Cold War Defectors
A riveting and complex portrait of defection and what it meant to switch sides in a Cold War world.
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Cold War defections were highly public spectacles, often dominating headlines for weeks and fuelling propaganda about the irresistible allure of freedom. Yet only a minority of defectors were political dissidents before leaving; despite how they may have publicly represented their actions, most defectors crossed borders for reasons ranging from economic opportunity to a spur-of-the-moment decision.
Cold War Defectors redefines the political and personal stakes of defection, a complex and historically specific Cold War phenomenon that largely came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The first part of the book traces citizens from the communist East who fled to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, often at great personal risk and from unexpected locations across the globe. The second part turns to other key waypoints of defection – Berlin, Hong Kong, and Vietnam – where movement occurred in both directions and on a striking scale. Together the chapters reveal a wide range of individual experiences and government responses, showing how states struggled to distinguish refugees, migrants, and defectors. They also highlight the role of non-state actors, the framing power of the media, and the agency of defectors themselves, whether they were elite insiders trading political or cultural capital for asylum or ordinary individuals navigating familiar tropes of Cold War escape.
Spanning multiple continents and linking defection to espionage, intelligence, and media culture, Cold War Defectors presents a riveting portrait of what it meant to switch sides in a divided world.
“This is the first serious academic exploration of a key aspect of propaganda during the Cold War. Realities and myths compared, the authors successfully present defection as an international phenomenon in its unique historical context of ideological bipolarity.”
Vladislav Zubok, author of Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union
“Cold War Defectors explores the complex stories of individuals and refugees who crossed the border between the worlds of communism and capitalism. The book’s global research is remarkable in scope, illuminating cases from Europe to Asia. An essential addition to the growing scholarship on population movements across the Cold War divide.” Yumi Moon, editor of Cold War Refugees: Connected Histories of Displacement and Migration across Postcolonial Asia