It was founded by General Andrey Vlasov on 14 November 1944, in Prague, occupied Czechoslovakia, which was purposely chosen because it was a Slavic city that was still under Axis control.

The Prague Manifesto supported a social system based on private agriculture and disbandment of the collective farms while keeping the industry nationalized; the Vlasovites opposed their program both to Stalinism and capitalism.

In the chaotic final months of the Third Reich, the divisions under Vlasov's direct command tried to gather in western Czechoslovakia and Austria after briefly engaging the Red Army in Operation April Storm during its advance on Berlin.

A total of 37 people signed the Prague Manifesto, including Red Army defectors, Soviet professors, White emigrés, and ordinary civilians.

[10] The manifesto set out its goals as the restoration of freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and of the press, the defense of private property, and the abolition of forced labor.

Furthermore it called for the creation of a Russian Liberation Army to overthrow the "tyranny created by Stalin" and sought an "honorable peace" with Germany.

[5] There also was an undated memorandum, possibly a draft of a formal agreement, in which the KONR gave up Crimea to Germany and also promised autonomy to the Cossacks and to other groups within Russia.

The suspicions and criticism of the Vlasovites from the Reich officials was summarised in a document by the Ministry of Propaganda official Eberhard Taubert who described his concerns about the movement being "not National Socialist": "It is significant that it does not fight Jewry, that the Jewish Question is not recognized as such at all"; instead it presented "a watered-down infusion of liberal and Bolshevik ideologies", and Taubert described the concern with "strong Anglophile sympathies" and it "toying with the idea of a possible change of course" while not "feel[ing] bound to Germany".