In 1923, after the civil war in Russia, he emigrated to Czechoslovakia, lived in Prague, and studied agricultural sciences there.

In 1943, he was removed by the Germans from the Committee in charges of conducting prohibited activities and arrested.

After being released, he returned to Paris, where he was chosen the president of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile.

Throughout the time was under surveillance by the Gestapo because of his rumoured Jewish background and suspicion of conspiracy to the detriment of the Third Reich.

In the late 1950s and the 1960s, he chaired the League for the Liberation of the Peoples of the USSR, comprising representatives of the Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Ukrainians, Georgians, Belarusians and North Caucasians.