Virtually all rabbis escaped the Soviets, including via Chillul Shabbos, and warned their followers to do the same. The halacha here is commonsensical: Escape physical and religious dangers!
Everyone, that is, but two groups: Lubavitch and Novhardok.
Lubavitch using, perhaps, “Lechat’chila Ariber” rhetoric and the like; Novhardok using their “fearlessness” policy, מלכותא בלא תגא, and falling for their own newfangled educational ideas.
What do these two have in common? Lubavitch and Novhardok are both widely understood to be the radical manifestations of their original molds; Chassidus and Mussar, respectively *. Madness is bipartisan.
What about simple halacha? Nu! Feh!
And what were the results? Did imprudence win out? No! We can observe widespread deaths and suffering in the gulag, vast intermarriage, and assimilation. Not to mention the simple “מכניס עצמו לאונס במזיד” of an inability to keep most mitzvos…
Lubavitch is still extremely proud of their misguided lone-wolf war, which cost them so heavily, while Novhardok isn’t really around to record their comment…
This is even worse than Mishlei 22:3: ערום ראה רעה ונסתר ופתיים עברו ונענשו because they pretended this was the will of Hashem, Himself. Perhaps this applies better: אולת אדם תסלף דרכו ועל השם יזעף לבו. And all for lofty, “spiritual” reasons, referred to in the immediately preceding verse: גם בלא דעת נפש לא טוב ואץ ברגלים חוטא!
Gemara Bava Kama 61a:
מאי לא אבה דוד לשתותם דלא אמרינהו משמייהו אמר כך מקובלני מבית דינו של שמואל הרמתי כל המוסר עצמו למות על דברי תורה אין אומרים דבר הלכה משמו ויסך אותם לה’ בשלמא למ”ד הני תרתי משום דעבד לשם שמים אלא למ”ד טמון באש מאי ויסך אותם לה’ דאמרינהו משמא דגמרא.
We have written in the past of Chassidic and Mussarite antinomianism. See here regarding Novhardok, especially.
There is a similar phenomenon today of ignoring halacha for the sake of phony “Kiruv”, of which there is much to say.
*Breslov isn’t Chassidus at all, in my humble opinion, which is why it was opposed more often by modern Chassidim than by pre-Chassidic, paleo (“Litvish”) Jews.