Vlasov Army

The Vlasov Army is identified in the book as the White Russians who fought alongside the Germans during World War II. Its role is presented through one former member’s recollections, rather than through an account of the organization’s leadership, structure, or campaigns. The passage consequently gives a narrow but concrete view: a change of military allegiance, service guarding a camp, and an admission of killing.

Wartime Service

Porphyry, a Ukrainian somewhat younger than Eduard Limonov, first served in the Red Army. He later joined the Vlasov Army and ended up guarding a camp in Pomerania. The text supplies no account of what prompted his change of sides or how he entered the camp detail; it records the sequence without filling in those silences.

Porphyry’s Account

Porphyry calls the camp a small, ordinary camp rather than an extermination camp, while acknowledging that he killed a few people. He speaks of those deaths without boasting. The distinction he makes does not erase his admission of violence: his recollection holds both the limited description of his assignment and the fact that he killed.

Place in the Narrative

The Vlasov Army enters the narrative in a conversation between Porphyry and Limonov, who admits he is unsure whether he could kill in comparable circumstances. Porphyry reassures him that, with his back to the wall, he would act as others do. The exchange shifts attention from abstract judgments about wartime allegiances to the possibility of violence under pressure. The book provides no further organizational detail, so the army’s significance here rests on this personal testimony and the question it raises about what a person might do when cornered.