Between Two Fires argues against the forced repatriation of Russian citizens after the Second World War. This forced repatriation was not happening only in the United States and it was not occurring only to Russian citizens. This phenomenon was present throughout Europe and was happening to peoples of many different nationalities, who had been dispersed by the Second World War. The film begins with the suicide of three Russian prisoners of war in the United States at Fort Dix. Throughout the rest of the documentary the audience is shown, through interviews of Russian nationals and photographs, why exactly these Russians would rather take their own lives than return to Russia. Although the film presents a convincing argument to persuade the audience against forced repatriation, the opposing argument needs more attention. I’m sure there are some individuals who agreed with returning the Russians to their own country. In fact our own government made the decision to do so. Thus the film should have included individuals who supported returning the Russians so the opposing argument would be more explicit.

It is important to make sure both sides of an argument are fairly presented. This is paramount in making your argument credible and to avoid appearing bias. In the book Writing Arguments, it has this to say concerning argumentation. “Your ethos will be strengthened if you demonstrate that you understand and empathize with other points of view” (Ramage, Bean, and Johnson 111). This film does an excellent job of refuting Russian repatriation, but its neglect of the opposing view detracts from the overall argument.

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The first counter argument and probably the most obvious is that these Russians shouldn’t be our problem. However, the film shows that the United States had a policy of political protection that it had violated by forcing these Russians to return to their country. In addition, the ideals of freedom and liberty, which the United States was founded upon, spoke against forcing these Russians to return to their country. Thus returning Russians citizens back to Russia to make them the problem of someone else is not acceptable. The documentary does fail to directly address the arguments of those who believe the Russians shouldn’t be our problem. Individuals of this view would argue that the United States had become the new world leader after the Second World War and thus the world was looking to it for leadership. Thus, the United States had more important things to think about than Russian prisoners. It was now the United States responsibility to sort out the proper regulations for the previous Axis powers. Also, many of these Russian prisoners had been fighting for the Germans when they were picked up by American troops. At this point they could be considered the enemy. The film should have included an American citizen or a government official who was in support of the Russian repatriation, to address this contrary view.

The second counter argument is that the wellbeing of the citizens of the United States should take precedence over people from other countries. Evidence from the film speaks against this view. For example, the media made available what Stalin, Russia’s leader, was up to with his harsh policies of torture, imprisonment, and execution of any against communism. Also, these Russians prisoners had been caught fighting for the Germans. So clearly they were against communism, yet they were still returned to Stalin. So even though they were Russian citizens, the United States still had obvious evidence showing why the Russians didn’t want to return to

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Russia. They would rather die or even join the enemy, who had ravaged their country, than face Stalin. Yet we still sent them back and most that returned were tortured, imprisoned, and executed.  The counter argument would say that these prisoners were Russian citizens after all, making them Stalin’s problem. The United States had its own citizens and its own road to recovery to worry about. These Russians should be sent back to participate in the recovery of their own country. In fact, Russia was an ally, so there should be no need to withhold the return of its citizens. To bring to light this counter argument, the film might have provided an American World War Two veteran or someone from the lower class. These individuals would really be looking for help with from the government and thus support the removal of the Russians citizens rather than trying to help them.

The final counter argument revolves around the American prisoners that the Russians had picked up during their offensive against Germany. Stalin had promised to return these prisoners in exchange for the Russian prisoners being held by the United States. If the Russian prisoners were not returned, Stalin had threatened to harm the American prisoners he held. The film should have included interviews from relatives of these American prisoners. With their relatives being threatened, surely they would have agreed with the government’s decision to make the prisoner exchange. Their opinions and views, while this decision was being made, would have offered quite a different opinion on forced repatriation. After all, it was their relatives being held by the Russians. They didn’t have the luxury of just simply protecting the Russians from Stalin because their relatives would suffer for such a decision.

Overall, the film is well put together with lots of evidence, from pictures to interviews that support the argument against forced repatriation. This evidence presents a convincing

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argument that forced repatriation was wrong. These Russian prisoners were after all human beings and should not have been subject to the horrors of a monster like Stalin. They were against communism and should have had our support rather than our condemnation. However, the opposing arguments that supported the return of the Russians should not have been overlooked. By presenting the opposing arguments and then using the evidence already presented in the film to refute these arguments, more credibility would have been added to the argument against forced repatriation.

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