National Alliance of Russian Solidarists

Russian anti-communist émigré organization founded in 1930

The National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (NTS ; Russian: Народно-трудовой союз российских солидаристов, Narodno-trudovoy soyuz rossiyskikh solidaristov, lit. 'People's Labour Union of Russian Solidarists') is a Russian émigré anti-communist organization founded in 1930. It promoted solidarism as an alternative to communism and engaged in resistance, propaganda, and support for Soviet dissidents throughout the Cold War.

History

NTS was founded in Belgrade (then Kingdom of Yugoslavia) on 1 June 1930 by young Russian White émigrés disillusioned with the older generation's passivity after the Russian Civil War. It spread to other European centres and later operated primarily from Germany. The organization rejected both communism and liberal capitalism, advocating solidarism — a Christian-inspired ideology emphasising national solidarity, individual dignity, and a mixed economy.

During World War II, some NTS members cooperated tactically with German authorities for anti-Soviet purposes, though the relationship was complex.

Cold War activities

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, NTS collaborated with Western intelligence in paramilitary operations. The CIA (via Operation Redsox) and MI6 (via Operation Jungle) funded, trained, and inserted agents into Soviet territory for sabotage, intelligence, and resistance. These efforts were largely compromised by Soviet penetration, including double agent Kim Philby and internal moles, resulting in heavy losses. Western agencies withdrew from direct paramilitary involvement by the mid-1950s.

By the 1970s–1980s, NTS shifted to non-violent ideological and information warfare. It recruited Western university students as couriers ("Moscow Mules") who posed as tourists on package holidays to smuggle money, medicines, documents, and samizdat (uncensored dissident literature) into the USSR while extracting materials exposing human rights violations.

Student courier operations

NTS operations emphasised plausible deniability. Young activists, often from Conservative student networks in the UK, were recruited, trained, and briefed by civilian NTS handlers in London or Frankfurt.

In March 2021 the Telegraph reported that Nick Gibb and Robbie Gibb had belonged to "a group of young Conservative activists secretly recruited and trained by the anti-Communist National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (NTS) organisation, headed in Britain by the charismatic campaigner George Miller-Kurakin". Nick Gibb "was a young graduate of 21 in 1982 when he was sent to Leningrad… to deliver up to 100 letters". "Brought in by his brother, Sir Robbie Gibb, then 21, made his first courier trip to Moscow in 1985." Recruits were "trained by a German 'handler', known only to the young activists as Alex". The article does not mention the CIA or MI6.

Funding flowed indirectly through non-governmental channels, including grants to exile groups and publishing revenue from NTS's Possev house in Frankfurt. Handling techniques included microfilm concealment, coat linings, memorised dead drops, and compartmentalised instructions to limit damage if captured.

Relationship with Western intelligence

Early paramilitary phase involved direct support from CIA and MI6, abandoned due to penetration. Later student networks maintained indirect support through ideological allies and funding pass-throughs (e.g., foundations and publishing), maintaining plausible deniability.

CIA support continued well beyond the 1950s. A CIA paper of 4 February 1977 on covert action against the USSR and Eastern Europe lists "A Russian emigre organization (National Alliance of Solidarists—NTS) which engages in procurement, publication and clandestine distribution of literature and socio-political commentary in the Russian language, and in some political activity in the USSR", with a budget of $200,000 for fiscal year 1977. Tromly describes the NTS's post-war "transformation of a semi-fascistic, collaborationist and anti-Semitic organisation into a Cold War asset of the CIA". He writes that "it seems likely that the British began to back the NTS's operations in 1949", but that "British involvement with NTS remains poorly studied".

Interaction with Jewish refuseniks

The National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (NTS), an anti-communist émigré organization, did have contact with Jewish refuseniks and liberal intellectuals in the Soviet Union. This contact occurred in several forms:

• Underground Networks & Smuggling: The NTS managed the publication of forbidden dissident works (including writings by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) in journals like Posev and Grani. These NTS-controlled publications and literature were smuggled into the Soviet Union and actively read by Soviet intellectuals, which included refuseniks and those in the liberal underground.

• Shared Dissident Circles: The general human rights movement and the refusenik movement in the USSR frequently overlapped. Refuseniks often collaborated with broader rights defenders through joint signatures on samizdat petitions, in shared gathering spaces across cities like Moscow, Kyiv, and Leningrad, and even while imprisoned in the Gulag.

• Shared Ideological Overlap: Despite previous historical controversies, the NTS actively maintained links with Soviet liberal Jewish intellectuals. Furthermore, some NTS members were Jewish, and the organization regularly reaffirmed its sympathy toward the State of Israel.

The National Alliance of Russian Solidarists (NTS) had indirect contact with Jewish refuseniks and liberal Jewish intellectuals in the Soviet Union primarily through its extensive samizdat smuggling and publication activities. NTS-controlled journals such as Posev and Grani published and smuggled forbidden dissident works (including those by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) into the USSR. These materials circulated among Soviet intellectuals, including refuseniks and those in the liberal underground.

The general human rights movement and the refusenik movement frequently overlapped, with joint samizdat petitions and shared spaces in cities such as Moscow, Kyiv, and Leningrad, as well as in the Gulag.

Despite earlier historical controversies, the NTS actively maintained links with Soviet liberal Jewish intellectuals. Some NTS members were Jewish, and the organization regularly reaffirmed its sympathy toward the State of Israel.

"It is also significant that despite its antisemitism, the NTS maintained links with Soviet liberal Jewish intellectuals, some of its members were Jewish, and sympathy for Israel was regularly re-affirmed."

Legacy

NTS contributed to sustaining internal Soviet dissent through information warfare and dissident support until the USSR's collapse. It continues as a smaller émigré organisation advocating Russian democratic renewal.