Displaced Comrades: Politics and Surveillance in the Lives of Soviet Refugees in the West

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Ebony Nilsson (Australian Catholic University, Australia)

Displaced Comrades

Politics and Surveillance in the Lives of Soviet Refugees in the West

Ebony Nilsson (Australian Catholic University, Australia)

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
26 June 2025

Australasian & Pacific history; The Cold War; Refugees & political asylum

This book explores the lives of left-wing Soviet refugees who fled the Cold War to settle in Australia, and uncovers how they adjusted to life under surveillance in the West. As Cold War tensions built in the postwar years, many of these refugees happily resettled in the West as model refugees, proof of capitalist countries’ superiority. But for a few, this was not the case. Displaced Comrades provides an account of these Cold War misfits, those refugees who fled East for West, but remained left-wing or pro-Soviet.

Drawing on interviews, government records and surveillance dossiers from multiple continents this book explores how these refugees’ ideas took root in new ways. As these radical ideas drew suspicion from western intelligence these everyday lives were put under surveillance, shadowed by the persistent threat of espionage. With unprecented access to intelligence records, Nilsson focuses on how a number of these left-wing refugees adjusted to life in Australia, opening up a previously invisible segment of postwar migration history, and offering a new exploration of life as a Soviet ‘enemy alien’ in the West.

By: Ebony Nilsson (Australian Catholic University Australia)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 440g
ISBN: 9781350378421
ISBN 10: 1350378429
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 26 June 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1. The Russian Social Club 2. Boris: ‘I am a Soviet Citizen and so I will stay’ 3. Jerzy: Pied Piper of Discontented Workers 4. Juris: From Latvian Legionnaire to Kolkhoznik 5. Sasha: KCB Residents and Orthodox Priests 6. Natalia & Lydia: Harbin Women Abroad 7. Jacob: ‘A Jew First and Foremost’ 8. Surveillance, Spies and Informants Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Ebony Nilsson is a research fellow in the Centre for Refugee, Migration and Humanitarian Studies at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Sydney in 2020.

Reviews for Displaced Comrades: Politics and Surveillance in the Lives of Soviet Refugees in the West

"""This work represents a solid, stylish academic undertaking, with intricate analysis across a spectrum of elusive and challenging sources ... A timely contribution done with much care on a topic that seems to reinvent itself, just like its characters did."" --The Russian Review"