Lt. Alexandr Alexandrovich Bystrow

The file contains two reports written by Paul Anderson about the officer of the 61 Mechanised Rifle Regt of the Tenth Devision (Fourth Mechanised Army of the Soviet Forces, stationed in the Soviet Zone of Germany) Lt. Alexandr Alexandrovich Bystrow. On the 27th of August 1950 he crosses the zonal border and surendered to British military authorities as a political refugee. In the report Anderson explains very briefly the life story of Bystrow and his reasons for his desertion from the Soviet Army Forces. As Anderson argues the motives have little to do with political or ideological reasons, they are based in the main on the visual comparison of living conditions outside Russia with those they have known as Soviet citizens. Like many other Soviet refugees, he is perhaps more accurately discribed as an escape from hunger, poverty and suffering than as a 'political refugee'. The second report discribes generally desertions of Soviet soldiers to West Germany. All of them got gravitated to the idea of a better life in the West.