasians(Evraziitsi). As with the Smenovekhovtsy, these movements did not survive after World War II.

[edit] References

• Hilda Hardeman, Coming to Terms with the Soviet Regime. The "Changing Signposts" Movement among Russian Émigrés in the Early 1920s, Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994.
• M.V. Nazarov, The Mission of the Russian Emigration, Moscow: Rodnik, 1994. ISBN 5-86231-172-6