Soon after the formation of the Soviet Union, emigration restrictions were put in place to keep citizens from leaving the various republics of the USSR, though some defections still occurred. During and after World War II, similar restrictions were put in place in non-Soviet countries of the Eastern Bloc, which consisted of the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe (except for non-aligned Yugoslavia).[1] [2]
Until 1952, however, the Inner German border between East and West Germany could be easily crossed in most places. Accordingly, before 1961, most of that east–west flow took place between East and West Germany, with over 3.5 million East Germans emigrating to West Germany before 1961.[3] On August 13, 1961, a barbed-wire barrier, which would become the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin, was erected by East Germany.
Although international movement was, for the most part, strictly controlled, there was a steady loss through escapees who were able to use ingenious methods to evade frontier security. Numerous notable Eastern Bloc citizens defected to non-Eastern Bloc countries.
The following list of Eastern Bloc defectors contains notable defectors from East Germany, the Soviet Union, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Albania before those countries' conversions from communist states in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
| Choreographer | 1924 | Defected during a tour of Germany to the Weimar Republic | |||
| Politburo secretary | Russia | 1928 | Defected to France via Iran and India | ||
| 1930 | Defected in France; led the manhunt for Boris Bazhanov before defecting | ||||
| Author | 1930 | Defected to Germany; primarily known for his exotic prose and anti-Soviet émigré activities | |||
| Tatiana Tchernavin | Writer | Russia | 1932 | Fled from the USSR with her husband Vladimir Tchernavin and her son Andrei through Karelia to Finland and then to the United Kingdom. She and her son visited her husband in a gulag prison, before fleeing together. She wrote a book about their experience: Escape from the Soviets and her husband wrote another: I Speak For the Silent Prisoners of the Soviets. | |
| Physicist | 1933 | First tried to kayak across the Black Sea; defected in Brussels, Belgium; later discovered alpha decay via quantum tunneling | |||
| Russia | 1937 | Former spy of Soviet intelligence services; assassinated by the NKVD | |||
| NKVD | Russia | 1937 | Defected in Paris after the assassination of Reiss; apparent suicide in the United States in 1941 may have been an NKVD assassination | ||
| Alexander Orlov | NKVD | Belarus | 1938 | Fled while stationed in Spain to avoid execution in the Great Purge | |
| NKVD | Russia | 1938 | Crossed the border into Manchukuo with secret documents; family arrested and sent to the gulag, where several died | ||
| Russia | 1939 | Was recalled from London, refused to return to the USSR | |||
| Author | Russia | 1942 | Sent to infiltrate anti-Soviet Chechens; he joined them instead | ||
| Architect/engineer | Russia | 1944 | Fled to evade religious persecution. Defected in Berlin, Germany; then to Pakistan in 1950 where he was given refuge and citizenship. In honour of his new home, Pakistan; he designed and constructed the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore, which stands as a national symbol of the country to this day. He also constructed the Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore and Nishtar Medical University in Multan. | ||
| Engineer | Ukraine | 1944 | Soviet engineer who witnessed the horrors of the Holodomor; defected while serving in the Soviet Purchasing Agency in Washington, D.C., in the U.S. | ||
| Politician | Bulgaria | 1945 | Saved from execution by the U.S. ambassador; later founded anti-communist organisations | ||
| Chess player, medical doctor | USSR | 1945 | Former Soviet chess champion who eventually immigrated to Canada, where he became a professor of medicine and resumed his competitive chess | ||
| Chess player | 1945 | Defected through East Berlin with friend Pal Benko who was caught and jailed for three years | |||
| Russia | 1945 | Defected in Ottawa, Canada; helped uncover communist spy rings | |||
| NKVD | Russia | 1945 | Deputy head of the NKVD in Istanbul, Turkey; contacted the British consulate about defection, was arrested by the Soviets, and disappeared forever (possibly executed) | ||
| Valeri Tihonovitch Minakov | Russia | 1945 | Escaped from Siberia across the Bering Sea in a small boat with his 6-year-old son Oleg. He was assisted by Yupik of Savoonga and Gambell on St. Lawrence Island. Shortly afterward, 14 Siberians arrived for "a visit" and questioned inhabitants whether they had seen a "white Russian".[4] | ||
| MGB agent | Russia | 1946 | Defected in Stockholm, Sweden and later wrote an autobiography | ||
| Scientist and politician | 1947 | Secretly worked with an underground opposition group in the USSR. Afraid that his ties to the underground would be discovered, he defected to the British Sector of Occupied Berlin, and arrived in the UK in 1947. He later worked in the Information Research Department, helping disseminate anti-communist propaganda.[5] | |||
| Writer | Czechoslovakia | 1948 | Defected to France; poet friend who stayed behind was jailed for 13 years for "anti-socialist thinking" | ||
| Nesti Josifi Kopali | Chief of the Sigurimi Albanian security service in Rome | Albania | 1949 | Offered himself to the U.S. Embassy in Rome in late 1949, but was rejected, so he turned to Italian intelligence. After a couple of months of interrogation, he was turned over to the CIA, which flew him to Washington, D.C., for debriefing. Kopali had, among his other anti-western assignments in 1946–47, tried and failed to set up a liaison with the editor of an ethnic newspaper in Boston. In 1950, Kopali provided some valuable information about Albanian security and military matters, but not enough for the U.S. government to offer him political asylum and resettlement in the U.S. He was ultimately flown back to Germany.[6] | |
| Figure skater | Czechoslovakia | 1950 | Defected during the 1950 World Championships in London | ||
| Tank commander | Czechoslovakia | 1950 | Escaped from prison to West Germany and later the UK. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Buršík returned his Hero of the Soviet Union medal to the Soviet embassy in London. | ||
| Author | 1951 | Defected to France after serving as a Polish diplomat and later settled in the U.S. | |||
| Istvan Rabovsky | Dancer | Hungary | 1953 | Escaped with wife Nora Kovach to West Berlin on an East Berlin tour | |
| Pilot | Poland | 1953 | Flew a MiG-15 from Słupsk, Poland to Rønne Airport on the Danish island of Bornholm | ||
| UB agent | Poland | 1953 | Defected on a mission in East Berlin; he went on to reveal in Radio Free Europe broadcasts the internal struggle in the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and the true face of the Security Office (UB). One result of his escape was the liquidation of the Ministry of Security (MBP). | ||
| Russia | 1953 | Refused to assassinate George Okolovich; defected in West Germany and survived a KGB assassination attempt in 1957 | |||
| Dancer | Hungary | 1953 | Escaped with husband Istvan Rabovsky to West Berlin on an East Berlin tour | ||
| Composer | Poland | 1954 | Escaped Polish secret police in a nighttime taxi chase in Zurich, Switzerland, then defected to the UK while in London | ||
| Peter Deriabin | KGB major | Russia | 1954 | KGB major and personnel officer who contacted U.S. intelligence in Vienna and was exfiltrated through the "Mozart Express" military train; worked with the CIA for years afterwards | |
| Vladimir Petrov | Diplomat | Russia | 1954 | Husband of undercover KGB agent Evdokia Petrova; defected on a mission in Australia which sparked the Petrov Affair | |
| KGB agent | Russia | 1954 | Undercover KGB agent who was the wife of Vladimir Petrov; defected in Australia during the Petrov Affair | ||
| Chess player | Hungary | 1956 | Defected during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to Australia | ||
| Football player | Hungary | 1956 | Defected during the 1956–57 European Cup in Madrid, Spain | ||
| Philosopher of science | Hungary | 1956 | Fled to Vienna, Austria, and later to the UK after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 | ||
| Football player | Hungary | 1956 | Defected during the 1956–57 European Cup in Madrid, Spain, then went to Switzerland | ||
| Hungary | 1956 | Fled to the U.S. Embassy in Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956; later moved to Austria | |||
| Football player | Hungary | 1956 | Defected during the 1956–57 European Cup in Madrid, Spain, then went to Switzerland | ||
| Football player | Hungary | 1956 | Fled to Spain during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 | ||
| Artistic gymnast | Hungary | 1956 | Defected in Melbourne, Australia, during the 1956 Summer Olympics | ||
| Environmental artist | 1957 | Escaped from Czechoslovakia to Austria | |||
| KGB agent | Russia | 1957 | Defected in Paris after spending several years spying undercover in the west | ||
| Chess player | Hungary | 1957 | Defected in Reykjavik following the World Student Team Championship | ||
| Naval officer | Russia | 1959 | Defected in Sweden; later allegedly killed by the KGB | ||
| Alexander Petrovich | Photographer | Russia | 1960 | Defected through Iran and India; settled in the U.S. in Tampa, Florida | |
| Motorcycle racer | East Germany | 1961 | Defected once he knew that his wife and two children had already escaped to West Germany in a car trunk. Degner, who was familiar with MZ Motorcycles' loop scavenging technique secrets, drove his car from the Swedish Grand Prix to Denmark, then on to West Germany.[7] | ||
| SB MSW | Poland | 1961 | Defected in West Germany; sentenced to death after defection; subsequently worked for the CIA. Before he defected, he had spied for the CIA under the cover name Sniper, but the CIA did not know his identity until his escape. | ||
| KGB agent | Ukraine | 1961 | Defected to the U.S. from Helsinki, Finland via Sweden and West Germany with his wife and daughter when he was stationed in Helsinki; made sensational claims after his defection | ||
| Ballet dancer | Russia | 1961 | Defected while on tour in Paris | ||
| Submarine tender captain | 1961 | Sailed vessel to Sweden; sentenced to death and hidden by the CIA from the USSR | |||
| Mathematician | Romania | 1961 | Defected at a conference in Stockholm, Sweden; known for low-dimensional topology | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1961 | Football player of SC Dynamo Berlin. Defected together with teammate Rolf Starost after a friendly match against Boldklubben af 1893 in Copenhagen, Denmark | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1961 | Football player of SC Dynamo Berlin. Defected together with Emil Poklitar after a friendly match against Boldklubben af 1893 in Copenhagen, Denmark | ||
| Border guard | East Germany | 1961 | Photographed jumping the Berlin Wall during construction | ||
| KGB agent | Ukraine | 1961 | Defected in West Berlin; assassinated Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera before his defection | ||
| Physicist | Czechoslovakia | 1963 | Defected as a visiting professor to the University of Colorado in the U.S.; became a proponent of libertarianism and nuclear energy | ||
| KGB agent | Georgia | 1963 | Defected while an undercover agent in London; later became a novelist | ||
| Gabor Balla | Hungary | 1964 | Defected in Tokyo, Japan during the 1964 Summer Olympics | ||
| Flatwater canoe athlete | Hungary | 1964 | Defected in Tokyo, Japan during the 1964 Summer Olympics | ||
| Film director | Romania | 1964 | Defected in Tours, France | ||
| KGB agent | Ukraine | 1964 | Defected in Washington, D.C., United States; for years, the CIA believed that he might be a double agent | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1966 | Fled after a match in Sweden; traveled to West Germany | ||
| Poet | Czechoslovakia | 1967 | Fled after the Prague Spring to West Germany and worked for Radio Free Europe | ||
| Joseph Stalin's daughter | Russia | 1967 | Defected to the U.S. via New Delhi, India; denounced the former regime of her late father Joseph Stalin, but softened her criticism of him in the 1980s[8] | ||
| Author | Ukraine | 1968 | Defected after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia while doing research in London to the UK | ||
| General | Czechoslovakia | 1968 | Fled after the Prague Spring to the U.S. | ||
| Film director and actor | Czechoslovakia | 1968 | Defected to the U.S. when the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies invaded the country to end the Prague Spring; known for directing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus | ||
| Writer | Czechoslovakia | 1968 | Fled after the Prague Spring to Sweden | ||
| Journalist | Romania | 1969 | Defected to Austria using a fake invitation | ||
| Playwright | Bulgaria | 1969 | Fled to Italy after a ban on plays; assassinated in London in 1978 | ||
| Chess player | Poland | 1969 | Defected during a tournament in Athens, Greece; traveled to Sweden | ||
| Czechoslovak state security, disinformation | Czechoslovakia | 1969 | Became a professor at Boston University, lecturing on disinformation and propaganda | ||
| Czechoslovak state security | Czechoslovakia | 1969 | Defected from Bulgaria to Turkey on a boat, moved by the CIA to the U.S. | ||
| Simonas Kudirka | Seaman | Lithuania | 1970 | Leaped from a Soviet ship to a U.S. Coast Guard ship | |
| Ballet dancer | Russia | 1970 | Defected while on a ballet tour in London; later won a Tony Award[9] | ||
| KGB propaganda agent | Russia | 1970 | Left his KGB station in India disguised as a hippie, traveled to Greece, was debriefed in the U.S., but refused to stay in the country because of KGB infiltration of the CIA; later granted asylum in Canada | ||
| KGB agent | Russia | 1971 | Defected in London after being arrested there; exposed dozens of KGB agents in the city | ||
| Figure skater | Czechoslovakia | 1972 | |||
| Ioan P. Culianu | Philosopher | Romania | 1972 | Defected during lectures in Italy. He was murdered on the campus of University of Chicago in 1991, and speculation arose that it was at the hands of former Securitate personnel. | |
| Alexander Elder | Author | Russia | 1974 | Jumped from a Soviet ship, on which he was working as a doctor, while it was off the Ivory Coast; later traveled to the U.S. | |
| Ballet dancer | 1974 | Defected during a tour in Toronto, Canada | |||
| Mathematician | Hungary | 1974 | Defected in Paris; emigrated to the U.S. in 1976 | ||
| Oceanographer | USSR | 1974 | While on a "cruise to nowhere" in the open ocean, jumped into the sea and swam to the Philippine coast, many kilometres away | ||
| Hockey player | Czechoslovakia | 1974 | Defected during a vacation in Switzerland | ||
| Tennis player | Czechoslovakia | 1975 | Defected at the 1975 US Open in the U.S. | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1976 | Fled with Norbert Nachtweih after an under-21 match in Turkey; traveled to West Germany | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1976 | Fled with Jürgen Pahl after an under-21 match in Turkey; traveled to West Germany | ||
| Russia | 1976 | Flew a MiG-25 from Chuguyevka, Russia to Hakodate, Japan | |||
| Chess player | Russia | 1976 | First Soviet Grandmaster to defect; fled following a tournament in Amsterdam, Netherlands[10] | ||
| Pianist | Russia | 1976 | Fled during a tour in Rome, Italy | ||
| Vladimir Rezun (Viktor Suvorov) | GRU | Russia | 1978 | GRU military intelligence officer who defected to the UK while working under UN cover in Switzerland | |
| UN Undersecretary General | Ukraine | 1978 | Spied for the U.S. for three years before defection. His wife in Moscow died two months after his defection, purportedly of suicide. | ||
| Conductor | Russia | 1978 | Defected in December 1978 while touring in the Netherlands and sought political asylum there | ||
| Securitate agent | Romania | 1978 | Two-star Romanian Securitate general and personal advisor to Nicolae Ceauşescu; defected in U.S. Embassy in Bonn, West Germany; sentenced to death twice in absentia with a $2 million bounty. Carlos the Jackal was sent to assassinate him. | ||
| Securitate agent | Romania | 1978 | Defected to France in 1981 while on an industrial espionage mission; sentenced to death in absentia | ||
| KGB agent | Latvia | 1978 | Defected to the U.S. while working at the UN | ||
| Ballet dancer | Russia | 1979 | Defected while on a ballet tour in New York City at JFK International Airport in Queens; later became an actor, playing among other roles as a terrorist in Die Hard[11] | ||
| Stasi agent | East Germany | 1979 | Defected to West Germany after stealing state secrets | ||
| Football coach | East Germany | 1979 | Used a match with the East German youth national football team in Yugoslavia to flee to West Germany | ||
| Ballet dancer | Russia | 1979 | Defected with wife Valentina Kozlova during their company's tour in Los Angeles, California | ||
| Ballet dancer | Russia | 1979 | Defected with husband Leonid Kozlov during their company's tour in Los Angeles, California | ||
| Chess player | Russia | 1979 | Soviet chess grandmaster; defected to the U.S. where he won the US Chess Championship three times | ||
| Figure skater | Russia | 1979 | Defected while in Switzerland | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1979 | Football player of BFC Dynamo. Fled during a match in West Germany; died in a car accident in 1983, allegedly assassinated by the Stasi | ||
| Figure skater | Russia | 1979 | Defected with Ludmila Belousova while on tour in Switzerland | ||
| KGB agent | Russia | 1979 | Defected during a mission in Tokyo, Japan; detailed the KGB's Japanese spy network | ||
| Sprint canoe athlete | Lithuania | 1979 | Defected during the world championships at Frankfurt Airport in West Germany; recaptured by the KGB[12] | ||
| Hockey player | Czechoslovakia | 1980 | Defected with brother Peter during the European Cup tournament in Innsbruck, Austria | ||
| Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov | Chess player | Russia | 1980 | Ran from KGB agents when his plane made an emergency stop in Gander, Canada | |
| Hockey player | Czechoslovakia | 1980 | Defected with his wife and brother Anton during the European Cup tournament in Innsbruck, Austria | ||
| Ballet dancer | Russia | 1980 | Sister's husband purged; defected to the UK at the age of 72 to coach ballet | ||
| Underage defector | Ukraine | 1980 | Fled from his parents when they were about to return to the Ukrainian SSR. Granted political asylum as a naturalised U.S. citizen upon turning 18 on October 3, 1985. Had been the subject of a lengthy political cause célèbre during the preceding five years | ||
| Conductor | Russia | 1981 | Defected while on tour in West Germany with his son[13] | ||
| Ambassador | Poland | 1981 | Defected when martial law was declared in Poland in 1981 | ||
| Zdzisław Rurarz | Ambassador | Poland | 1981 | Defected to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo with Spasowski following the Polish United Workers' Party's declaration of martial law[14] | |
| Poland | 1981 | Spied for the U.S. for 10 years after the 1970 massacre of Polish workers. Later defected to the U.S. and was sentenced to death in absentia. Died of a stroke; sentence annulled in 1998 by the Polish Supreme Court | |||
| Political scientist | Romania | 1981 | Defected in Spain while on an authorised trip with his mother to visit the site of his father's battles | ||
| Hockey player | Czechoslovakia | 1981 | Defected to Canada while at a tournament with the Czechoslovakia men's national ice hockey team in Bern, Switzerland[15] | ||
| align+left | Romania | 1982 | Defected to Turkey, then Austria, via Bulgaria before emigrating to the U.S. in June 1983 | ||
| KGB agent | Russia | 1982 | Defected to a British intelligence station in Tehran and then to the UK | ||
| Actor | Georgia | 1983 | Hijacked Aeroflot Flight 6833; tried to defect to Turkey and was arrested | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1983 | Football player of BFC Dynamo. Fled before a match in Yugoslavia together with teammate Dirk Schlegel; traveled to West Germany[16] | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1983 | Football player of BFC Dynamo. Fled before a match in Yugoslavia together with Falko Götz; traveled to West Germany[17] | ||
| Conductor | Georgia | 1983 | Defected while on tour with Viktoria Mullova via Kuusamo, Finland and Haparanda, Sweden, to the U.S. | ||
| Violinist | Russia | 1983 | Defected in a tour with Vakhtang Jordania via Kuusamo, Finland, and Haparanda, Sweden, to the U.S. | ||
| Editor | Russia | 1983 | Foreign editor of Literaturnaya Gazeta; defected in Venice, Italy, to the UK[18] | ||
| Dariusz Janczewski | Track and field athlete | Poland | 1984 | Left a hotel room in the middle of the night while in Turin, Italy, at an international track meet; spent several months in a refugee camp in Italy before relocating to the U.S. | |
| Vasily Matuzok | Diplomatic translator | Russia | 1984 | Translator at the Soviet embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea. Defected during a guided tour of the Korean Joint Security Area by running across the demarcation line to South Korea | |
| Deputy Minister of Justice | 1984 | Defected via Kotka, Finland to Sweden; fled during a Soviet crackdown on Estonian nationalism | |||
| Aviation engineering student | Czechoslovakia | 1984 | Defected from Czechoslovakia after he created a homemade aircraft, which he flew to Vienna International Airport; subsequently settled in the U.S. and founded the Ivoprop corporation | ||
| Sports scientist | Czechoslovakia | 1985 | Defected to the U.S. via Rome, Italy; known as "the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc sports scientist ever to defect to the West" | ||
| Embassy employee | Czechoslovakia | 1985 | Defected in Washington, D.C., where he was Minister-Counselor at the Czechoslovak embassy; later became a commentator on east–west relations | ||
| KGB agent | Russia | 1985 | Defected to the UK via Finland; became an MI6 double agent after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and was sentenced to death in absentia | ||
| KGB agent | Russia | 1985 | Defected in Rome, Italy and exposed two KGB/CIA double agents, Ronald Pelton and Edward Lee Howard; later ended up back in the KGB | ||
| Musician | Romania | 1986 | Defected in the U.S. while on an authorised visit for a performance | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1986 | |||
| Bulgaria | 1986 | Defected during the World Cup final in Melbourne, Australia; traveled to Turkey | |||
| Opera singer | USSR | 1986 | Defected during a Madama Butterfly singing competition in Tokyo, Japan | ||
| Air force cadet | Romania | 1987 | Flew his Aero L-39ZA Albatros jet trainer aircraft from Buzău, Romania to near Kırklareli, Turkey, where he landed on a dirt road[19] | ||
| Sprint canoe athlete | Hungary | 1987 | Defected to Canada | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1988 | |||
| Mihai Suba | Chess player | Romania | 1988 | Defected to the UK during the 1988 Lloyds Bank chess tournament in London | |
| Football player | Romania | 1988 | Defected to Belgrade, Yugoslavia | ||
| Football player | Czechoslovakia | 1988 | Defected from a Czechoslovakia national football team training camp in West Germany to Belgium alongside Ivo Knoflíček; eventually settled in Italy after signing for Fiorentina | ||
| Football player | Czechoslovakia | 1988 | Defected from a Czechoslovakia national football team training camp in West Germany to Belgium alongside Luboš Kubík; eventually settled in West Germany after signing for St. Pauli | ||
| Pilot | Russia | 1989 | Flew an Mikoyan MiG-29 to Trabzon, Turkey | ||
| Hockey player | Russia | 1989 | Defected after the World Championships in Sweden | ||
| Table tennis player | Romania | 1989 | Defected in Luxembourg during a youth table tennis championship | ||
| Sprint canoe athlete | Romania | 1989 | - | ||
| Gymnast | Romania | 1989 | Defected weeks before the Romanian revolution to Austria | ||
| Rugby player | Romania | 1989 | - | ||
| Hockey player | Czechoslovakia | 1989 | Defected during a midget hockey tournament in Calgary, Canada | ||
| Bioweapons engineer | Russia | 1989 | Defected in Paris, France, to warn the West about the Soviet biological weapons program | ||
| Military officer | 1989 | Defected to South Korea from his post at the Joint Security Area[20] | |||
| Musician | East Germany | 1989 | Defected to West Germany after political imprisonment | ||
| Football player | East Germany | 1989 | Football player of BFC Dynamo; left for West Germany only a short time before the fall of the Berlin Wall[21] | ||
| Ice dancer | Russia | 1990 | Defected to the U.S. while on tour with a Soviet troupe | ||
| Hockey player | Russia | 1990 | Defected in Seattle, Washington during the Goodwill Games | ||
| Author | Ukraine | 1990 | Became a regular on BBC television in the UK |