ABSTRACT
Australia was briefly home to Alexander Kerensky, the moderate socialist who had led Russia’s Provisional Government in 1917. Australia’s hierarchy of preferences for national ‘types’ was quite explicitly stated in internal correspondence and guided the choices of its selection mission in Europe. Russian immigrants of the immediate prewar period (both ethnic Russians and Russian Jews) were more likely than their predecessors of the 1920s to have sympathies with the left and a relatively benign attitude towards the Soviet Union. The absence of ‘Russian’ or ‘Soviet’ in the Australian selection committee’s nomenclature reflected the practice of the international refugee organisations and Western occupation regimes in Europe. Arthur Calwell’s optimism about the vigilance of Australian security was unjustified, as Australia has since admitted to allowing a number of Nazi collaborators to enter the country, sometimes knowingly, including some who were accused of serious war crimes.
