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113487

THE PEOPLES OF THE
SOVIET FAR EAST

WALTER KOLARZ

FREDERICK A. PRAEOER
NEW YORK

By the same author:

MYTHS AND REALITIES IN EASTERN EUROPE
RUSSIA AND HER COLONIES

BOOKS THAT MATTER 9

Published in the United States of America in 1954
by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers
105 West 40th Street, New York 18, N.Y-

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE

This book, though self-contained, is the continuation of Russia and
her Colonies. It deals with Russian colonization and Soviet nationalities
(colonial) policy in a vast territory which I have described, for lack of a
better term, as the 'Soviet Far East 5 . From the official Soviet point of
view, the Soviet Far East comprises all territories of the U.S.S.R.
situated to the east of Lake Baikal, It covers the Autonomous Republics
of Yakutia and Buryat-Mongolia as well as the whole expansive Pacific
coastal areas of the Soviet Union reaching from the Bering Straits
down to Vladivostok. On the whole, I have accepted this official
definition of the 'Soviet Far East' but I have added to it the Mongol
People's Republic, the former People's Republic of Tuva, and a number
of small nationalities which are closely connected with the latter.

Few foreigners have visited the Soviet Far Eastern territories during
the last fifteen or twenty years and most of these few were not exactly
'visitors' but were inmates of Far Eastern forced labour camps. Some
of them, like Mrs. Elinor Lipper, have written moving and revealing
accounts of their experience, but naturally they could not deal with the
problems of Soviet colonial policy in the Far East except in a few
casual though valuable remarks. The only group of foreigners given a
chance to travel extensively as tourists in the Soviet Far East and to
visit even such normally prohibited places as Magadan and Irkutsk
consisted of the former United States Vice-President, Henry Wallace
and his entourage. The Wallace trip took place under the close super-
vision of the Soviet Police Ministry. This fact alone made it impossible
for Mr. Wallace and the members of his mission to get access to the
more essential relevant material on Soviet colonial policy in the
Far East.

The isolation of the Soviet Far East from the outside world was
completed in the second half of 1948. In August of that year the only
Western diplomatic representation in the whole of Soviet Asia, the
American Consulate-General in Vladivostok, was closed down at the
request of the Soviet authorities. On September 30th, 1948, the Soviet
Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a circular which listed as forbidden
areas practically all administrative units of the Far East from Irkutsk
to Vladivostok.

PREFACE

In these circumstances, for any study of the problems of the Soviet
Far East one has to rely almost exclusively on published Soviet material,
and even there one faces considerable difficulties. The Moscow Press
contains only scanty and sporadic information about the problems of
the Soviet Far Eastern territories and the literature which the central
state publishing houses produce about them is poor. From the Soviet
Far East, itself, books, pamphlets and journals have reached the non-
communist world only on a few occasions and it is usually a question
of luck or coincidence whether a given book or pamphlet on the Soviet
Far East becomes available abroad or whether it can be obtained in a
particular country.

As every student of Soviet affairs knows, the term 'Soviet sources'
includes not only positive statements but also omissions. The silence
observed in official Soviet quarters and in their press about a previously
much advertised institution, a prominent personality, or even an entire
people, has often had historical significance. Experience has shown that
such 'negative* evidence though not ideal from the point of view of the
historian is usually reliable. I have used it in this book in a number of
instances, particularly when trying to disentangle the story of Marshal
Blyukher's downfall and in describing the fate of the Korean and
Chinese minorities in the Soviet Far East.

In view of the scarcity of straightforward documentary material I
have also drawn on a number of Soviet novels, plays and poems which
touch upon the problems of the Far East By force of circumstance
Soviet writers are, as a rule, highly responsive to the wishes of the
political leaders of the Soviet State. It is therefore legitimate to consider
Soviet belles-lettres as a fairly accurate reflection of the official com-
munist approach towards the nationalities question and other aspects
of the Soviet Far East. The gaps in my sources are nevertheless colossal
and there is little hope that they can be filled as long as Soviet Russia
and its sphere of influence remain virtually sealed off from the rest
of the globe.

My sincere gratitude goes to those friends who have sacrificed much
time to read either the manuscript or the proofs of this book which
owes a great deal to their frank criticism and valuable suggestions.

September 21st, 1953 WALTER KOLARZ

CONTENTS

PREFACE page v

Chapter I THE RUSSIANS OF THE
SOVIET FAR EAST

I THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK 1

The Far Eastern Republic
The Far Eastern Territory
The purge of the 'civilians'
The purge of the Far Eastern army
The triumph of the N.K.V.D.

II THE PROBLEM OF COLONIZATION 12

The historical background
Colonization by convicts
Military colonization
Komsomol colonization
The 'normal* colonization

m THE SOVIET FAR EASTERN MYSTIQUE 22

Russian Columbuses
'Russian America*
The Russian Pacific
'Nevelskoy's immortal feat*
Port Arthur
Sergey Lazo

Chapter H THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET

FAR EAST 32

I THE 'RUSSIAN* KOREANS 32

Under the Czarist regime
During and after the civil war
Little Soviet Korea
Koreans as 'spies' and 'diversiomsts*
The aftermath of the 'liquidation* measures
The Soviet Korean diaspora

vii

CONTENTS

II THE CHINESE MINORITY IN RUSSIA 42

Vladivostok or Kai Shen Vei?
Soviet Russia and the latinization of the Chinese

script
Chinese and Russian 'proletariat*

in THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE PEOPLE 50
Sakhalin
Kurile Islands
Kamchatka

Chapter JH THE ABORIGINES OF THE

SOVIET FAR EAST 65

Two views on native policy

Communist administrators

Natives, state trusts and forced labour

The reindeer problem

The cultural revolution

Communists and Shamans

The fight against Christian missions

Stalin - the sun

Far Eastern aborigines and Soviet foreign policy

TheNanai

'The last of the Udege'

The Nivkhi

Kamchadals

"Aleutian National District*

Ainu, Russians and Japanese

The 'National Areas' of the Eveni and Koryaks

Chukotka the Russian colony facing Alaska

The sovieuzation of Chukotka

Chukotka during the war; economic exploitation

and 'ideological* concessions
Chukotka and the *cold war'
Immigration of Russians and resettlement of Chukchi

Chapter IV RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS 102

Multi-national Yakutia

The historical background: from 1630 to 1924

The gold republic

Yakut nationalism

The Basharin incident

'Shortcomings' and achievements of Yakut Soviet

literature
Russian cultural supremacy

Chapter V THE SOVIET REGIME AND

THE MONGOLS 115

CONTENTS

I THE BURYAT MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC 115
Soviet power and Buddhism
Pan-Mongolism real and alleged
The dismemberment of Buryatia
The triumph of Russian influence
Cultural and linguistic deviations
Ideological struggles in the post-war period
A 'new* ideology for the Buryats

n THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC 128

Mongolia's place in the strategy and theory of

world communism
Outer Mongolia and Czarist Russia
The foundation of the M.P.R.
Left-wing extremism
Mongolia and Japan
The murder of Marshal Demid and the triumph of

Marshal Choibalsan
Choibalsan's "foreign policy"
The new constitution
Choibalsan's economic policy
The death of Choibalsan
The cultural revolution
Mongol literature
The Mongol theatre
Minorities in the M P.R.
Russia, China and Mongolia

Chapter VI THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS 161

I THE REPUBLIC OF TUVA 161

The first Russian annexation
Tuvmian pan-Mongohsm
The creation of a *Tuvinian culture'
The second annexation

n THE SHORIAN NATIONAL DISTRICT 169

ni THE AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE OF THE HIGH ALTAI 171
'Burkhanism* - the Oirot religion
The dream of 'Greater Qirotia*
Soviet power and Oirot nationalism
TTie 'House of the Altaiwoman*

IV THE KHAKASSIAN AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE 176

Chapter Vn THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN

PERSPECTIVE 179

MAPS

page

1. The South-eastern part of the Soviet Far East xii

2. The Russian Empire in the North Pacific 23

3. The Aborigines of the Soviet Far East 64

4. The Mongol People's Republic in relation to China 1 14

5. The Tuvinians and their Cousins 160

ILLUSTRATION

Types and Personalities* Reproduced from jacket 186-7

Index 189

former Jicrean^
MUtonal district

1. THE SOUTH-EASTERN PART OF THE SOVIET FAR BAST

xii

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

Outwardly there is no great difference between the Russian Far East and
the rest of the Soviet Russian Empire. The Communist Party seems to
rule in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk as firmly as in Moscow and Lenin-
grad. Nevertheless, the Russian Far East has an individuality of its own
and has its special problems. Vladivostok lies as far away from Moscow
as London does from Winnipeg, Capetown or Calcutta. Such a gigantic
distance must have political consequences even in an autocratic or
totalitarian state. In territories where Russia borders on China, Korea,
Japan and the United States, the outlook of the local Russian inhabitants
is bound to differ from that prevailing on the banks of the Don or the
Volga. Geographical circumstances force the Russians of Vladivostok,
Blagoveshchensk or Khabarovsk to feel themselves Tar Easterners*
('Dalnevostochniki'), pioneers who have a special political and historic
mission, incomparably more complicated than the tasks confronting the
population of Central or Western Russia.

In Czarist Russia it was generally understood that the Far East was a
'special case'. Until Russia suffered defeat in the war against Japan in
1905 she looked upon her Far East as a base for the conquest of wide
Asiatic territories - Manchuria, Korea, China and Tibet. There seemed
to be no limit to her imperialistic ambitions. Japan's victory com-
pletely changed this situation. Russian expansion in the Far East met
with a serious setback, and many Russians even doubted whether
Vladivostok and other Far Eastern possessions of the Czarist Empire
could be held for any length of time. Russia, it is true, was connected
with the Pacific coastal areas by the Trans-Siberian Railway, but there
was widespread fear that this link might not prove solid enough. In
1909 the well-known liberal monthly journal of St. Petersburg, Vestnik
Ewopy, warned the government that the Russian Far East might act
towards Russia in the same way as New England had acted towards the
English crown. The separation of the Pacific possessions from the
Russian Empire appeared as a real danger which could be averted only
by a policy of concessions and economic privileges. The writer of the
article in Vestnik Evropy reminded his readers that the revolt of Britain's
former North American colonies occurred over a question of customs

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

duties and that this should be a lesson to Russia in dealing with her
distant Far Eastern colonies. 1 A democratic and liberal Russia might
well have granted special rights to the Russian Far East and perpetuated
the freedom of customs duties which the ports of Vladivostok and
Nikolayevsk enjoyed at the beginning of the century.* The Russian Far
East might have achieved, within the Russian Empire, something
approaching a dominion status. The democratic regime which was ready
to open Russia's windows into the world collapsed in 1917 after only a
few months' existence. But even the Soviet regime, which succeeded it,
could not escape from the geographical peculiarities of the Far East and
from the special mentality of the Russian 'Far Easterners'.

/. THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

THE FAR EASTERN REPUBLIC

In the early years of Soviet rule the special communist approach towards
the Russian Far East found expression in the establishment of the
'Far Eastern Republic' (F.E.R.). This buffer state was set up by a
decision of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party.
The Republic was to appeal to the patriotism and to the anti- Japanese
animosities of the Far Eastern Russians, but not to their sympathies for
an international communism. It was to have a 'bourgeois democratic
character*. Its constitution did not include any provisions about the
setting-up of Soviets, but provided for a National Assembly to be
elected by universal direct and secret ballot. The national flag of the
Republic was red and blue and its coat of arms discarded the com-
munist symbols, hammer and sickle. Instead, it showed an anchor and a
pickaxe crossed over a wheat-sheaf. There were no 'People's Com-
missars' in the Far Eastern Republic, only ministers, and there was no
'Red Army', only a 'Revolutionary People's Army'.

Although the F.E.R. was founded by the Kremlin for mere tactical
reasons some of its leaders took it very seriously and they wanted to
transform the Republic into a hving political reality. They demanded
that the F.E.R., which reached in the west as far as Lake Baikal, should
extend its territory to the Yenisey River, and they also pleaded for
greater independence from Moscow than the Bolshevik Central Com-
mittee was willing to grant, Some quarters of the F.E.R. even toyed with

* Complete freedom from customs duties existed m the Russian Far East between 1862
and 1888 In 1888 customs duties were introduced for sugar, matches and kerosene and
after 1901 duty had to be paid on industrial articles but not on agricultural produce
(except for flour) nor on capital goods. Only Sakhalin and Kamchatka remained exempt.
Td attract more settler's freedom from customs duties was restored m 1904, but was
finally aboEshed again in 19'09.

THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

the idea of an American orientation and conducted a great deal of
propaganda in the United States. A dispute broke out also among the
Far Eastern communists as to the selection of the Republican capital.
Those who stood for greater independence suggested that the capital
should be established there where contact with the non-Russian world
was most intimate, in Vladivostok. The Bolshevik Central Committee,
on the other hand, realized the dangers inherent in such a move. It
ruled that the headquarters of the Far Eastern government should be
in the Russian city of Chita and not in the cosmopolitan port of
Vladivostok.

Throughout its existence the F.E.R. had a very difficult time. Parts
of the Republic were occupied by Japanese troops and others were the
scene of white guard activities. Accordingly, the government of the
F.E.R. exercised only a nominal sovereignty over certain of its provinces.
Paradoxically enough, the Japanese occupation of the F.E.R. was not
only the chief source of its weakness but also its principal reason d'etre.
The setting-up of the F.E.R. enabled the Russian Far Easterners,
particularly the peasant colonists, to support Soviet foreign policy
and the Soviet fight against foreign intervention without identifying
themselves with the Communist Party and its economic aspirations.
On October 25th, 1922, the last Japanese soldier left the Russian main-
land and the need for a Tar Eastern Republic* ceased automatically.
The Constituent Assembly of the F.E.R., in which the communists had
four-fifths of all seats, decided to hand over its powers to a 'Far Eastern
Revolutionary Committee*, the Dalrevkom, which was already a direct
organ of the Soviet Government.

The decision of the Far Eastern Constituent Assembly did not mean
that the Russians of the Far East were in any way united behind the
Communist Party. The communists constituted a minority in the Far
East even smaller than anywhere else in Soviet Russia. Early in 1922
they had only 7,000 members in the whole of the F.E.R., and this was
on the eve of a purge which aimed at a reduction of the membership by
15 to 18 per cent. 2 The Party relied on the support of a section of the
Tar Eastern Trades Union Congress' (D.V.S.P.S.) which had 40,000
members; but how many of them really sympathized with the com-
munists it is impossible to say. In view of its numerical weakness and
isolation the communist movement in the Far East had to go carefully
and had to make some concessions to regionalist tendencies. Many
people in the Russian Far East continued to favour a special status for
their homeland and hoped that after the abolition of the F.E.R. it would
not become just another Soviet Russian province. At the beginning their
toopfcs wbre not eatitfdy betrayed.

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

THE FAR EASTERN TERRITORY

During the whole period from 1922 to 1937-38 the Soviet Far East
enjoyed a special position within the Soviet Union. From the adminis-
trative point of view the Soviet Far East formed one large unit, the
Tar Eastern Territory' (F.E.T.). It covered roughly one-eighth of the
entire surface of the U.S.S.R. The F.E.T. existed from January 1926
until October 1938, but there was a slight amputation of the territory
in 1930, when the districts of Sreten and Chita were detached. Militarily,
too, the Soviet Far East had a semi-independent existence by the
establishment, in August 1929, of the Special Far Eastern Army
('Osobaya Dalnevostochnaya Anniya') usually referred to by its initials
as ODVA and a year after its foundation as OKDVA (Osobaya
Krasnoznamyonnaya Dalnevostochnaya Arariya', meaning 'Special
Far Eastern Army decorated with the Order of the Red Banner').

Both army commanders and administrators in the Far East showed
a considerable degree of independence, which, in some cases, even ex-
pressed itself in open opposition to the regime. This is true, in particular
of the party leaders of Vladivostok, a city which, like that other opposi-
tion centre, Leningrad, was a window into the world. The radical
course, aiming at the liquidation of the remnants of private property,
which the Bolshevik Party took after its Fifteenth Congress (1927)
did not meet with approval in a trading centre like Vladivostok. Both
Vladivostok and Chita became, in the late twenties, strongholds of a
right-wing opposition and the Central Committee in Moscow had to
dismiss the local party chiefs. 3

Difficulties between the centre and the Far Eastern communists con-
tinued after the suppression of the right-wing deviation. Problems con-
nected with the implementation of the First and Second Five- Year Plans
were an almost inexhaustible source of disagreements. Already during
the first Five- Year Plan period the State Planning Commission in
Moscow had worked out big development schemes for the Far East,
providing for the building of additional railways, an increase of coal
and oil production, and far-reaching industrialization. When it became
clear that many of the envisaged projects could not be carried out
neither Moscow nor Khabarovsk wanted to take the blame for the
failure. The central authorities complained about the inefficiency of the
'Far Easterners* and the latter denounced the lack of understanding of
the officials at the centre. At the Sixteenth Party Congress, which was
held in 1930, the spokesman of the F.E.T., Perepechko, referred to the
'hideous attitude of various central organizations' towards the economic
problems of the Far East. 4 If it were not for this negligence, Perepechko
asserted, the F.E.T. would carry out the basic tasks of the Five- Year

THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

Plan in three years. The later development showed that it took not three
but ten years to reach the target figures which the first Five- Year Plan
had fixed for the coal and oil production of the Far East. * The Central
Government refused to admit that the shortcomings in the Far East
resulted from deficiencies of ail-Union planning, and tried to put the
blame on local scapegoats who were charged with committing deliberate
sabotage. More than that, the Central Government alleged that the Far
Eastern administrators were 'Japanese spies', although they were,
presumably, no more connected with Japan than the Leningrad opposi-
tion was linked with Germany. The Far Eastern communists, it is true,
had shown great eagerness to establish commercial relations with other
Pacific countries including Japan, but this had been done with the
agreement of the centre.

THE PURGE OF THE 'CIVILIANS'

Although there was no evidence for charges of high treason the Soviet
Government carried out a purge on a vast scale throughout the Soviet
Far East. It would be incorrect to say that there was one big purge.
There were at least two purges, one directed primarily against 'civilian*
communists, and another aimed mainly at the army. The first purge,
which was closely connected with economic shortcomings, started in the
first months of 1937 and led to the disappearance of the head of the
administration of the F.E.T., Krutov, and of the party secretary,
Lavrentev. At the same time administrative heads and party officials
were sacked all over the Soviet Far East. For many months there were
no 'first secretaries' in many city committees and district committees
of the Communist Party.

There is one aspect of the purge of the 'civilians' in the Far East which
deserves special mention, the purge of the railwaymen. The railwaymen
of the Far East were traditionally the backbone of the Communist Party
in that distant part of the Soviet Union, and the solidity of Moscow's
connection with the Pacific coastal areas depended largely on their
efficiency. In the 'thirties' their job became increasingly difficult. Between
1933 and 1936 the freight turnover of the Far Eastern railways had
increased three times. This was more than they could stand. The Far
Eastern railway system broke down. A great many accidents occurred.
The Government asserted that they were all engineered 'on instructions
of the Japanese intelligence service.' The supreme responsibility for
the wrecking of trains was officially attributed to Trotsky and to the

* Production of oil was to reach 464,000 tons by the end of the first Five-Year Plan in
1932. In 1933 output was 196,000 tons; in 1936, 308,000 tons, and in 1938, 360,000 tons The
coal target for 1932 was 4,000,000 tons In 1933 output had reached 2,020,000 tons, and in
1936, 3,617,000 tons. The target for 1937 was 5,000,000 tons, but actual production in
1938 was only 4,750,000 tons.

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

various members of the so-called 'Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rights and
Trotskyites' which was allegedly led by Bukharin. In the Far East itself
the Soviet Government staged a big trial of leading railway officials
working on the Amur railway line, a sector of the Trans-Siberian
railway. The trial took place in the town of Svobodny. All forty-four
defendants were sentenced to death as 'Japanese spies'. They included
the deputy head of the Amur railway line, the head of its planning
department, the deputy head of the locomotive service and many other
people of similar standing in the Far Eastern railway transport. 5 The
sentence of Svobodny had considerable repercussions throughout the
F.E.T. Sweeping changes took place not only in the top leadership
of the Far Eastern railways but also among the rank and file of the
railwaymen. Demobilized soldiers were rapidly trained for the railway
and called upon to fill the gaps opened by the purges.

The man who, in 1937, earned out the purge in the Soviet Far East
was a complete newcomer to the territory. His name was Vareikis, he
was Lithuanian-born and had occupied various important positions
in European Russia, as party secretary first of Voronezh and later of
Stalingrad. He was also a member of the Central Committee of the
Bolshevik Party. When he arrived in Khabarovsk in the spring of 1937
he seemed to possess the full confidence of Stalin, but by the end of the
year he had lost it. He was charged with surrounding himself with
spies and white guardists. A case in point was the editor of the largest
Far Eastern newspaper Tikhookeanskaya Zvezda (Far Eastern ftar),
Shver, who was expelled from the party by a special decision of the
Central Committee taken at the beginning of October. 6 Vareikis sur-
vived his friend only by a few days.

THE PURGE OF THE FAR EASTERN ARMY

The disgrace of Vareikis and his supporters carried the disintegration of
the party apparatus in the Far East a step further. Only one important
force continued to exist in the F.E.T., the Special Far Eastern Army
and its commander, Marshal Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher. But it
was clear that this last bulwark of Far Eastern 'autonomism* would,
sooner or later, be affected by the big Stalinist clean up of Russia's
military leadership. One of the defendants of the Tukhachevsky trial of
June 1937, the commander of the Byelorussian Military District,
Uborevich, had had important connections with the Far East In 1922
he had been the liberator of Vladivostok and he had stayed in the F.E.T.
for several years. There was another military person who was closely
linked with Stalin's Far Eastern opponents, Gamarnik, the chief of the
Political Administration of the Red Army and an Assistant People's
Commissar for Defence. Had he not committed suicide he would most

THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

certainly have appeared in the Tukhachevsky trial. Gamarnik's presence
in the Far East was frequently mentioned in the Soviet Press, the last
time late in 1936, when he attended the autumn manoeuvres of the
OKDVA. 7 One of the last pictures which Soviet newspapers published
of Gamarnik showed him with the Far Eastern deputies to the Eighth
Congress of Soviets. 8 So there is no doubt that Gamarnik stood in close
personal contact with some of the leading personalities of the F.E.T.
It is possible that he had closer contacts with the civilian than with the
military opposition in the Far East. This might explain why his fall
from favour did not harm the Special Far Eastern Army directly, ex-
cept for its political departments which were under Gamarnik's orders. 9
At any rate, the Tukhachevsky-Gamarnik affaire did not affect
Blyukher's prestige immediately. Blyukher was even one of the judges
who sent Tukhachevsky and his associates to the gallows: these judges,
who also included Marshal Timoshenko and Marshal Budyonny, were
officially referred to as 'the flower of our glorious army'. 10 In the months
after the Tukhachevsky trial they served Bolshevik propaganda as
examples that Stalin had not wiped out Russia's entire military leader-
ship.

It seems that in the winter of 1937-38, Blyukher and his army reached
the culminating point of their power in the Far Eastern Territory. The
influence of Blyukher and his army was particularly visible in the
elections which took place in December 1937 for the Supreme Soviet
of the U.S.S.R., the first to be held under the new Stalin Constitution.
Out of the nine deputies which the F.E.T. sent to the Soviet of the
Union four belonged to the OKDVA, including Blyukher himself and
his deputy, Mikhail Karpovich Levandovsky, who commanded the
troops of the maritime region around Vladivostok. The fifth deputy,
a submarine commander, represented the Pacific Fleet* The party,
the administration and the N.K.V,D.t had one deputy each. Only the
ninth deputy represented the common people. He was a Stakhanovite
worker in the timber industry.

When the Soviet parliament met in January 1938 Blyukher was
elected a member of its presidium. In the following month, on Red
Army Day, he was awarded the 'Order of Lenin'. At the end of May a
meeting of 6,500 workers and peasants nominated him as a candidate
for the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the R.S.F.S.R. 11 Until the

* The Soviet Pacific Fleet was built up between 1932 and 1937. In the first years of the
Soviet rgune a Russian Pacific Fleet was as good as non-existent; until 1932 it included
but one single gun-boat. Describing the situation at the time of the arrival in Vladivostok
of the first Red Navy commander in the Pacific, M. V. Viktorov, Pravda said pointedly
'There was a commander, there was also a Pacific, but no Pacific Fleet' (Pravda, March
29th, 1937.) It was Viktorov's achievement to create a Soviet Pacific Fleet in a matter of
four to five years. He too was eliminated in the big clean-up of 1937-38.
t The N.K.V.D., the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, later Ministry for
Internal Affairs (M.V.D.) is the ministry responsible for the Soviet police.

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

end of July, Blyukher still appeared in public and was still in command
in the Soviet Far East, but two rather strange things had happened.
First, a carefully prepared party conference of the OKDVA, which was
scheduled for the beginning of June, was cancelled at the last minute;
and secondly, the OKDVA itself was suddenly renamed Tar Eastern
Front' ('Dalnevostochnii Krasnoznamyonnii Front*). The change occur-
red between July 5th and 6th, and must have greatly puzzled the Soviet
public, which was as familiar with the initials 'OKDVA' as with
U.S.S.R., N.K.V.D. and R.S.F.S.R.

The actual disappearance of Blyukher coincides with some major
border incidents which the Japanese provoked on Lake Khasan during
the last days of July and the beginning of August. The Soviet armed
forces remained in control of the situation and killed over 400 Japanese.
On the whole the incident on Lake Khasan was rather welcome to the
Kremlin, for it gave the government the opportunity to prove that the
efficiency of the army was not impaired by the purge. Moreover, the
'defeat of the samurais', as official propaganda styled the historic
episode on the Manchurian border, supplied the pretext for a big cam-
paign to strengthen the morale of the Soviet rear. All over the Soviet
Union meetings were held in factories, collective farms and offices
protesting against the Japanese aggression and sending greetings to the
Soviet armed forces who were watching over the security of the Far
Eastern borders. None of the resolutions adopted at these meetings
contained the slightest reference to the once so popular Marshal
Blyukher. The press gave all the credit for the speedy liquidation of the
Khasan Lake incident to rank and file soldiers and junior officers, as
if no general had been connected with the operation. Only considerably
later was the new commander in the Far East mentioned - Grigory
Mikhailovich Shtern. 12

What happened to Blyukher and why it happened was never officially
stated, except, perhaps, for some general cryptic remarks made by the
Head of the Political Administration of the Red Army, Mekhlis, and by
Blyukher's successor. The former told the party conference of the 'First
Separate Army',* in September 1938, that the plotters among the party
members of the Far Eastern Army had been 'smashed and destroyed'.
Shtern was a little more explicit when, in addressing the Eighteenth
Party Congress, he referred to 'traitors, spies and monsters' who had
infiltrated into responsible positions in the Far Eastern armies.

The disgrace of the Marshal was not a local event of the Soviet Far
East, but one of national importance for Soviet Russia. Blyukher was a
potential Russian Bonaparte, more dangerous to Stalin than even

* The 'First Separate Army* ('Pervaya Otdelnaya Krasnoznamyonnaya Arauya') was a
new name for the purged OKDVA, the term Tar Eastern Front* being used for a few
weeks only.

THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

Marshal Tukhachevsky. The latter was primarily a soldier, but Blyukher
was both soldier and political leader. Unlike Tukhachevsky, Blyukher
was of proletarian origin - he had started life as a shop-assistant in
St. Petersburg and had later become a metalworker - and his popularity
with the Russian working class was secure. Unlike Tukhachevsky,
Blyukher had suffered under the Czarist regime. He had joined the
Bolshevik Party a whole year before the October Revolution, early
enough to lay claim to the once so honourable title of 'Old Bolshevik*.
Although only a private in the Czarist army in which Tukhachevsky
had served as an officer, Blyukher emerged as one of the great military
commanders of the young Soviet State during the Civil War. In 1918,
by his remarkable expedition across the Ural mountains, he secured the
victory of the Revolution on what was then the 'Eastern Front'. For
this outstanding feat he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. He
was the first person to receive this decoration. 13

Blyukher's association with the Soviet Far East, which became the
main reason for his prominence, started in 1921. He commanded that
heroic march to the Pacific Ocean which included such momentous
events of the Russian Civil War as the storming of the heavily fortified
white-guard stronghold, Volochayevka, the capture of Khabarovsk, and
the final liquidation of Japanese intervention.

For Russia as a whole the elimination of Blyukher meant that Stalin's
last potential competitor, a man who might have easily become more
popular than he, had gone. For the Soviet Far East it meant the end of a
historic period and it also resulted in a rewriting of its past history.
Naturally, Blyukher's real historic feats remained unchanged, but the
regime did its best to strike his name from history as it lives on in the
minds of the people, particularly in the minds of the rising generation.
It is difficult to write the history of the Soviet Far East up to 1938 with-
out mentioning Blyukher, but Stalin's historians have achieved this
task. Blyukher's name is now left out of all accounts of the Russian
Civil War. The first edition of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia, in its
volume, Number 6, which was published in 1930, described Blyukher as
'one of the outstanding personalities of the Red Army*. The second
edition of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia, which was published after
the Second World War, did not mention him at all.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE N.K.V.D,

The reorganization of the 'Special Far Eastern Army' and the disgrace
of its commander were followed by the abolition of the Far Eastern
Territory. It may be argued that this latter measure was not especially
prompted by the peculiarities of the situation in the Far East. The
Soviet Government had gradually abolished all the original large

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

administrative units, such as, for instance, the West Siberian Territory,
the East Siberian Territory and the North Caucasus Territory. The Far
Eastern Territory was, however, the last to be affected by these adminis-
trative reforms, and then only after the purges there had been completed.
On October 20th, 1938, it was decreed that the Far Eastern Territory
would cease to exist and that two new 'Territories' would take its place,
the Khabarovsk Territory, which still included the bulk of the former
F.E.T., and the Maritime Territory, with Vladivostok as the capital.
After the war the administrative splitting up of the Soviet Far East was
carried further. In the west, the Khabarovsk Territory lost the Amur
Province (administrative centre: Blagoveshchensk) and, in the east,
Sakhalin was removed from its jurisdiction and made a self-contained
province.

To consolidate the position of the party in the two new 'Territories',
a position so badly shaken by the purges, the government saw it neces-
sary to strengthen the powers of the N.K.V.D., particularly the control
which the latter exercised over several vital branches of Soviet Far
Eastern economy. The full extent of the N.K.V.D. rule in the Far East
was disclosed by the Soviet Economic Plan for 1941, a secret document
produced for inter-departmental use, but not intended for the Soviet
public and still less for foreigners.* It showed that the People's Com-
missariat for Internal Affairs was a much more important organizer of
certain industrial activities than the ministries nominally responsible
for them. The plan revealed, for instance, that the N.K.V.D. con-
trolled nearly 83 per cent of the coal output of the Khabarovsk Ter-
ritory. Only 13 per cent of it was in the hands of the People's Com-
missariat for Coal (Narkomugol) and the remaining 4 per cent was
split up between other ministries. In the field of timber production the
N.K.V.D. did not hold the same monopoly. It provided 'only' one-
third of the entire timber supply of the territory, slightly more than the
quota allocated to the People's Commissariat for tie Timber Industry
(Narkomles). Another important sector of N.K.V.D. work was pro-
duction of building material. Over one-fifth of the bricks produced in
the Khabarovsk Territory in 1941 was to come from the Chief Adminis-
tration of Corrective Labour Camps, one of the specialized agencies of
the N.K.V.D. In the much smaller Maritime Territory the N.K.V.D.
has little importance as an economic factor, except for the timber
industry, where it tackled over 20 per cent of the whole production. But

* The full title of the document is 4 Gosudarstvenny Plan Razvitiya Narodnogo Khozyaistva
S.S.S.R. na 1941 god (Pnlozheniya k Postanovlemyu S.N K, S.S.S R. i TsK VKP (b) Nr.'
127 ot 17 Yanvarya 1941 g.) - State Plan for the Development of the National Economy
of the U.S S.R. for 1941 (Appendices to the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars
and of the Central Committee of the All-Umon Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Nr 127
of January 17th, 1941 ) The material on the economy of the Soviet Far East is contained
in the appendices 371, 372 and 373, pp. 324-336.

THE POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

even where the N.K.V.D.-M.V.D. has no direct economic power it is
the decisive political force, above all, in border areas like the Maritime
Territory of the Soviet Far East.

There are indications, however, that the police ministry has en-
countered certain difficulties among the Far Eastern Russians during the
war and post-war period. Conditions were certainly favourable to a
re-emergence of that Far Eastern regionalism which Soviet power has
tried so hard to eliminate. The people of Vladivostok, in particular,
must have felt once more that the natural destiny of their city was that
of a window into the world. They saw the many American lend-lease
shipments arriving in their harbour and were bound to draw certain
conclusions about the desirability of international trade and Soviet-
American co-operation. More than people in other parts of the Soviet
Union must the Russian inhabitants of the Pacific coastal areas have
resented the policy of rigid isolationism which the Soviet Government
has pursued particularly since 1947.

This frame of mind of the Tar Easterners' makes it understandable
that the very existence of an American consulate in Vladivostok was a
matter of concern to the Soviet Government. The building of the
consulate was put under constant supervision and for long periods it
was floodlit at night. In 1948, the Soviet Government used a flimsy
pretext to demand from the United States that they should withdraw
their consular personnel from the Pacific port. The measure had little
importance for the Americans as the activities of the four American
consular officials were extremely limited, but it had a certain symbolic
significance. The closing down of the consulate was a way of telling the
people of Vladivostok that their hopes of their city becoming a link
between Russia and the West were once more doomed. Some years later
the charge was made that the consulate had been the centre of a spy-
ring. This accusation was first put forward in the short story In a Seaside
Town ('V Primorskom Gorode') which the popular Soviet illustrated
Ogonyok published in 1940. In the daily press the 'plot' was mentioned
for the first time on February 8th, 1953, when Izvestiya wrote : In 1947,
the organs of the state security service liquidated a spy-nest organized
by the assistant naval attach^ at the American consulate general of
Vladivostok, Richard'. Izvesiiya produced no further details nor any
evidence to support its disclosure which it simply quoted from a book
The Secret Weapon of the Doomed. This latter work had come out under
the auspices of the Komsomol organization. The absurdity of the
Vladivostok spy story does not preclude the possibility that many
Russian Far Easterners in the late 'forties' and early 'fifties' were perse-
cuted for pro-Western sentiments just as others had been victimized
for alleged pro- Japanese leanings in the late 'thirties.'

The particular sensitiveness which the Soviet authorities have shown

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

with regard to the Far Eastern Russians since the Second World War
can also be illustrated by another fact. Soviet jamming of Western broad-
casts started in the Far Eastern territories of the Soviet Union several
months before it came into operation in other parts of Russia.

II. THE PROBLEM OF COLONIZATION

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The great decisive problem which had confronted both Czarist and
Russian authorities in the Far East was that of the colonization of the
territory. Under the Czarist regime Russian colonization could be
roughly subdivided into three periods. The first ran from the annexa-
tion of the Amur and Pacific coastal regions in 1858-60 to 1883, the
second from 1883 to about 1900, and the third from 1900 until the
First World War.

Until 1883, the only way of reaching the Far East from European
Russia was to cross the whole of Siberia on horseback, and this meant
two to four years' travel. The formidable journey, under very primitive
conditions, resulted in complete physical exhaustion which, in a number
of cases, compelled the prospective Amur colonists to abandon their
original aim and settle down somewhere in Siberia. Those who even-
tually reached the end of their journey were appallingly weak from
starvation, hardship, and the diseases which they had contracted during
the journey. To make things worse there was no proper settlers'
organization to help them when they arrived. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that in such circumstances the colonization of the Russian Far
East made little progress, and the yearly average number of newcomers
in these parts did not exceed 1,000.

The year 1883 saw the opening of the sea route for the use of pro-
spective settlers. Despite the fact that the sea route reduced the journey
to a few weeks only, it never became really popular with Russian and
Ukrainian colonists, since travelling by sea was alien to their mentality.
Nevertheless, several thousands of would-be settlers let themselves be
persuaded to board ships in Odessa for Vladivostok, where they received
a much better welcome than those who had arrived earlier by the land
route; they were fed and housed, given medical attention and provided
with farming equipment.

It was only after 1900, with the opening of direct rail communication
between Russia and the Far East, that Russian colonization did enter a
more active phase. In the initial stage the Trans-Siberian railway line
cut the duration of the journey to approximately thirty days. While the
first Russian colonists in the Far East had come chiefly from the over-
populated gubernii (provinces) of Kiev, Chernigov and Poltava, the

THE PROBLEM OF COLONIZATION

inhabitants of over forty-five European Russian gubernii participated
in the colonization after the hardships of a long and complicated
journey had been alleviated. 14 Migration to the Far East assumed a real
mass character, particularly after the Russo-Japanese War, when
numbers reached the record height of 76,637 in 1907.

The boom of the migration to the Far East in the last years of the
Czarist regime made little difference to the magnitude of the task which
the Soviet power had to face. This can be gathered from the fact that
in 1926 the total number of inhabitants in the F.E.T. was still below
the two million mark, and this included both Asiatics and Europeans.
The number of Europeans alone did not exceed 1,600,000, including
1,531,000 representatives of the three main Slavonic peoples of the
U.S.S.R. - Great Russians, Ukrainians* and Byelorussians. Thus,
the Europeans of the Russian Far East were an insignificant factor
compared with the masses of China and Japan living at Russia's door-
step. We shall see now by what means the Soviet Government tried to
change the situation and what success it achieved in its endeavours.

COLONIZATION BY CONVICTS

Colonization by convicts is neither a Soviet nor a Russian invention.
It has been practised elsewhere, for instance, in Australia, but there it
came to an end in 1838. In Russia, more particularly in the Russian Far
East, colonization by convicts is not only flourishing at the present time,
but it may not even have reached its maximum expansion. Certain
remote Soviet Far Eastern territories have absorbed especially high
numbers of forced labourers. Consequently, the colonization of the
vast area which forms the hinterland of the Okhotsk Sea is almost ex-
clusively due to convicts working under the supervision of the M, V.D.

* According to the 1926 census the Ukrainians in the Far Eastern Territory numbered
315,000 and the Byelorussians 41,000. There are particularly important Ukrainian
settlements near the town of Blagoveshchensk, as well as at several points along the
railway line running from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok, parallel to the Chinese-Soviet
border. The Soviet regime provided Ukrainian language schools for the Ukrainian
settlers and founded as many as seventeen Ukrainian 'National Districts' in various parts
oftheF.E.T,

Ukrainian nationalists refer to the entire Soviet Pacific coastal area as the 'Green Wedge'
(Zeleny Klin) as distinct from the 'Grey Wedge 1 , which is the Ukrainian settlers* area in
Northern Kirghizistan and Southern Kazakhstan. These nationalists are inclined to
consider the Soviet Pacific region a Ukrainian and not a Russian national possession.
Indeed, the Ukrainian Encyclopedia, published by Ukrainian scholars of Eastern Gahcia
during the inter-war period, described the 'Green Wedge* as a 'Ukrainian colony on the
Pacific Ocean*. The Encyclopedia estimated that 30 per cent of the population of the
'Green Wedge' were Ukrainians, against 52 per cent 'Muscovites*, i.e, Great Russians.
(Ukramska Zagalna Entsiklopedia Lviv-Stanislaviv-Kolomiya, 1935, vol, n, pp 42-3.)
The importance of the 'Ukrainian problem* in the Soviet Far East must not, however,
be overestimated The dividing line in the Far East does not run between the various
groups of European colonists but between Europeans and Asiatics.

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

(previously N.K.V.D.). Under the general direction of the latter a
powerful state enterprise called 'Dalstroy' has come into being in the
Soviet Far East. It has taken over many functions that are usually
carried out by local government organs. Dalstroy is primarily a
mining trust for the development of gold mining on the upper reaches
of the Kolyma River. Similar to some mitring companies in the colonies
of other powers, such as the Societe Mini&re du Haut Katanga in the
Belgian Congo, the Dalstroy rules almost as sovereign master over
the territory where it exploits the underground riches. Although
administrative authorities do exist in the land of the Dalstroy they are
completely dependent on the directorate of this enterprise.

The activities of the Dalstroy are many-sided. The 'Mining Adminis-
tration' ('Gornoe Upravlenie') is only one of several big departments
over which the Dalstroy director and his two deputy directors rule. In
addition to the 'Political Administration', there is an 'Administration
for Agriculture' supervising the work of the local collective farms and
state farms, and an 'Administration for Road Building'. There are also
a fair number of subsidiary trusts and enterprises which take their
orders from the Dalstroy director. There are, for instance, the supply
organizations 'Dalstroysnab' and 'Kolymsnab', the coal-mining trust
'Dalugol', a building trust, the state trading firm 'Magadantorg' and a
special fleet which connects the Dalstroy with Vladivostok. This entire
huge organization is kept together by a small army of M.V.D. men and
by a whole network of 'political departments', the activity of which ex-
tends to the most distant parts of the Kolyma mining district. The bulk
of the workers, technicians and officials of the Dalstroy consists of
actual convicts, or of ex-convicts who have been set free because of
'good behaviour'. A list of over 400 Dalstroy officials and workers who
were awarded orders and medals at the beginning of 1941 shows that
the Dalstroy is a microcosm of the Soviet Union. Indeed, a list of people
decorated with the medal Tor Excellency of Labour' starts rather
significantly with the following three names:

1. Abdulgasimov, Nazhim, miner;

2. Akopyan, Amayak Avanesovich, newspaper editor;

3. Aksenov, Vladimir Mikhailovich, driver. . . ."

Of these three the first is a Moslem, the second an Armenian and the
third a Russian. The order is perhaps not very characteristic since the
Russian element predominates by far among the more prominent
Dalstroy people, but there are also Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians,
Jews and Moslems among them.

The colonization activities of Dalstroy have changed the character
of the hinterland of the Okhotsk Sea, which, until 1931, was still virtually
uninhabited. The most palpable achievement has been the foundation

of the town of Magadan, the post-war population of which has been

THE PROBLEM OF COLONIZATION

estimated at 50,000-70,000 inhabitants. Official Soviet sources, while
glossing over the strange origin of Magadan, have described it as an
important cultural centre, including several houses of culture, dozens of
clubs, cinemas, libraries, and two theatres, one for drama, the other
for musical comedy. Former prisoners who passed through Magadan
have asserted that the actors of the drama theatre were convicts, but
Soviet sources of more recent date declare that they were recruited from
Moscow drama schools. By December 1952, Magadan had grown large
enough to deserve administrative promotion. A decree of the Presidium
of the Supreme Soviet transformed it from a district town into a pro-
vincial town. 16

Magadan is the largest locality which owes its existence to Dalstroy,
but there are others further inland. One of them is Atka - a name which,
at the first glance, seems to have an exotic Asiatic flavour, but is in
reality an expression of the unromantic technological mind of Soviet
Russia. It is simply an abbreviation of 'Avtotraktornaya Kolonna*
(Motor Tractor Column), a tribute to the pioneer role of motorized
transport in a territory without a railway. Even in 1946 Atka had large
garages and automobile repair works where work never stopped, 'not
even for a single minute'. Moreover, Atka produces electrical equip-
ment for the purposes of Dalstroy. 17

MILITARY COLONIZATION

Another interesting and unusual form of colonization introduced in the
Soviet Far East is what might be described as 'military colonization'.
Discharged soldiers of the Red Army, artillery and cavalrymen, infantry
and members of the signal corps, as well as sailors of the Red Fleet,
settled down with their families in the fertile border regions on the
Ussuri River. These military colonists formed a kind of peasant militia
ready to be called up at any time for the defence of the 'socialist
fatherland'. The first 'Red Army' and 'Red Fleet' collective farms were
formed in 1931, They soon became the pride of the entire Soviet Far
East and the head of the administration of the F.E.T., Krutov, des-
cribed them as a shining example for the entire Far Eastern peasantry.

Not all demobilized soldiers became agriculturists; some of them
remained in the Far East as lumbermen and fishermen and many also
worked on the Far Eastern railways, as has already been mentioned.
At the beginning of 1938, 5,000 demobilized Red Army men were
accepted into the service of railways. They were all provided with
houses and small plots, and each of them received a government graat
for the purchase of a cow. 18

This last point is particularly characteristic of Soviet colonization
policy in the Far East To increase its defence potential in the Far

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

Eastern border areas the government made concessions even in the
economic sphere. In European Russia only collective farmers were at
that time allowed to own a cow as their own personal possession, never
industrial or transport workers.

KOMSOMOL COLONIZATION

The military colonization largely overlaps with another special form of
colonization in the Soviet Far East, which is carried out with the help
of the Communist Youth League, the Komsomol. The Youth League
is the backbone of the Far Eastern units of the Soviet Army. Towards
the end of the inter-war period 60 to 70 per cent of the soldiers in the
Far East were Komsomol members. Hence among the demobilized
soldiers, too, there must have been a good deal of 'Komsomol spirit'.
The Komsomol influence in the Far East is, however, by no means con-
fined to the army. The entire Soviet Far East has been described as a
'Komsomol Territory*. This is true both in the figurative and in the
literal sense. The Soviet Far East is 'komsomolsky' because it is a young
pioneer country, but the Komsomol, the Communist Youth League, is
also directly connected with the Soviet Far East as one of the principal
promoters of its colonization.

Many Communist Youth League members went to the Far East as
individuals out of a spirit of adventure and also out of a feeling of
patriotic duty. The Komsomol, as an organization, was responsible for
two big spectacular actions. One was the foundation of the town
Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the other was the movement initiated by
Madame Khetagurova.

The history of Komsomolsk goes back to the spring of 1932 when the
Central Committee of the Communist Youth League chartered two
steamers, Kolumb and Komintern, which sailed with 400 young
people, including a number of Civil War orphans, to the village of
Permskoe on the Lower Amur. (The village had been founded as early
as 1858 by Russian peasant colonists hailing from the region of Perm
in the eastern part of European Russia.) Even the first small party of
Komsomol members outnumbered the local population of 160 inhabi-
tants. In the second half of 1932 many more young people arrived, and
in December of the same year the All-Russian Executive Committee
published a decree which transformed Permskoe into the town of
Komosomolsk. The decree read well in the Moscow newspapers, but
to the young builders of Komsomolsk it must have appeared utterly
unrealistic. At the time when the decree was published they were in a
state of despair, The building of the town had had to be interrupted in
view of the harshness of the Russian Far Eastern winter, and the inex-
perience of the new settlers had resulted in great complications. During

THE PROBLEM OF COLONIZATION

this early period of construction Komsomolsk had a street with the
characteristic nickname of 'Street of Accidents', and a whole quarter
was known as the 'Fire Settlement' ('Pozharny Posyolok').

Things in Komsomolsk went wrong for several years, and in 1937,
when the city celebrated its fifth anniversary, the party authorities
thought that the time had come to carry out a large-scale purge among
the builders of the 'City of Youth'. One of the most distinguished citizens
of the new town, the director of its metallurgical plant, then declared
bluntly, 'We are mercilessly rooting out this scum of wreckers'. 19 'This
scum of wreckers' were people whom official Soviet propaganda had
previously included among the selfless enthusiastic patriots engaged in
self-sacrificing, heroic construction work. To justify the purge the party
leadership alleged that 'agents of foreign intelligence services, bandits
and diversionists' had penetrated into the ranks of workers and tech*
nicians of Komsomolsk, thanks to the complacency of certain leading
personalities. According to the official version the 'enemies of the
people' at work in Komsomolsk were very active and ingenious. They
mixed concrete with sugar so that the degree of its cohesion was lowered,
they put glass into ball-bearings to provoke accidents and destroyed
vital blue-prints to delay the growth of local industry.

The real reason for the chaos in Komsomolsk was not the criminal
activity of wreckers, but the lack of co-ordination between the various
state trusts which owned the industrial enterprises in the town-to-be.
Each of these trusts constructed a workers' settlement around its plant*
and until 1940 there was no over-all building plan for the much
advertised town of the Communist Youth League. This, explains why
sanitary conditions and municipal services were still practically non-
existent, even by the outbreak of the Second World War.

The over-all building plan of Komsomolsk which came into being in
1940 provided for a population of 500,000. 20 Although the fulfilment of
this aim is still far off, Komsomolsk has become an economic and cul-
tural factor in the Far East. In 1947 the town had 100,000 inhabitants
and was the proud owner of two undertakings of all-Union importance,
the Iron and Steel Works, 'Amurstal*, and a shipyard. 21 Cultural life,
too, had developed greatly. The number of schools reached thirty-four
in 1947 and forty-five in 1952. In addition, Komsomolsk has a Palace of
Culture, a theatre, thirty libraries, a training college for teachers of
secondary schools, a music school and four 'parks of culture and rest'. 22
It has tried to keep up its reputation as a 'City of Youth' and is still
recruiting young workers from European Russia, particularly from
among war orphans.

The second big Komsomol initiative for the settlement of the Far
East, the Khetagurova movement, has its roots in the lack of women
in the Far East and the necessity to remedy the situation. The well-

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

known Soviet writer Pavlenko has referred to this problem in one of his
novels in the following words, 'From the polar tundra down to Korea
everybody dreams of women. Nowhere else do people get married as
quickly as there. Widows do not exist in the Far East. Only the oldest
women overcome by senility remain single*. There is a lot of truth in
what Pavlenko said. The proportion of women in the population of the
Far East diminishes the further one goes east. The 1926 census showed
that for every 1,000 men there were 962 women in the area just east of
Lake Baikal, 918 in the Amur region, 704 in the Pacific coastal region
and 689 on Sakhalin island. This is an abnormal situation, though
characteristic of the pioneer stage of colonization activities all over the
world.

To make the balance between the two sexes more even, a movement
was created designed to bring young girls to the F.E.T. It was associated
with the name of an ordinary Soviet citizen, a young woman of twenty-
two years of age, Valentina Khetagurova-Zarubina. Khetagurova was
the wife of a major serving with the 'Special Far Eastern Army'. Her
claim to fame was a letter which she addressed to the girls of the Soviet
Union. The letter was published on February 5th, 1937, and is an
extremely interesting document. 23 Official inspiration had certainly a lot
to do with it, but the letter nevertheless had a personal touch, and in
some passages the Russian woman triumphed over the communist
official. The needs of the Far East, Khetagurova said, were great. *We
need fitters and turners, teachers and draftswomen, typists and account-
ants - all to the same degree'. In the event of a war Khetagurova
promised different kinds of jobs. Women would then be employed as
nurses, radio operators and even as machine gunners. She appealed to
the personal pride of would-be migrants to the Far East; 'We want only
bold, determined people, not afraid of difficulties'. She described the
Far East as an exotic dreamland *where still a short time ago there were
only deer, tigers and lions' and where 'wonderful work, wonderful
people and a wonderful future* would meet the girls.

More important than all this was the assurance which Khetagurova
gave, not expressly, but by implication, namely, that every girl would
find a husband in the Far East and possibly even one holding com-
missioned rank in the army. She told the girls of Soviet Russia her
own personal success story: 'In the autumn I made the acquaintance of
Major Khetagurov. My life became fuller and brighter when I became
married to him. . . .' The Russian girls could not be told more clearly
why they should follow the example of Valentina Khetagurova.

The Khetagurova letter had considerable success. By the end of
1937 as many as 70,000 Soviet girls had registered with the authorities
as volunteers for the Far East, and many actually went there. They were
called 'Khetagurovki' - Khetagurova girls.

THE PROBLEM OF COLONIZATION

THE 'NORMAL* COLONIZATION

So far only those forms of colonization in the Far East have been
mentioned which might be described as typically 'Soviet', ranging from
the terror exercised by the N.K.V.D. to the exuberant enthusiasm of the
Komsomol.* In addition, the Soviet Government has continued the
normal, ordinary colonization which went on in Czarist times. The
Soviet Government has provided a number of genuine incentives to
make it worth while for Russian peasants and workers to go to the
Pacific coastal areas.

" The first important special measure for the encouragement of volun-
tary migration to the Far East was a decree which the government
issued on December llth, 1933. It freed the collective farmers of the
Far Eastern Territory for the duration of ten years from all compulsory
grain and rice deliveries to the state. It reduced by 50 per cent the com-
pulsory deliveries of meat, vegetables, milk and wool, and in certain
distant areas such as Sakhalin and Kamchatka these deliveries were
abolished altogether. To the workers and technicians of the Far East
the decree of December llth, 1933, brought higher wages and salaries.
The personnel of the Far Eastern mining industry received an automatic
rise of 30 per cent, and all other categories of workers and technicians
one of 20 per cent. On the same occasion the pay of soldiers of the
Special Far Eastern Army was increased by 50 per cent, and that of
officers by 20 per cent.

It seems that these 'Stalin Privileges' as they were called were not
quite sufficient to attract settlers to the Far East. Another decree was,
therefore, published on November 17th, 1937, which aimed chiefly
at the encouragement of agricultural colonization. On the strength of
that decree, groups of collective farmers going to the Far East were to be
exempt from taxation for six years and to obtain state credits for
fifteen years. The decree further pledged the state to pay 50 per cent
of the costs of all buildings erected by the colonists.

So much for the legislation passed for the encouragement of coloniza-
tion in the Far East. In practice, things proceeded very often on lines
that are reminiscent of Gogol's Dead Souls. Each Soviet state authority
or building organization in need of manpower for the Far East had its
own small recruiting office in Moscow. Special recruiting agents were
employed who were paid a fixed sum for every person whom they per-
suaded to take up work at a Far Eastern building site or factory. The
usual tariff was thirty roubles per person, but occasionally the fee was

* Another special form of Soviet colonization in the Far East was the mobilization of
Jews for the settlement of Birobidzhan. The author has described the failure of this experi-
ment in Russia and her Colonies (London, George Philip and Son* Ltd., pp. 173-8).

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

higher. Since the agents were remunerated on a 'piece rate basis', they
were naturally interested in enlisting the largest possible number of
people. One can well imagine that the recruiters made use of all sorts of
glittering promises and also that they paid little attention to the
character and abilities of the prospective Far Eastern colonists. The
afore-mentioned Madame Khetagurova who exposed in a Moscow
journal this 'recruitment racket', concluded her account laconically:
'And so it happened that quite a lot of scum was sent to the Far East'. 24

Those consenting to go to the Far East as free workers received upon
leaving Moscow or another city of European Russia a special bonus and
a maintenance allowance covering the entire long journey from Euro-
pean Russia to their final place of destination. The total amount of
bonuses and allowances thus earned might not have meant a great deal
to a Western worker, but it was a considerable sum for the impoverished
Soviet citizen of the 'thirties.' It was tempting and led to abuses. Quite
a number of people cashed the special remuneration, went to the Far
East, worked there for a while and got themselves discharged for reasons
of health. Having returned to Moscow they let themselves be recruited
once more for the Far East by another state trust and the whole game
started again from the beginning.

The majority of the voluntary colonists who, up to the end of the
Second Five- Year Plan, came to the Soviet Far East established them-
selves in towns. The two largest cities of the Soviet Far East, Vladivostok
and Khabarovsk, therefore grew considerably. Between 1926 and 1939
the population of Khabarovsk increased from 52,000 to 199,000, and
that of Vladivostok from 108,000 to 206,000.

As a consequence of the growth of the existing towns and the founda-
tion of new ones such as Komsomolsk, Magadan and Birobidzhan City,
the relation between the urban and rural population in the Far East
changed to the detriment of the villages. In 1926 only 24 per cent of the
population of the Far East lived in towns, but by 1939 over half of all
'Far Easterners' could be classified as 'urban*.

The encouragement of the urban population in the Far Eastern
provinces led to neglect of agriculture. During the period of the First
and Second Five- Year Plans the area under cultivation in the Soviet
Far East diminished by over 20 per cent, from 2,848,000 acres in 1928
to 2,223,000 acres in 1938. Consequently, instead of providing more for
the newcomers, the food supply for the Soviet Far East became more
dependent on deliveries from areas thousands of miles away. This
created an unsatisfactory situation not only from the narrow economic
point of view but also from the military which demanded complete
self-sufficiency in fuel, raw materials and food. Molotov himself pro-
claimed the principle of self-sufficiency for the Soviet Far East at the
Eighteenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party, in March 1939, and

THE PROBLEM OF COLONIZATION

demanded, in particular, 'full liquidation* of all shortcomings in Far
Eastern agriculture. The Third Five- Year Plan, therefore, aimed at an
increase of the agricultural population of the Far East. About 100,000
new collective farmers were to settle down in the Khabarovsk Territory 25
alone.

The outbreak of the war prevented the full implementation of the
resettlement plan, but it was, at least, successfully started. Russian
peasants went to the Far East mainly from the Provinces of Kursk,
Oryol, Voronezh, Ryazan, Stalingrad, Tambov and Penza. Kursk and
Oryol seem to have led the migration movement. There was a great deal
of propaganda for the resettlement plan and during a certain period
almost every single issue of the Moscow newspapers carried a news-
item showing how well those fanners had fared who had consented to
go to the Far East, and how heartily they had been received there by
the old-timers. The big All-Union Agricultural Exhibition which was
opened in Moscow on the eve of the Second World War was likewise
put into the service of the resettlement campaign. The Far Eastern
pavilion of the exhibition illustrated, with the help of statistics and
pictures, all the delights of peasant life east of Lake Baikal. In addition,
the pavilion served as a convenient place for officially organized meet-
ings at which collective farmers of the Chita Province, and the
Khabarovsk and Maritime Territories talked to peasants of European
Russia about the advantages of Far Eastern agriculture. 26 These propa-
ganda efforts were not in vain. In fact, the resettlement plan for 1940
was already fulfilled by October of that year, 27 and numerous peasant
settlers also went to the Far East in the first half of 1941, continuing
to do so almost until the Hitlerite invasion of the Soviet Union.

Peasant colonization in the Far East was resumed after the war. Its
precise extent is not known. Official Soviet sources have shrouded it in
mystery and apparently consider it a military secret. In the absence of
reliable statistics a rough, and not necessarily accurate, estimate about
the increase in the population of the Soviet Far East can only be made
by a comparison of the numbers of constituencies which were created
for the elections of 1937, 1946 and 1950. There was hardly any change
between 1937 and 1946. For the Supreme Soviet elections in 1937 the
F.E.T. was subdivided into nine constituencies, each of them represent-
ing a theoretical population of 300,000. The total population of the
Far East in the narrower sense (including Sakhalin) was, thus, 2,700,000.
In 1946 the Khabarovsk and Maritime Territories comprised nine con-
stituencies on the Asiatic mainland, whilst a tenth constituency was
formed by Sakhalin and the Kurile archipelago. The total population
of the Soviet Far East at the beginning of 1946 could, therefore, hardly
have exceeded 2,700,000 on the Asiatic continent or 3,000,000, including
the Soviet island possessions in the Pacific.

21 3

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

A decree of January 9th, 1950, giving a new list of constituencies for
the Supreme Soviet elections established four new constituencies in the
Far East. The constituency of Khabarovsk was divided into a town and
a country constituency, another new constituency was formed around the
Okhotsk Sea and two more constituencies were created on Sakhalin.
The total population of the Soviet Far East would accordingly have been,
in 1950, in the neighbourhood of 4,200,000. It is, however, unlikely that
this figure was really reached. The population of each of the three
Sakhalin constituencies, in particular, may be considerably below the
300,000 mark.

///. THE SOVIET FAR EASTERN MYSTIQUE

The Soviet regime worked for the strengthening of the Russian Far
East not only by mobilizing manpower for its colonization, but also by
building up a Far Eastern 'mystique', a nationalistic ideology which
flattered national pride to the utmost degree. After the end of the
Second World War the Soviet Government, with the help of a large
army of historians, writers and poets, promoted a cult of Russian
heroes of the Pacific. The object of the new propaganda campaign was
to show that Russians had played an outstanding part in the discovery
of the Pacific and that, by their past records, they were entitled to much
more influence in decisions concerning Pacific affairs than the
'imperialist powers' were ready to grant them. The campaign was also
intended to prove that Czarist Russia had failed to grasp the oppor-
tunities offered to her in the North-West Pacific and that the Soviet
Union defended energetically those national Russian interests in the
Far East which the old regime had neglected.

RUSSIAN COLUMBUSES

To proceed in a strict chronological order the first 'Russian hero of the
Pacific* to be mentioned is Semen Dezhnev. Soviet propaganda
popularized him particularly in connection with the tercentenary in
1948 of the discovery of the Bering Strait, which separates Asia from
America. The Danish explorer, Vitus Bering, after whom the strait
is called, may only have rediscovered it one hundred years after
Dezhnev had sailed around the 'nose of Asia', the north-eastern tip of
Siberia. As late as the nineteenth century, some outstanding Russian
scholars still doubted whether Dezhnev could really be credited with
this daring feat. Soviet writers, however, are quite positive about
Dezhnev's pioneer role. In 1945 the Chief Administration of the
Northern Sea Route issued a popular book on Dezhnev, which waived
aside all doubts as to Dezhnev's voyage, and described Dezhnev him-
self as 'a glorious representative of the all-enduring Russian people'. 28

THE SOVIET FAR EASTERN MYSTIQUE

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

The next 'Soviet hero' operated on the other side of the Behring
Strait, in what, until 1867, was called 'Russian America'. He was the
Russian merchant, Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov, who, in 1784, founded
the first permanent Russian settlements in Alaska. Shelikhov's con-
temporary, the great poet Derzhavin, called him the 'Russian Columbus'.
This description, 'Russian Columbus', plays a great part in Soviet
propaganda. Because of a feeling of inferiority, vis-a-vis the Western
World, the Soviet Union has claimed a large number of inventions and
geographical discoveries for the Russians, including the discovery of
America. Columbus discovered only the American East coast. North-
West America was a Russian discovery for which the credit goes in the
first place to Shelikhov. It is obvious that the Russians of the Soviet
Far East and of Eastern Siberia are most easily attracted by the idea of
a 'Russian Columbus'. The Mayor of Irkutsk and the head of the Irkutsk
provincial administration have been in the forefront of those who have
advocated a systematic publicity campaign for extolling Shelikhov's
memory. These two, together with seven other distinguished Soviet
citizens, demanded in a letter to the Moscow Literary Gazette in October
1950, that Shelikhov should be honoured lavishly on the 155th
anniversary of his birthday. In the centre of Irkutsk a Shelikhov monu-
ment ought to be erected, they recommended. The Ministry for
Cinematography was to produce a film on the 'Russian Columbus',
the All-Union Society for the Dissemination of Scientific and Political
Knowledge to organize lectures throughout the country about his life
and deeds, and the State Publishing House for Geographical Literature
was to publish his biography. 29 Since then many of these demands have
probably been carried out.

Shelikhov's epithet, 'Russian Columbus', has frequently been chal-
lenged. Russian historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
considered Shelikhov a braggart who greatly exaggerated his Alaskan
exploits, and in particular, the number of Alaskan natives converted
to Christianity, so as to get larger subsidies for his trading firm. This
poor view of Shelikhov was taken by the pre-revolutionary Russian
Encyclopedia, and the first edition of the Soviet Encyclopedia has not
corrected it. According to the latter, Shelikhov was just a 'representative
of merchant capitalism' not worthy of major attention. Nevertheless,
Shelikhov was a man of vision. He conceived the bold plan of a Russian
Empire in the North-West Pacific which would have its granary in
California and its naval base in the Hawaiian Islands. Shelikhov also
wanted to encourage trade relations with China, Japan and India, and
he dreamt of voyages to the Philippines, and even to the North Pole.

Shelikhov's successor, Aleksandr Andreevich Baranov, who started
a more systematic exploitation of Russian America by founding the
'Russian-American Company', has also his place in the Soviet pantheon.

THE SOVIET FAR EASTERN MYSTIQUE

Baranov is venerated as a 'self-sacrificing patriot', and a manual for
Soviet teachers gives the following appraisal of him: 'Baranov, this
outstanding personality, during twenty-eight years kept the adminis-
tration of Russian America firmly in his hands. Thanks to his personal
courage and keen intelligence he opened up and explored its vast spaces.
In a hard struggle with privations, the hostility of militant tribes and
the mean intrigues of foreign merchants, he established Russian rule
over the huge territories of Alaska and Northern California'. 30 Baranov
has also become the hero of an historical novel. The author of the novel,
Ivan Kratt, described Baranov and his associates as modest and just
people, without prejudice against natives, and loved by everybody with
the exception of a few villains. 31

'RUSSIAN AMERICA'

Among Baranov's collaborators there is one whom the Soviet regime
has particularly singled out for posthumous glorification, Ivan Kuskov.
Until the beginning of 1948, Kuskov's name was unknown even to
many well-educated Russians. The Soviet Government rescued it from
oblivion by a propaganda campaign on a large scale, which started in
Torma, a small town in the Northern Russian Province of Vologda.
The town council of Torma met and decided to erect a monument to
Kuskov. The importance of this gesture might have escaped the peoples
of the Soviet Union had not the Russian Press explained and advertised
it all over the country. Kuskov appeared as the man who, acting under
Baranov's general orders, had extended Russian America from Alaska
to California. It was he, who, in 1812, had hoisted the Russian flag at
the entrance of San Francisco Bay and founded 'Fort Ross', the
southernmost Russian-occupied point on the American continent.

Not only the biographies of people like Shelikhov, Baranov and
Kuskov have been reinterpreted, but the entire history of 'Russian
America'. Alaska is not a conquest of Russian Czarism and imperialism,
but belongs to 'democratic Russia', to 'people's Russia'. 'The settle-
ment of Alaska by Russians', said the Literary Gazette, 'bore a clearly
expressed labouring and democratic character dissimilar to the trade-
plundering colonization by the Anglo-Saxons, who recruited their agents
from among tramps, adventurists and criminals'. 82 The same point is
elaborated in greater detail in what is purported to be a popular
scientific booklet on the history, geography and economic conditions of
Alaska. There, it is said that the colonization of Alaska was progressive
because most of the Russian settlers were peasants, eager to shake off
the arbitrary rule of the estate owners. Many people went to Alaska
because they found the oppressive atmosphere of the Czarist regime
unbearable. Others were sent there because of their political con-

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

victions. Not only was the colonization of Alaska itself 'progressive*
and 'democratic', the management of the Russian-American Company
also was. One of its chief executives, K. F. Ryleev, was executed for
his part in the December rising of 1825, and there were other prominent
'Decembrists' among the officials of the Company. 33

Soviet propaganda has tried to show that Baranov and Kuskov con-
ducted a progressive policy towards the natives of North America,
totally different from the Ajaglo-Saxon or Spanish policy towards Red
Indians. This is untrue and has been contradicted by Russian sources
themselves. A Russian naval officer, who visited Alaska at the time of
Russian occupation, has given the following eloquent description of
Baranov's policy towards Eskimos and Aleuts: 'Woe to those who
resisted him. He destroyed them mercilessly, deported them to unin-
habited islands, deprived them of all means of contact with each other,
and mixed people of various tribes so that there could be no malicious
conspiracy against the Russians. He was feared by the savages, they
considered him as the scourge of heaven. Since they had no chance to
revolt they were forced to become his slaves and to forget all about their
previous freedom'. 34 As a matter of fact, the Aleuts revolted against
Russian rule, as the Russian historian, Shashkov, pointed out in his
book on the Russian-American Company, and these revolts led to the
extermination of a large part of 'this restless people'. How many Aleuts
have perished altogether in the years of Russian rule it is impossible to
say. According to the official data of the Russian-American Company
there were 8,405 Aleuts in Alaska in 1824, but only 4,363 were recorded
in 1859. It would be true to say, therefore, that Russian colonization
of Alaska was, from the humanitarian point of view, by no means
better than, say, British colonization of Australia in its initial stage.

Nevertheless, Russian policy towards the native peoples of Russian
America did have its brighter aspects. Those responsible for it, however,
were not Shelikhov, Baranov and the other newly discovered national
heroes of Soviet Russia, but people whom the Soviet r6gime is not very
keen on publicizing, the Christian missionaries. It was they who founded
the first schools in Alaska, educated a fair number of natives, and even
translated religious books into the Aleut language. The most important
Russian churchman working in Alaska was Ivan Veniaminov (1797-
1879). He was the author of a grammar of the Aleutian language which
was published in St. Petersburg in 1846. The 'apostle of Alaska', as the
Russian historian, Zernov, calls him, became later, under the name of
Innokentii, Metropolitan of Moscow. 85

The scope of these Russian church activities was, however, very small
and one cannot say that the end of Russian rule in Alaska, in 1867,
meant in any way a major loss to the native peoples ; but of course it was,
historically speaking, a great loss for the Russian State. Soviet Russia was

THE SOVIET FAR EASTERN MYSTIQUE

more conscious of this loss than Czarist Russia had ever been. In Soviet
political literature published after the Second World War the abandon-
ment of the Russian outposts in California in the 'forties' and the sale of
Alaska to the United States appear not only as regrettable blunders,
but almost as acts of treason on the parts of the Czarist Government.

THE RUSSIAN PACIFIC

Russian traditions in the Pacific, as presented by Soviet propaganda,
are by no means confined to Russian rule over Alaska and Tort Ross'.
Quite a number of Russian naval expeditions took place throughout the
nineteenth century in various parts of the Pacific Ocean. The public,
and particularly Soviet youth, has been acquainted with them since
1945 in various ways. Stories about these expeditions have been written
anew, in the form of historical novels or of straightforward descriptions,
with the obvious object of stimulating national pride.

From this patriotic Soviet Russian literature centring on the Pacific
one can learn a great deal - for instance, that the Russians discovered
as many as 400 small Pacific islands, more particularly those belonging
to the Paumotu Archipelago in the South-East Pacific, and some of the
Marshall Islands. All these islands had been named after Russian
generals in the war against Napoleon, and other famous Russian
historical figures. Some of the Russian names still persist. Thus the,
Lisiansky Island, a possession of the U.S.A,, east of Midway Island,
bears the name of a well-known Russian seafarer, and east of Samoa
there still exists a Suvorov Island belonging to Britain. Also, the big
island of New Guinea has important Russian associations. Russians
are not credited with its discovery, it is true, but it was a Russian
scholar to whom was due the first detailed description of the Papuan
people. The Russian explorer, Miklukho-Maklay (1846-88), spent some
time with the Papuans. The result of his observations was included in his
diaries, which were not published until the Soviet regime came to power.
As the Russian geographer, L. S. Berg, puts it, Miklukho-Maklay died
before he succeeded in writing his fundamental scholarly works, but,
even so, he is highly honoured in the Soviet Union. After all, he was the
first Russian to demand that Russia should have a colony in the Pacific. 86
The Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences has been
called after him and a play 'White Friend' has been produced in which
he is the central figure. He appears there as the 'champion of black and
coloured peoples enslaved by the colonizers of the West'. 87

'NEVELSKOY'S IMMORTAL FEAT'

For Soviet patriotic ideology one historic personality is more important

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

than all those mentioned so far, Admiral Gennady Ivanovich Nevelskoy
(1813-76). The entire modern Russian Far Eastern policy goes back to
his geographical discoveries. They resulted in the Russian annexation
of the entire Lower Amur region up to the Ussuri confluence, as well
as in the Russian seizure of Sakhalin. Until Nevelskoy's expedition,
the Amur was not recognized as a 'useful* river and a channel of
Russian expansion, nor was it known that Sakhalin was an island and
not a peninsula. Nevelskoy, who had sailed from Kronstadt across the
Atlantic and the Pacific, on August 13th, 1850, hoisted the Russian flag
at the point of the Amur estuary which later became known as the town
Nikolayevsk Amursky. Hence, the Amur region became the only part of
Russia which was annexed by a naval expedition. Nevelskoy's 'immortal
feat' enabled the Russian Empire to concentrate in its Far Eastern policy
on areas close to the Chinese border, instead of using up its efforts in the
distant Kamchatka or even Alaska. On the one-hundredth anniversary
of Nevelskoy's appearance in the Amur estuary, the Soviet regime ex-
pressed its appreciation of the courageous seafarer in no unmistakable
terms. A monument was erected in his honour in the town of Nikolayevsk
and a number of popular books were published on the occasion. The
Publishing House of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth
League, 'Molodaya Gvardiya', brought out an historical novel largely
dealing with Nevelskoy, and the State Publishing House for Cultural
and Educational Literature produced a biography of the admiral. 38

PORT ARTHUR

The gallery of heroes of the Russian Far East would be incomplete with-
out mentioning the defenders of the Russian fortress Port Arthur during
the Russo-Japanese War. When Port Arthur fell, Lenin wrote that the
Russian proletariat had every reason to rejoice at 'progressive and
advanced Asia inflicting an irreparable blow on backward and re-
actionary Europe'. When looking back on the defence and doom of Port
Arthur, Stalin's Russia, however, takes no guidance from Lenin, but
from the son of a Czarist officer, Stepanov, who, in 1905, belonged to
the garrison of the besieged fortress. This man published, in 1944, an
historical novel on Port Arthur which earned highest praise in the most
authoritative Soviet circles. The book, which also served as the basis of
a play, was, in the first place, a tribute to two great Russian patriots,
Admiral Makarov, Commander of the Russian Pacific fleet and General
Kondratenko, the main embodiment of the spirit of resistance in Port
Arthur. Stepanov did not consider that the defence of Russia's naval
base in the Pacific was merely an imperialistic affair. For him there
existed the most intimate link between Port Arthur and the entire
Russian people. This he expressed by letting General Kondratenko

THE SOVIET FAR EASTERN MYSTIQUE

make the following appeal to his soldiers: 'Behind us has been left but
a narrow strip of Russian land with the town of Port Arthur. This is our
Russian town: for its construction we have spent millions of our national
income and invested a great amount of work. You yourselves have
worked to build up the fortifications and batteries. And besides, in
Port Arthur is our Fleet. We have to defend stubbornly our positions.
The whole fatherland is following the course of the war and the defence
of Port Arthur with breathless attention. Let us give all our forces, and
if necessary, our lives in order to uphold in dignity the glory of the
Russian arms in the Far East'. The book from which these lines are
quoted was an ideological preparation for the re-establishment, in 1945,
of a Russian naval base in Port Arthur, 'the town of Russian glory',
as it is usually referred to.

SERGEY LAZO

The Soviet regime itself has not been able to make any substantial
addition to the impressive gallery of heroes of the Russian Far East from
Dezhnev to Admiral Makarov. Such 'heroes* as there emerged under
Soviet rule, Marshal Blyukher in particular, were liquidated by the
Cheka-G.P.U.-N.K.V.D. There is only one important exception to this
rule the guerilla leader of the Civil War in the Far East - Sergey Lazo.
Lazo was an officer of the Czarist army who went over to the revolu-
tionary camp and joined the Bolshevik Party in the middle of 1918. He
fought courageously against the White Guards and the Japanese in the
Pacific coastal areas. In 1920 the latter burnt him alive in Vladivostok
when he was only twenty-eight years old.

The way in which Lazo died predestined him to become not only a
hero of the Soviet Far East, but also a symbol of Russian resistance to
Japanese militarism and imperialism. Whenever the name of Lazo was
mentioned - in newspaper articles and history books, in songs and in
plays - it was meant as a challenge to Japan. But as history in the
Soviet Union is always rewritten and reinterpreted in accordance with
the propaganda interests of the moment, the personality of Lazo has
undergone a revaluation. After the Second World War he became an
anti-American figure as well as being an anti- Japanese one. According
to an up-to-date version of Lazo's biography, the responsibility for his
death lay jointly with the Japanese and die Americans. He was killed
'with the knowledge and agreement* of the American interventionists. 59
A book which prominently featured Lazo's part in the political and
military events that took place in the Russian Far East in 1918,
N. Kolbin's Partisans (Partizany), was rewritten with the express purpose
of denouncing American intervention. The first edition of the book,
which the Far Eastern state publishing house 'Dalgiz* brought out in

THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

1948, had only been anti- Japanese. In response to criticism in the official
press the author produced, in 1951, a second edition of the same book
into which a number of anti- American passages had been inserted. 40

The interpretation of the personality of Lazo underwent a change in
another direction also. Originally, Lazo appeared in Soviet propaganda
as an international communist fighting for the victory of the World
Revolution in the Far East. As time went on this international aspect
was pushed into the background, and Lazo was transformed into a
patriotic Russian, although, being a Moldavian of Swiss extraction, he
had not a drop of Russian blood in his veins. 41 The favourite quotation
which Soviet propagandists of the later period picked out of Lazo's
statements reflects indeed a most patriotic frame of mind: 'We shall
fight with our lives for the homeland against foreign invaders. For this
Russian land on which I am standing now we shall die and shall not
give it up to anyone', 42 It must be admitted that the Russian patriot,
Lazo, appeals much more than the communist guerilla leader. A man
like Lazo would have become a national hero anywhere in the world,
for a person who is killed by foreign invaders under dramatic circum-
stances always occupies an honourable place in the history of his nation.

These few examples may suffice to characterize the new Pacific
'mystique* which the Soviet regime has created. The whole Russian
people is to be indoctrinated with the new Pacific ideology, but in the
first place, this ideology is intended as a moral equipment for the
Russian settlers on the Pacific coast. They are to be made more sure of
themselves, and more ready to overcome difficulties by instilling into
them the proud feeling that they are the successors of Dezhnev and
Shelikhov, of Kuskov and Nevelskoy, and also, of course, of Sergey Lazo.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I

1. Vestnik Ewopy, vol. 255, January 1909, p. 437.

2. Zhizn Natsionalnostei, March 22nd, 1922.

3. Large Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 20, Moscow 1930, p. 289

4. Pravda, July 1st, 1930.

5. Pravda, May 22nd, 1937.

6. Pravda, October 6th, 1937.

7. Pravda, November llth, 1936.

8. Pravda, November 28th, 1936.

9. Pravda, April 3rd, 1937.
10. Pravda, June llth, 1937.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER I

11. Krasnaya Zvezda, May 28th, 1938.

12. Pravda, October 26th, 1938.

13. Novy Mir, February 1938, p. 218.

14. Vestmk Evropy, vol. 233, 1905, p. 233.

15. Pravda, January 12th, 1941.

16. Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta S.S.S.R., Nr 1, 1953.

17. Komsomolskaya Pravda, December 12th, 1946.

18. Pravda, February 1st, 1938.

19. Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 12th, 1937.

20. Pravda, May 17th, 1940.

21. Pravda, June 19th, 1947.

22. Ogonyok, Nr 24, June 1952, p. 27.

23. Komsomolskaya Pravda, February 5th, 1937.

24. Novy Mir, March 1938, pp. 202-3.

25. S. K. GERASIMOV, Patrioty Dalnego Vostoka - Patriots of the Soviet Far
East, Moscow 1946, p. 105.

26. Pravda, August 4th, 1939.

27. Pravda, October 30th, 1940.

28. V. A. SAMOELOV, Semen Dezhnev i ego Vremya - Semen Dezhnev and his
Time, Moscow 1945, p. 114.

29. Literaturnaya Gazeta, October 24th, 1950.

30. A. ADAMOV, Pervye Russkie Issledovateli Alasky - The First Russian
Explorers of Alaska, Moscow 1950, p. 13.

31. IVAN KRATT, Ostrov Baranova - Baranov's Island, Moscow 1946.

32. Literary Gazette, Nr 3, 1951.

33. V. P. KOVALEVSKY, Alyaska - Alaska, Moscow 1952, p. 27.

34. MARKOV, Russkie na Vostochnom Okeane - The Russians on the Eastern
Ocean, Moscow 1849, p. 53.

35. ZERNOV, The Russians and their Church, London 1945, pp. 138-9.

36. Small Soviet Encyclopedia, second edition, vol. 6, Moscow 1937, p. 893.

37. Komsomolskaya Pravda, February 2nd, 1952.

38. N. ZADORNOV, Dalyoky Kray - Distant Country, Leningrad 1950, and
I. VINOKUROV and F. FLORICH, Podvig Admirala Nevelskogo - The Feat
of Admiral Nevelskoy, Moscow 1951.

39. Zvezda, Nr 9, September 1951, p. 165.

40. Zvezda, Nr 9, September 1951, p. 166.

41. Sergey Lazo 9 Moscow 1938, p. 215.

42. Dalny Vostok, Nr 3, 1952, p. 154.

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

The encouragement of European colonization is the positive side of
Soviet policy in the Far East. Theoretically, this European colonization
had no exclusive character; it could be supplemented by an Asiatic
colonization. Indeed, both the Czanst Government and the Soviet
regime, in its initial stage, admitted Asiatic immigrants to the Russian
Far East, and made use of them. In the latter part of the 'thirties', this
policy was reversed. The Soviet Government ceased to be interested in
mere colonization of the Russian Far East; it wanted European coloniz-
ation only. However eager communist Russia might be to assist the
victory of communism in China, Korea and Japan, she would not like
to see her Chinese, Korean and Japanese friends appearing as worker
and peasant colonists in the Pacific coastal areas of the U.S.S.R.

Soviet policy in relation to Chinese, Korean and Japanese immigrants
has become very similar in substance to the 'White Australia policy', or,
as it is now called less provocatively, 'immigration restrictive policy 5 ** It
may be argued that the non-admission of permanent Asiatic settlers im-
plies no particular bias against Asiatics on the grounds that the territory
of the Soviet Union has been sealed off against immigrants from non-
Soviet European territories as well. This is certainly true, but in the case
of the Asiatics the Soviet Government went a step further. It made the
policy of the White Soviet Far East retroactive and eliminated those
groups of immigrants who had settled there at a time when Russian and
Soviet policy had been less narrow-minded.

/. THE 'RUSSIAN 9 KOREANS

UNDER THE CZARIST REGIME

A Korean problem has existed in Russia ever since Russian frontier
guards appeared on the Korean frontier. The Korean immigration into

* The Communist Party is the only Australian party which fights against the White
Australia policy. The official pamphlet of the Australian communists, 'Australia's Part
in the World Revolution', which was issued in 1930, stated: 'The White Australia policy
is a capitalist measure for stirring up racial antagonism between the workers, and preparing
for imperialist and colonial wars.*

THE RUSSIAN KOREANS

Russia started in 1861, the same year in which the first Russians settled
down in the area of the Bay of Poset. As the first Korean colonists in the
Russian Far East received good treatment, more and more Koreans
crossed the border. The Korean authorities viewed this migration with
some uneasiness and put every possible obstacle into the way of people
who wanted to leave the country. Would-be emigrants were frequently
killed, or robbed of all their belongings. Nevertheless, Korean emigra-
tion to Russia continued despite all difficulties. By 1 868 four large Korean
villages existed in Russian territory. The total number of Koreans in the
Ussuri region then exceeded 1,800, whilst the Russian peasant settlers
and Cossacks in the same area numbered 6,200.

From the Russian point of view the Korean immigration was all the
more valuable because the Korean peasant settlers showed great willing-
ness to assimilate themselves, to accept the Russian language and the
Russian Orthodox faith. Even in the very early stage of the immigration
quite a number of the 'Russian Koreans' became Christians. The famous
Russian traveller, Przhevalsky, who in the years 1867-69 made a journey
to the Ussuri region, gave a characteristic example of the speedy process
of assimilation undergone by the new Korean subjects of the Czars.
Przhevalsky mentioned the case of the headman of the village Tyzen-
Khe (Ryazanovka), the largest of the first four Korean settlements in
Russia. This headman had not only become a Christian; he had also
acquired some knowledge of Russian, was clad in the Russian peasant
fashion, and had abandoned his Korean name, calling himself Peter
Semyonov after his godfather, a Russian officer. 1

Przhevalsky, whom the Soviet regime still considers as a great author-
ity on the Russian Far East, viewed the progress of Korean immigration
with mixed feelings. He was the first Russian to see that the immigration,
while helping to open up the new Pacific territories, might involve
certain dangers. He openly declared that the settlement of Koreans so
near the border was no minor mistake and he suggested that the Koreans
should be settled along the middle reaches of the Amur, a measure which
in Przhevalsky's view, would facilitate their russification. Przhevalsky's
warning was not entirely disregarded by the authorities. A new big party
of Korean immigrants which reached Russia in 1871 was not used for
the colonization of the Russian-Korean border area but directed,
instead, to a point 217 miles west of Khabarovsk where its members
founded the village of Blagoslovennoye *the Blessed'. The village was
frequently mentioned as a prosperous, well administered community.
Thirty years after the foundation of the village, the official Guide of the
Great Siberian Railway stressed that it made a very good impression and
that the love of work and order of its inhabitants was visible in the way
in which they built their houses and tilled their fields. 2 Under the Soviet

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

regime Blagoslovennoye was incorporated into the Jewish Autonomous
Province.*

Despite the successful experiment conducted in Blagoslovennoye the
bulk of the Korean immigrants continued to settle down near the Korean
border in the region of Vladivostok. Until the beginning of the twentieth
century this Korean immigration was prompted mainly by economic
reasons, but the Japanese occupation of Korea provided new political
incentives for the trek into the Russian Far East. The number of Koreans
in the Russian Pacific coastal areas, which had reached 23,000 in 1898,
went up to 46,000 in 1907, and to 52,000 in 1910. In the First World
War the 'Russian Koreans' proved themselves loyal subjects of the
Czars. Four thousand of them served in the Russian Army, including
one hundred and fifty as officers.

DURING AND AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

The February Revolution of 1917 led to a great upsurge of social and
political activities among the Korean population of the Russian Far
East. Korean societies and peasant leagues were founded, and in May
1917 the First Congress of Korean Revolutionary Organizations was
held in the town Nikolsk-Ussuriisky (now 'VoroshiloV). The large
majority of the delegates supported the Russian Provisional Govern-
ment, to which a telegram of greetings was sent. The Congress took a
stand against russification, demanded a Korean seat in the future
Russian Constituent Assembly, and advocated certain improvements
for the existing Korean schools. The latter demands were made hy
Korean teachers, who played a leading part in the Congress and in the
Korean National Union, the representative body of the Russian
Koreans. Even after the October Revolution, the spokesmen of the
Korean people in Russia showed little enthusiasm for the Bolshevik
cause, and continued to support the party of the Socialist Revolution-
aries. The Second Congress of Korean Revolutionary Organizations,
which was held in May 1918, proclaimed the neutrality of the Koreans
in the Russian Civil War. In reality the Central Executive Committee of
the Korean National Union (renamed, early in 1919, All-Korean
National Council) was anything but neutral. It took up a 'counter-
revolutionary' attitude, boycotting the Soviets, but participating in the
work of the regular local government organs, the 'zemstva*.

* Until 1930 there were still more Koreans than Jews in what later became the Jewish
Autonomous Province. The territory then included 3,200 Koreans and 2,700 Jews The
Koreans had four and the Jews three 'National Village Soviets*. The other ethnic groups
then represented in Birobidzhan were Russians (27,350), Ukrainians (3,000), Far Eastern
natives (700) and Chinese (500). The second edition of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia
published in 1952, however, mentions only Jews, Russians and Ukrainians as inhabitants
of the Province.

THE RUSSIAN KOREANS

Throughout the whole period of Civil War and foreign intervention
in the Far East the communists formed only a small minority among the
'Russian Koreans'. The Bolshevik Party tried to gain some influence
among the Koreans by playing up the more recent immigrants, who had
not yet been granted Russian nationality, against the old immigrants.
Consequently, the Korean members of the communist guerilla detach-
ments were recruited primarily from the new immigrants who expected
from the Soviet regime improvements in their material and legal status.

The more communist rule consolidated in the Far East the less freely
could the All-Korean National Council express its views. In September
1920, when it had moved from Nikolsk Ussuriisky to Blagoveshchensk,
it issued a statement in favour of the Soviet Government which the
Communist Party authorities themselves refused to take seriously. For
them it was a hypocritical opportunistic document. 3

The statement seems to have been the swan song of the All-Korean
National Council. The organization was dissolved and a communist-
directed 'Union of Koreans' came into existence with its headquarters
in Moscow and branch organizations in Leningrad and other important
Soviet cities. This organization, which was likewise disbanded after a
few years' existence, appears to have been concerned only with the
Korean diaspora in Russia proper. In the Soviet Far East the Communist
Party and the Communist Youth League had the monopoly for the
representation of Korean interests. During a short period there were
even special Korean sections inside the Communist Party of the Soviet
Far East, but they proved to be inexpedient and were dissolved in 1923,
having existed for six months only. At the same time 750 Korean party
members, out of a total of about 1,000 were expelled, presumably for
nationalist leanings. 4

Soon after the purge of 1923 both the Communist Party and the
Communist Youth League recruited new members from the Korean
minority. In Vladivostok, for instance, the Communist Youth League
had, in 1927, 7,409 Russian and 5,885 Korean members.

There are no absolutely reliable data available as to the numerical
strength of the Korean element in Soviet Russia after 1917. Many
Koreans emigrated to Russia in the years of the revolutionary confusion
in the hope that the Russian Far East would become more and more
internationalized. According to the Ministry of Nationality Affairs of
the Far Eastern Republic the Koreans numbered 300,000 in the buffer
state, and were, after Russians and Ukrainians, its third largest
ethnical group. In 1927 there were only 170,000 Koreans in the Soviet
Union according to official data, but unofficially there were 'at least
250,000*.*

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

LITTLE SOVIET KOREA

The large majority of the Koreans of the Soviet Far East remained
concentrated in the Vladivostok area (okrug) where they formed, in
1926, about one quarter of the entire population. The largest Korean
communities lived in the Suchansk district, to the east of Vladivostok,
and in the area of Poset, to the west of Vladivostok, in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Korean and Manchurian borders. Several dozens
of Korean villages in that area were united into a 'Korean National
District*. 6 Ninety-five per cent of the population of the District were
Koreans. Their main occupations were rice-growing, fishing and timber
cutting.

Relations between Russians and Koreans in the Vladivostok region
left much to be desired under the Soviet regime. The collectivization of
agriculture in particular led to considerable difficulties. When the first
collective farms were founded in the Pacific coastal areas near Vladi-
vostok, the local authorities gave privileged treatment to the Russian
farmers at the expense of the Koreans. The Russian collective farms
received more land and were better provided with agricultural machinery
and even with credits. An article which the organ of the Soviet of
Nationalities Revofyutsiya i Natsionalnosti published early in 1931
stated bluntly that this discrimination was prompted by 'great power
chauvinism* on the part of the District Executive Committees ('Rayis-
polkomy*) of the Vladivostok region as well as on the part of the
regional agricultural authorities.

Revofyutsiya i Natsionalnosti illustrated this anti-Korean discrimin-
ation by the example of two new adjoining kolkhozy. The first was the
Russian kolkhoz 'OKDVA', the second the Korean collective farm
Tikhookeanets Revolyutsioner* ('The Revolutionary on the Pacific*).
These two collective farms differed from each other not only in their
ethnic composition but also in regard to the amount of land allotted to
them. In the Russian kolkhoz, 'OKDVA', there was an average of
59 acres per household, against 20 acres per household in the Korean
'Revolutionary on the Pacific*. This state of inequality induced the
Koreans to complain to the authorities about 'Russian chauvinism'.
The complaint made things worse. It enraged the local Russians against
their Korean neighbours. A number of violent clashes occurred between
Russians and Koreans almost at the gates of Vladivostok. The organ of
the Soviet of Nationalities asserted that the fault was with the Russians
who had assaulted Korean collective fanners. The blame for the incidents
could not be put on 'kulaks' and 'class enemies* as was done in similar
circumstances in other parts of the Soviet Union. The Communist Youth
League participated in beating up the Koreans. The latter aired their

THE RUSSIAN KOREANS

indignation against the outrages committed by Russian collective
fanners by turning against the collective farm system itself. As an expres-
sion of protest Korean peasants took the initiative in disbanding a
number of collective farms in the Vladivostok countryside. 7

The worst aspect, from the point of view of the theory of Soviet
nationalities policy, was that the local authorities in the Soviet Far East
did not see the political implications of the Russian-Korean incidents
but considered them as mere acts of 'hooliganism*. As the district and
area (okrug) committees of the Party failed to remedy the situation, the
Party leadership in Khabarovsk had to take things in hand. In a special
meeting, held in the winter of 1930-31, the Communist Party Committee
of the F.E.T, decided to take measures against 'Great Russian chauvin-
ism* in the areas with a mixed Russian-Korean population, and it can be
assumed that conditions improved after this intervention. Nevertheless,
the events which marked the initial period of collectivization in the
Vladivostok area constitute an essential part of the background, explain-
ing those drastic measures which the Soviet Government took a few
years later against the Koreans and other Asiatic minorities.

In the cultural field the Soviet regime advanced greatly the
Korean minority in the Russian Far East. The Soviet Koreans were well
provided with educational facilities which had been almost completely
lacking under the Czarist regime. The number of Korean schools in the
F.E.T. increased with every year and reached the figure of 300 in 1937,
of which fifty-three were in the National District. The Korean minority
owned three secondary schools, two technical colleges, two teachers*
training colleges (including one in the Korean National District), and a
Korean Pedagogical Institute in Vladivostok. The Soviet Korean intel-
ligentsia had also the opportunity to study either in that city, at the Far
Eastern University, or at the Sun Yat Sen University in Moscow.

There were several Korean communist newspapers, of which the
largest, Vanguard, was published in Vladivostok, 10,000 copies being
printed. From 1930 a special Korean newspaper was published for the
Korean fishermen of the maritime region. The Committee of the Com-
munist Party of the Korean National District also had an organ of its
own, Along the Path of Lenin?

KOREANS AS 'SPIES* AND *DIVERSIONISTS'

In 1937 the policy of building up a little Soviet Korea was completely
abandoned. The Soviet nationalities polky adopted a new objective
instead, the liquidation of the Korean minority in the Soviet Far East
The Soviet Government had suddenly become aware of the dangerous
sides of the Korean immigration to which Przhevalsky had already
drawn attention, particularly their presence in strategically important

37 4

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

areas near the Russian borders. In addition, the Soviet regime felt some
doubts about the loyalty of the Koreans in a case of emergency. Whilst
the Koreans of Korea proper were solidly anti-Japanese, the Soviet
regime had no guarantee that the bulk of the Koreans of the Soviet
Union would not support the Japanese invader. They had, after all, their
grievances, such as forcible collectivization and suppression of local
nationalism by the Soviet regime. It must be said in fairness to the regime
that in the years 1936-38 incidents on the Soviet-Manchurian border
practically never ceased, and the Soviet State had good reasons to feel its
security in the Far East threatened. But in their fear of spies, wreckers
and diversiomsts, the Soviet authorities went so far as to suspect every
Korean and Chinese of being a Japanese accomplice, and to seek safety
in the wholesale transfer of all Asiatics from the Soviet Far East.

This measure, which is a heavy blot on Soviet nationalities policy, was
never publicly announced, but it is not too difficult to reconstruct it
from indirect hints and omissions in the Soviet Press. The first indirect
intimation of extraordinary measures taken, or about to be taken,
against Koreans and Chinese was contained in an article about 'Foreign
Espionage in the Soviet Far East', which Pravda published on April 23rd,
1937. The article stated that the Japanese secret service made use of
a large number of Koreans and Chinese as agents in the Soviet Far East.
These agents, said Pravda, were camouflaging themselves as inhab-
itants of those districts of the Soviet Far East where they were supposed
to carry out their activities. The Japanese intelligence, therefore, closely
studied the national composition of every given Soviet district and
posted, accordingly, Korean or Chinese or Russian white guards. Not
only was primitive 'spying* going on in the F.E.T.; agents were also
infiltrating into institutions of military importance, with the aim of
creating groups of spies, saboteurs and diversionists. As a rule these
agents penetrated into the party as well as the Communist Youth League.
Of course, thei;e was, in the view of Pravda, a close contact between
these direct agents and all local elements hostile to the Soviet power, i.e.,
'Trotzkyites and other double-dealers*. 9 *

* It is quite likely that the Japanese intelligence service did infiltrate into the ranks of
the Korean and Chinese minorities in the Far East. On the other hand, it is certain that the
same method was applied by the Soviet counter-espionage vis & vis the Russian emigres in
Manchuria and China proper. In 1940 there were 70,000 Russians in Manchuria (including
40,000 in Kharbm), 20,000 in Shanghai and 10,000 in Tientsin. Many of these Russians
were pro-Soviet. Thus four-fifths of the Shanghai Russians acquired Soviet citizenship
many months before the city was taken by Mao Tse-tung. The pro-Soviet elements among
the Russian colonies in China were naturitoy of great use to the N.K.V.D but the primary
concern of the latter was to penetrate into the leading strata of the white emigration
which collaborated with the Japanese authorities. A popular Soviet play, 'On the other
Side*, by A. Baryanov shows the cunning way in which Soviet intelligence operated in
Manchuria. The hero of the play is a Soviet intelligence officer who poses in Kharbin
as the son of a white guard general assassinated by the Bolsheviks. Before going on his
mission he learns by heart all the more important prayers of the Orthodox Church, a know-
ledge which greatly assists him in deceiving the emigres.

THE RUSSIAN KOREANS

On the basis of this story, which bore all the hallmarks of a typical
plot hatched by the N.K.V.D., everybody, and in particular every
Korean and Chinese, could, in future, be suspected of working for the
Japanese intelligence. Membership of the party, or of the Komsomol,
was no evidence of loyalty; on the contrary it could well serve as an
additional evidence of treason, since a spy had every interest in becom-
ing a member of such respectable organizations.

Having made its fantastic accusations against the Koreans and Chinese
of the Soviet Far East, Pravda mentioned these two minorities no
more.* On June 28th, 1937, when the new party secretary of the F.E.T.
reviewed, in the columns of Pravda, the achievements of the Soviet
Power in the Far East, he dwelt in some detail on the Jewish immigration
into Birobidzhan, but ignored the Koreans. This might have been an
oversight on his part It was more characteristic that the Korean con-
tribution to the victory of the Soviet regime in the Far East, previously
so loudly advertised, was not mentioned at all in the many articles
which the Soviet Press published at the end of October 1937, in connec-
tion with the fifteenth anniversary of the liberation of Vladivostok.

A more important and more direct clue to the transplantation of the
Russian Koreans was, however, contained in a cryptic governmental
announcement which Pravda published on its back page on December
20th, 1937. It said: 'The Council of People's Commissars of the U.S.S.R.
and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) have expressed their gratitude for exemplary and precise
fulfilment of a Government assignment in the field of transport to the
chief of the N.K.V.D. administration in the Far Eastern Territory,
G. S. Lyushkov, to the whole staff of the N.K.V.D. of the F.E.T. and to
the personnel of the Far Eastern Railway which participated in the
implementation of the assignment.* 10 The announcement, it is true, did
not mention the nature of the 'government assignment in the field of
transport*, but there can be no doubt that only a matter of great
importance could have warranted this special expression of thanks to
the N.K.V.D. and the railways. It was not a military matter since, in
this case, the Special Far Eastern Army would also have been mentioned.
A large scale shifting of population would be a plausible explanation.

* An article in Izvestiya of September 24th, 1937, dealing at length with Japanese
spying contained an implicit general warning against Japanese agents in Korean disguise
without referring to their activities in the Soviet Far East The article warned that Japanese
spies might have both Soviet and Japanese (Korean) nationality. It mentioned the case
of the Korean, Kim Zaen, who headed a 'spying diversionist organization* which was
discovered in Moscow in 1934. This Korean had taken on Soviet nationality in 1929 bet
when he got into trouble the Japanese interceded in his favour and claimed him as their
subject.

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

THE AFTERMATH OF THE 'LIQUIDATION* MEASURES

From a nationalist and imperialist Russian point of view, the measures
against the Koreans were amply justified by the border incidents which
took place in August - September 1938 in the former Korean National
District of Poset. The area in question was, as has been seen, the scene
of unpleasant events between Russian and Korean collective farmers,
which must have left rather bitter memories. It may have been fortunate
for the Soviet Union, therefore, that the Korean population was already
evacuated at the time when the Russian- Japanese skirmishes took place.

From a political and international angle, the action against the
Koreans did not damage Soviet prestige, owing to the discretion with
which it was carried out. Neither the Western democratic camp nor the
German- Japanese Anti-Comintern block showed any interest in the
problem. Strangely enough, the 'Little Soviet Korea' around Vladivostok
had never, except perhaps in the early 'twenties/ had any real export
value as far as Korea proper was concerned. Communism in Korea
struggled throughout the inter-war period against almost insurmountable
difficulties. It remained a small sect without any influence on the popular
masses, always an easy prey to all sorts of nationalistic and petty
bourgeois deviations.*

It does not seem that the Korean communists have ever made use, in
their propaganda, of the Korean National District in the Soviet Union
and its achievements in the economic and cultural sphere. Such state-
ments of the Korean Communist Party as are known do not mention
the 'District' at all.

From the economic point of view the anti-Korean measures resulted
in a clear disadvantage for the Soviet Far East, though not for the
U.S.S.R. as a whole. One of the main tasks of the Korean minority in
the economic field consisted in developing the cultivation of rice. Under
the Czarist regime, rice-planting in the Russian Far East had only an
experimental character. It did not assume major proportions until after
1917. This was not the merit of the Soviet authorities, but of the Japan-

* The following passage from a resolution which the political secretariat of the Comintern
Executive Committee passed in December 1928 might illustrate this point* "The ranks of
the Communist Party of Korea have in the past consisted almost exclusively of intellectuals
and students. A Communist Party built on such foundations cannot be a consistently
bolshevik and organizationally sound Party. The first task of the communist
movement of Korea is therefore to strengthen its own ranks. The problem of improving
the social structure of the Party is confronting us in its full scope. The petty-bourgeois
intellectual composition of the* Party, and the lack of contact with the workers have
hitherto constituted one of the main causes of the permanent crisis in the communist
movement of Korea. The frequent failures of the Korean communists show that the
Party was unable to organize its conspiratorial work properly.* (Resolution of the E.C.C.I.
on the Korean Question, International Press Correspondence, February 15th, 1929, p. 132.)

THE RUSSIAN KOREANS

ese occupants, who had made a close study of the economic potential-
ities of the Russian Pacific coastal regions during the period of
intervention. Japanese experts had estimated that between twenty and
twenty-five million acres of Russian land in the Far East could be used
for rice plantations. 11 But the Japanese did not approach the problem
from a theoretical angle alone; they also encouraged rice-growing in
practice. In 1918 only 674 acres of land in the Russian Far East grew
rice, against 6,476 acres in 1920, and 21,590 acres in 1921. 12 Encouraged
by these successes, the Soviet authorities drew up a 'Ten- Year Plan for
Rice Cultivation*. It foresaw that the area to be planted with rice was to
reach 232,000 acres in 1936, which was a modest target but meant,
nevertheless, a sevenfold increase as compared to the rice-growing area
at the beginning of the plan period. It does not seem that the target was
ever reached. The departure of the Koreans from the Soviet Far East
put a stop to the further development of rice cultivation there. For
future reference it is worthwhile to remember that the cultivation of
rice, the staple food of the Far Eastern peoples, is possible on a vast
scale in the Soviet Pacific coastal areas. This possibility might stimulate
future waves of Asiatic immigrants to the Russian Far East, if and when
circumstances allow.

THE SOVIET KOREAN DIASPORA

The economic losses which the departure of the Koreans caused to the
Soviet Far East were compensated by the benefits which they brought to
those areas of the U.S.S.R. to which they were directed by the authori-
ties. The Koreans of the F.E.T. provided very valuable colonists for
Uzbekistan. There they were resettled particularly in the Lower, Central
and Upper Chirchik Districts of the Tashkent Province, and in the
Gurlen District of the Khorezm Province. Many of the Korean colonists
have shown a high degree of efficiency, and since the end of the Second
World War the Soviet Press has frequently published lists of Korean rice-
and cotton-growers who were awarded Orders and Medals for outstand-
ing achievements on the labour front. In one case as many as 3 1 Koreans
of the Tashkent Province were awarded the title 'Hero of Socialist
Toil'. 13 Several of the Koreans in question had Russian Christian names
or even both Russian Christian names and Russian patronymics, a sure
sign that their families had settled in Russia before the coming to
power of the Bolshevik Party.

A particularly important piece of pioneering was accomplished by the
Koreans who had been sent to the Khorten Province. Before their
arrival there, only steppe grass grew on what are now very fertile rice-
fields. In formerly uninhabited territory the Koreans founded, through

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

'selfless work*, a big 'Stalin Collective Farm', which, every year, increases
its rice deliveries to the State. 14

In addition to the Korean settlements in the Tashkent and Khorezm
Provinces, there are Korean groups in other parts of the Soviet Union
which came into existence independently of the mass evacuation of the
Korean minority from the Far East. The most important of them have
lived as rice planters in the Kzyl Orda Province of Kazakhstan since
1928. The Kazakhstan Koreans have not only prosperous collective
farms, but also a remarkable cultural institution, the Korean State
Theatre, which has repeatedly received honourable mention.

Other Korean communities have been less fortunate, for instance,
those transferred to the Don area have disappeared without trace
after fulfilling a purpose which was as immoral as it was useful from the
point of view of the Soviet regime. The functions of these isolated
Korean groups might be illustrated by the example of the Korean
communal farm, ('kommuna') *Don-Ris', which was set up near the
Don Cossack village Sinyavskaya in the Taganrog District. The Koreans
arrived in that village at a time when collectivization of agriculture was
still in its beginning, and the very fact that they at once founded a
'kommuna', a particularly advanced type of collective farm was bound
to be felt as a provocation by the local people. The unpopularity of the
Korean newcomers increased further when a number of them (including
several Korean members of the Communist Party) took an active part in
so-called 'economic-political campaigns' ('khozpolitkampanif) which
aimed at terrorizing the 'kulaks' and confiscating their property. This
created the impression among the local Russian peasants that there
existed a close connection between the arrival of destitute Koreans in the
area, and the de-kulakization measures, A class conflict which the
Soviet Government provoked all over the Soviet Union thus appeared
locally as a national conflict. The discontent of the peasants was diverted
from the Soviet Government to the unfortunate Korean settlers, who
had allowed themselves to be used as shock-troops by the regime, and
who indeed had hoped to get a share in the spoils taken from the 'kulaks*.
All in all the *Don-Ris* experiment was a typical example of the 'divide
and rule' aspect of Soviet nationalities policy. 16

//. THE CHINESE MINORITY IN RUSSIA

It cannot be said with certainty when the Chinese started to live in
what is today the Soviet Far East An outstanding Russian authority on
the Ussuri and Amur territories, Vladimir K. Arsenev, stated that the
Chinese arrived there only thirty years prior to the Russian annexation,
i.e,, about 1830. When the Chinese Government ceded the Ussuri Prov-
inces to Russia, by the treaty concluded in Peking on November 2nd,

THE CHINESE MINORITY IN RUSSIA

1860, it did not know for certain whether there were Chinese subjects in
that area. Article One of the Treaty used the tentative phrase 'should
there be any Chinese subjects in the Ussuri territory . . .' In such a case
the Russian Government pledged itself to leave the Chinese at their
places of residence, and to allow them to continue fishing and hunting. 16

Przhevalsky, the first Russian traveller in the Ussuri region, who has
already been quoted, believed however, that the presence of Chinese in
the Ussuri area could be traced back to the middle of the seventeenth
century. Since then, the country has been used as a place of exile by the
authorities of Northern China. At the time of the final Russian occupa-
tion the Ussuri region contained, according to Przhevalsky, both a
Chinese brigand element and a Chinese sedentary agricultural popula-
tion. The local Chinese, said Przhevalsky, had developed agriculture to
a high degree of perfection and variety. They were growing beans,
maize, oats, wheat, melons, red pepper, tobacco, cabbage, garlic and
onions. 17

However divergent may be the opinions about the history of the
Chinese prior to the establishment of Russian sovereignty in the Ussuri
region, there is general agreement that they constituted a very import-
ant factor, at least during the first 60 years of Russian rule in that area.
The inefficiency of the Russian administration was the great chance of
the Chinese. The absence of generous grants to Russian peasants
indirectly favoured the Chinese farmer. The insufficient supply of goods
from the Russian hinterland made the Chinese trader a necessity. The
lack of an energetic political leadership on the part of the Russians
enabled the Chinese to form a state within the state, to live according to
their own laws, to have their own private courts, and to rule in many
places over the aborigines.

Chinese influence was strong, not only in the forest areas situated some
distance from the Russian administrative centres, but also within these
centres themselves, particularly in the towns of Nikolsk Ussuriisky,
Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. In each of these three towns there were
not only thousands of Chinese but also well organized and powerful
Chinese societies which worked under the supervision of the Ministry
of Labour, Commerce and Agriculture in Peking. The Vladivostok
Chinese Society had existed since 1881, that of Khabarovsk since 1889,
that of Nikolsfc Ussuriisky since 1908. These Societies were frequently
frowned upon by the Czarist Government, and there were times when
they had to work under conditions of illegality, but it was the Soviet
regime which did away with them altogether, The Chinese Societies in
these three towns of the Russian Far East were only the most prominent
of an entire network of Chinese organizations, which had sprung up in
all areas of the Russian Pacific Province where Chinese used to live.

Last but not least the Czarist r6gime attracted a large number of

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

Chinese labourers to the Russian Far East. Until 1910, Chinese man-
power was almost exclusively used for all public works commissioned
by the Czarist authorities either in the Russian Far Eastern territories
proper or in Manchuria. These included in the first place the port and
fortress of Vladivostok and the Ussuri and Eastern Chinese railway
lines. Most of the time, the Czarist authorities showed benevolence to
Chinese labourers and preferred them to Russians both for their
readiness to accept very low wages and for their lack of interest in
politics. In 1903 the military governor of the Amur district expressed
himself against the despatch of Russian workers to the Far East who
he said would only swell the ranks of the discontented, whilst the
Chinese workers were placid and caused no difficulties. Legal restrictions
against employment of Chinese and other foreign workers did exist
during the last few years of Czarist rule; but how little effective these
restrictions were is shown from the example of the Far Eastern gold-
mining industry. In 1902 it was almost entirely staffed by Russians.
In 1916 the share of the Russian element among the goldminers in the
Far East was only 7 per cent, practically all others being Chinese. 18

VLADIVOSTOK OR KAI SHEN VEI?

If it is generally true to say that the Soviet regime prevented the Chinese
from dominating the Ussuri and Amur region, nowhere has this Russian
mission of the Soviet Government found such a clear expression as in
Vladivostok, Russia's principal port on the Pacific Ocean.

As long as the Czarist regime lasted, and even in the first years of the
Soviet regime, Vladivostok showed every sign of becoming a big inter-
national trading centre, a kind of northern Shanghai, instead of being a
Russian bulwark on the Pacific Ocean. The big trade of Vladivostok
was primarily in the hands of the German and British firms, the most
important of all being the Hamburg merchants, 'Kunst and Albers',
with roughly the same importance in the Russian Far East which the
United Africa Company or John Holt have on the African West Coast.
The Chinese supplied the masses of the civilian population of the town
for which its Chinese name, 'Kai-Shen-Vei*, would have been more
appropriate than 'Vladivostok* which means 'Ruler of the East', a term
which, at that time, was misleading.

The official statistical data give a good picture of the importance of
the Chinese factor in Vladivostok. In 1879, seven years after the town
had been proclaimed principal Russian port on the Pacific, the popula-
tion of Vladivostok included about 600 Russian civilians against 3,470
Chinese and 500 Koreans. Russian predominance was artificially main-
tained by the presence in the town of a military personnel, 4,088 strong. 19
By the beginning of the century the situation had not greatly altered.

THE CHINESE MINORITY IN RUSSIA

The Vladivostok Chinese population was still considerably larger than
the Russian civilian population in the city. In 1902 the population of
Vladivostok included 15,000 Chinese, 2,300 Koreans, 2,400 Japanese,
11,500 Russians and a garrison of 13,000 men. In the first years of the
century the number of Chinese in Vladivostok went on increasing; it
reached 23,600 in 1911, and 26,780 in 1912, not including illegal immig-
rants who were not registered with the Russian police. According to
information from Chinese quarters they numbered several thousand. 20
During the first years of the Soviet regime the Chinese element was still
very much in evidence in Vladivostok. The census of 1926, it is true,
showed a clear preponderance of the Russians, who numbered over
65,500. The Chinese numbering 22,000, ranked second, followed by
Koreans (6,900), Ukrainians (6,000), Poles (1,720), Jews (1,180),
Latvians (665) and Japanese (582). To the traveller who went from
European Russia to Vladivostok the town offered a different picture
from the one conveyed by the official population statistics. For example,
a reporter of the communist German newspaper Deutsche Zentral-
Zeitung, which was published in Moscow, gave the following description:
*When entering the waiting room of the Vladivostok railway station, one
notices at once that one is in the East. One even thinks one is in China -
so many Chinese ! Yes, Vladivostok is very largely a Chinese city. , .* 21

With its large Chinese population Soviet Vladivostok retained in its
initial stage, the character of a northern Shanghai. Although the main
streets of the city were called after Lenin, Marx, and October 25 (the day
of the final establishment of Soviet rule in the Far East), foreign, in
particular Asiatic, capitalism had by no means abdicated. It was even
favoured by the official 'New Economic Policy 9 . Vladivostok still had its
Japanese banks, it retained its Japanese shipping lines, its Chinese and
Japanese hotels. Chinese and Japanese newspapers were published side
by side with the Russian communist organ Krasnoye Znamya. 22

The first Five- Year-Plan brought about the doom of the Chinese
traders in the Soviet Far East but Chinese could still exist there as hard-
working labourers and dockers, particularly in Vladivostok. A com-
munist traveller from Central Europe, Otto Heller, who visited
Vladivostok on the eve of the tenth anniversary of its inclusion into
Soviet Russia described it as an international workers* town, primarily
a town of Russian and Chinese workers. This is what Heller said about
the Vladivostok Chinese: 'The Chinese dockworkers who are working
in hundreds not only in the transit docks but also in the timber and
bunker docks are exceedingly active. Socialist competition, shock-
brigades, training courses, abolition of illiteracy - one finds all these to
an equal extent among the European and Asiatic workers*. 23 Heller
mentioned the building by the Soviet authorities of a new Chinese
quarter including cdubs, dining Halls and a mechanical laundry, but

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

what impressed him even more was the 'International Seamen's Club' of
Vladivostok. He said, significantly, that the influence of the club was
felt in all the ports of East Asia. Heller may have overestimated the
importance of the club but it is true that both the Comintern and the
Profintern, the international Communist trade union organization, had
considered Vladivostok as an important base for revolutionary activities
in the Far East. The former had founded a short-lived Tar Eastern
Secretariat' in Vladivostok, the latter had convened to that city the
Second Congress of its Pan-Pacific Secretariat. This body was intended
to foster unrest in all countries bordering on the Pacific and to encourage
the foundation of communist trade unions there. The Vladivostok
Congress (it was called a 'Conference' when the attendance turned out
to be poorer than expected) was a failure and its decisions had no
political repercussions in the Far East.

Vladivostok's inability to become a centre of revolution in the Far
East was presumably one of the considerations which determined the
Soviet Government finally to do away with the 'northern Shanghai', even
a proletarian Shanghai, and to transform the city into a Russian bul-
wark on the Pacific Ocean.

SOVIET RUSSIA AND THE LATINIZATION
OF THE CHINESE SCRIPT

Not only the Chinese population of Vladivostok, but the entire
Chinese minority of the U.S.S.R. was, until 1937, and particularly
around 1930, expected to play an outstanding part in revolutionizing
China. If not to promote the political revolution, the Soviet Chinese
were at least intended to bring about a cultural revolution. The latter
was to consist in the abolition of the Chinese 'hieroglyphs' and the intro-
duction of the Latin alphabet. Between 1929 and 1937 a number of
Soviet personalities, both politicians and scholars, concentrated a great
deal of energy on the latinization of the Chinese script. The sequence of
events was roughly as follows. A learned Chinese communist, whom
the Soviet Press usually referred to under the pseudonym 'Strakhov',
worked out a Latin alphabet for the Chinese language. In 1929 and 1930
Chinese workers and students in Moscow, Leningrad, Khabarovsk and
Vladivostok held meetings welcoming Strakhov's initiative. Then the
Soviet Academy of Sciences took control of operations. A 'Latinization
Brigade* was set up within the Chinese section of the Oriental Institute
of the Academy. In May 1931, the Ail-Union Executive Committee for
the New Alphabet approved the Chinese latinized alphabet. The 'Latin-
ization Brigade' then went to the Far East, summoned a 'First Confer-
ence for Latinization', and organized a permanent Tar Eastern Com-
mittee for the New Alphabet*. Between 1932 and 1934 the new alphabet

THE CHINESE MINORITY IN RUSSIA

was introduced in the few Chinese schools of the Soviet Union whereby
the teaching of the 'hieroglyphs' remained a special subject from the
second class on. The Chinese newspapers of Vladivostok were also
printed in Latin characters. In addition, an entire literature in the new
script came into being. By January 1st, 1935, as many as fifty books and
pamphlets had been published in the 'Latinghua', as the Chinese Latin
script was also called. 24

The Soviet initiative did stir up considerable interest in China itself,
particularly when the first pamphlets in the new script started to reach
Chinese intellectual circles, Inspired by the Soviet example, an entire
movement promoting the latinization of the script emerged in China
which had many supporters. No doubt the penetration into China of the
Soviet-invented Latinghua was one of the major successes of the Soviet
nationalities policy. But, whilst the Latinghua became an export article,
it was suppressed in Russia itself, for no Chinese books, pamphlets and
newspapers in Latin characters seem to have been printed in the U.S.S.R.
after 1937. 25 The absence of such literature is connected not only with
the general measures taken against the Chinese minority in the U.S.S.R.
but also with the fact that the Soviet Government had, in the later
'thirties', changed its attitude towards latinization. In 1937 the Soviet
Government already had grave doubts as to the wisdom of the intro-
duction of the Latin alphabet for non-Russian peoples. As by that
time the Chinese minority in Russia was no longer a recognized
factor, it was spared the experiment of a Chinese script in Cyrillic letters.

CHINESE AND RUSSIAN 'PROLETARIAT*

Up to now it would appear that Russian-Chinese relations in the
Soviet Far East had been fairly idyllic until the turning point of 1937.
In reality there was a great deal of tension between Russians and Chinese,
much more than between Russians and Koreans. The ordinary Russian
Far Easterner often held the local Chinese minority responsible for the
anti-Russian policy pursued by Chinese war-lords in Manchuria, particu-
larly their aggressive actions against the Chinese Eastern Railway which
was under joint Soviet-Chinese management. The Chinese-Soviet
conflict over this vital railway line reached its climax in 1929, and it
was only natural that it should have provoked a wave of chauvinism in
the Russian Far East, to which the local Chinese fell victims. Already
then the Russians of the Far East would have welcomed the expulsion
of the Chinese. However this was not yet official Soviet policy, and the
Soviet Government shielded the Chinese minority against Russian
hostility as well as it could. But many of the local authorities pursued a
policy of their own, In one district, the gold-mining region of Zeya*
north of Blagoveshchensk, t&ey embarked on an open persecution of

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

the Chinese, and arrested them in large numbers. This injustice was
later redressed, and the Soviet officials guilty of this excess were
punished by imprisonment from two to five years.

With the connivance of Soviet officials there were also anti-Chinese
outrages in Nikolsk Ussuriisky where twelve Russians including the
deputy commander of the local militia had to be arrested for
*chauvinism'. Most of the Far Eastern Russians put on trial for
chauvinistic activities belonged to the working class. The chief bulwarks
of anti-Chinese agitation apart from the goldmines of the Soyuzzoloto
trust were the 'Dalzavod*, the big shipbuilding yard of Vladivostok
and the 'Dalselmash', a plant in Khabarovsk producing agricultural
machinery. Russians working in these enterprises frequently assaulted
Chinese workmen and used against them such terms of abuse as
'Fazan', 'Kitayeza* and 'Chan-Kai-shi*, the last named being the
Russian version of Chang Kai-shek.

The Party headquarters in Moscow were continually admonishing
the Far Eastern trade union and Party organizations to put an end to
the anti-Chinese manifestations. Their laxity in fighting the chauvinists,
particularly those of proletarian origin, was notorious. The communist
city secretary of Vladivostok, for instance, did his best to stop an
investigation by a Pravda correspondent into the treatment of the
local Chinese. 26

Notwithstanding all the unpleasant incidents in the Soviet Far East,
people in European Russia were persistently told that there was
harmonious co-operation between the Chinese proletariat and the
Russian working class. A representative of that Chinese proletariat, a
shockworker of the Suchan coalmines, was even sent to Moscow to
address the Sixth Congress of Soviets which was held in March 1931.
He brought greetings from his Chinese fellow-workers, and drew
attention to the increased participation of Chinese in local govern-
ment bodies of the F.E.T. At the Seventh Congress of Soviets, which
was held in March 1935, no Chinese representative attended, but
the head of the provincial administration of the F.E.T., Krutov,
mentioned, in an address to the Congress, several positive facts
about the Chinese minority, particularly the existence of Chinese
schools, and of a Chinese theatre in Vladivostok. At the Eighth
Congress of Soviets which met in November 1936, to adopt the new
Stalin Constitution, there was again a Chinese delegate, the famous
Stakhanovite of the fishing industry, Li Un Kho. 27 Other Chinese'
Stakhanovites who had distinguished themselves in coalmining and
agriculture were frequently praised in the Soviet Press thoughout the
year of 1936, when the Stakhanov movement was still young.

The Chinese proletariat did indeed play an important part in the
economy of the Soviet Far East. In 1926 the Chinese and other 'oriental

THE CHINESE MINORITY IN RUSSIA

workers* supplied 50 per cent of all manpower employed in Far Eastern
coalmining and 35 per cent of the labour force of the timber industry.
So the anti- Asiatic measures of 1937 hit first and foremost the ordinary
Chinese workers and not any Chinese upper class. Chinese coalminers,
for instance, were removed from the Suchan coalmines in connection
with official Soviet statements that 'acts of sabotage' had been com-
mitted in the pits in conformity with Japanese instructions. 28

The second edition of the Large Soviet Encyclopedia indirectly
confirms the elimination of the Chinese minority of the Soviet Far East.
A short article on Vladivostok in the Small Soviet Encyclopedia pub-
lished in 1934 still referred to a 'considerable number of Chinese and
Koreans'. 29 The Large Soviet Encyclopedia published in 1952, on the
other hand, ignores these two peoples when devoting to the city a much
more detailed description. The new edition of the standard Soviet
reference book has also shown by omission that all institutions of the
large Russian port which were the pride of Soviet nationalities policy
before the Second World War have gone. The Chinese theatre which,
incidentally, was not founded by the Soviets but the Chinese merchants
at the end of the nineteenth century, has been abolished. The only four
theatres now existing in the city are the Russian Gorky Theatre, the
Theatre of the Pacific Fleet, the puppet theatre and the youth theatre. * 30
Also the Chinese newspaper of Vladivostok has disappeared, whereas
the number of Russian papers in the city has increased. Even the Tar
Eastern University' with its Chinese and Korean departments was
disbanded. It is the only university in the U.S.S.R, which has met such
a fate.

After the purge in the Far East, groups of Chinese continued to live
in other parts of the Soviet Union, in Moscow, Leningrad and other
industrial centres of European Russia, as well as in Soviet Central Asia.
The 1939 census, however, indicated a great decrease in the number of
Chinese living in the U.S.S.R. As compared with the 1926 census their
number was reduced by two-thirds, from 92,000 to 29,000, but these
figures may not give an absolutely reliable picture as to the strength of
the Chinese element in Soviet Russia, for the 1939 figure seems to
include only Soviet citizens of Chinese origin, and not people who re-
tained Chinese nationality.

There is sufficient, though unofficial, evidence available to show that

* There is positive evidence that the theatre wa$ still in existence in March 1937 (Pravda,
March 22nd, 1937), but it must have been closed down soon afterwards. Foundation
and abolition of theatres for national minorities has always been symbolic of the trends
of Soviet policy towards the nationalities concerned In 1931 the Soviet Government
founded the 'First Polish Theatre* in Kiev as an encouragement to the Polish minority
to build up a Polish national culture mdependent of the culture of 'bourgeois Poland*.
Later, when this attempt was abandoned, the Polish theatre was abolished. In 1949 the
Soviet Government closed down the Jewish theatre in Moscow as part of a whole series
of repressive measures against Jewish nationalism.

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

the Chinese in Soviet Russia fared badly in the late 'thirties* not only in
the Far East but in every part of the Union in which they lived. F. Beck
and W. Godin in their book on the Russian purge 31 mention mass
arrests of Chinese, which occurred, apparently, in 1937. The authors
themselves had met many Chinese in the prison of Kharkov; they were
all charged with espionage in favour of Japan and some even with
preparing terror acts against the members of the Soviet Government.
Most of them were very humble laundrymen and absolutely incapable
of committing the crimes of which they were accused.

///. THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE

PEOPLE

Soviet Russian policy towards the Japanese suffers from duplicity. As
communists, the Soviet leaders are interested in the establishment of a
communist regime in Japan, and, as Russians, they want to expand the
Russian Empire at the expense of the Japanese people. The internation-
alist-communist approach towards the Japanese problem has largely
remained theoretical whilst the nationalist Russian trend has prevailed
in practice.

Soviet Russia's theoretical approach towards the Japanese people has
been expressed not only in various pronouncements of the Communist
International, but also in novels of Soviet writers dealing with problems
of the Far East The best example of the latter category is Peter
Pavlenko's novel Na Vostoke, translated into English as 'Red Planes
Fly East'. Pavlenko's book, which was written in the early 'thirties',
anticipated a Russo-Japanese War. The author predicted that it would
end with a communist victory and with mass fraternization between
Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese communists. The final chapter
of the book deals with the building of a new international city in the
Soviet Far East situated near the Korean frontier. Most of the inhabit-
ants of the new city are Japanese prisoners of war, reason enough to
give the city a Japanese name, *Sen Katayama*, after a famous Japanese
communist. 3 *

The Russo-Japanese War came, but it resulted in quite a different
relationship between Soviet communists and Japanese from that which
Pavlenko had predicted. Soviet policy towards the Japanese people
after the Second World War transformed the 'City of Sen Katayama'
into a Utopian dream. Soviet Russia's attitude was uncompromisingly
imperialistic and nationalistic, not only towards the small Japanese
groups living within the pre-1945 frontiers of the U.S.S.R.,* but also

* The number of Japanese living permanently in the territory of the Russian Empire
has always been very small. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the century more and more
Japanese settled in the Vladivostok region. Their number increased from 2,061 in 1897 to

THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

towards the hundreds of thousands of Japanese colonists in the new
Soviet territories - Karafuto and the Kurile islands. Soviet practice in
these territories showed that the Soviet Government did not believe in
peaceful co-operation and co-existence between Russian colonists on
the one hand and Japanese workmen, peasant settlers and fishermen on
the other. The actions taken by the Soviet Government on Sakhalin and
the Kurile Islands also proved that Soviet Russia was not guided solely
by opposition to Japanese militarism and imperialism; her measures
were those of a ruthless European colonial power against an Asiatic
people.

The annexation of Southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands differed
in character from most of the other territorial aggrandizements which
Russia carried out during and after the Second World War. In the case
of Eastern Poland, the Transcarpathian Ukraine, Bessarabia and the
Baltic States, Russia claimed to have liberated the peoples of these
territories from fascist, capitalist and landlord oppression. No such
argument was advanced about the territories which Soviet Russia took
from Japan. Moscow simply invoked the Treaty of Yalta and the
historic rights of Russia, making it quite clear that the latter were much
more important than the former. There is probably no other instance
in which the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics has appeared with
such cynical frankness as the heir and successor of the Empire of the
Czars. This is how the official organ of the Law Institute of the AU-Union
Academy of Sciences formulated the 'legal side* of the annexation of
the Japanese possessions:

'The Yalta and Potsdam decisions providing for the return to
Soviet Russia of Southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands were no
more than the re-establishment of historic justice which was trampled
down by aggressive Japanese policy. Southern Sakhalin and the
Kurile Islands are genuinely Soviet territories. The historic rights of
the Soviet Union on them are based, above all, on the indisputable
fact that they were first discovered and developed by Russian sea-
farers and explorers. . . The fact that Russian seafarers and explorers
were the first to discover and develop the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin
gave the Russian Government the right to consider these territories
as integral parts of the Russian State.' 33

over 3,000 in 1907, and to over 4,000 in 1909. After the establishment of Soviet rule the
Japanese colony in the Russian Far East was all but completely liquidated. At the end of
1925 there were only 600 left (Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S,R., Obyasnitelnaya
Zapiska k Etnagrafichesfcoi Karte S&iri - Explanation of the Ethnographic Map of Siberia,
Leningrad 1929, p. 94).

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

SAKHALIN

When, in August of 1945, the Soviet Government belatedly entered the
war in the Far East it pursued one aim above all, to decide the struggle
for the island of Sakhalin once and for all in Russia's favour.

Russians and Japanese have disputed the possession of the island
ever since the middle of the nineteenth century. The first diplomatic
document which reflects both Japanese and Russian interest in Sakhalin
was the Treaty of Shimoda, which was concluded in 1855. It established
a Russo-Japanese condominium. The condominium status was con-
firmed by a convention which Russia and Japan signed in 1867, but it
was abolished in 1875 by the Treaty of St. Petersburg, which made
Sakhalin an undivided Russian possession. In 1905 a radical change
occurred. The Treaty of Portsmouth cut Sakhalin in two. Russia lost to
Japan the part of Sakhalin south of the Fiftieth Parallel, a territory to
which the Japanese refer as 'Karafuto'.

Russia and Japan may have been equally eager to own Sakhalin, but
the island was of very unequal value to the two Powers. For Russia,
Sakhalin was a question of prestige, a strategic outpost and an accessory
which rounded off her gigantic Asiatic possessions but which the
Russian people did not really need. For Japan, Sakhalin was an outlet
for its population surplus and an organic part of its island Empire.
Until 1905 the Czarist authorities of Sakhalin had achieved little of
which to be proud. The island had then about 40,000 inhabitants or one
per square mile. Most of the population consisted of convicts, exiles
and their families. Officials and soldiers constituted the second largest
group, and there were only a few hundred voluntary settlers who were
without any family ties on the island. When Russia lost Southern
Sakhalin she naturally withdrew her subjects and Japan had to start from
the very beginning to colonize the territory. The Japanese shouldered
this task without delay and devoted a great deal of energy to it. In 1910,
Karafuto already had over 10,000 inhabitants, and, by the outbreak of
the First World War, over 60,000. The Czarist authorities did not
succeed in meeting the challenge of the Japanese. After the defeat of
1905 they paid little attention to the part of the island which had
remained in Russian hands. Colonization by convicts was stopped, but
no free colonization took its place. Many of the former convicts and
exiles left the island and there was a marked decline of population.
In 1910 only 10,500 people lived in Northern Sakhalin.

The successful start of Japanese colonization in Karafuto stirred up
Japanese desire for the possession of the whole of Sakhalin, and in
1920 Japan took advantage of the Russian Civil War to occupy the
territory north of the Fiftieth Parallel. The conduct of the Japanese

THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

occupation authorities in Northern Sakhalin from 1920 to 1925 left no
doubt as to Japan's intention to stay there for good. The Japanese
commander banned all Russian political activities, Japanese civil
and penal law replaced Russian legislation, and even the streets of
Alexandrovsk, the chief town of Northern Sakhalin, were given
Japanese names. 34 It was not so much the progressing consolidation of
the young Soviet state which in the end prompted Japan to leave
Northern Sakhalin, but rather American insistence on Japanese with-
drawal from all Russian territories occupied during the Civil War.
Northern Sakhalin was the last Russian territory to be freed from the
military forces of the intervention powers.

Though liberated from the Japanese military occupation, Sakhalin
still remained partly within the Japanese economic sphere. By the treaty
concluded in Peking in 1924, Russia granted Japan coal and oil deposits
in Northern Sakhalin for a period of 45 years. The Japanese coal conces-
sions were situated on the west coast of the island and covered an area
of 13,600 acres. Between 1927 and 1935 between 100,000 and 125,000
tons of coal were exported to Japan from the concession area. The areas
of the oil concessions were much larger, and stretched along the entire
east coast of the island. By the beginning of the Second Five- Year Plan
almost half of all Sakhalin oil was produced by oil wells belonging to a
Japanese company. 35 Japanese oil and coal concessions survived the
general liquidation of foreign concessions in the Soviet Union which
took place during the Second Five- Year Plan. In 1941, when the
Japanese Foreign Minister, Matsuoka, signed the Japanese-Soviet
Neutrality Pact, he gave a written undertaking that the liquidation of
the Northern Sakhalin concessions would follow 'within several months'.
However, the actual abandonment of the concessions was carried out
only as the result of a Japanese-Soviet agreement of March 1944.

The Soviet regime did its best to learn from the mistakes which from
a Russian imperialist standpoint Czarist policy had committed in the
handling of the Sakhalin question. It realised that a large number of
Russians had to be brought into Northern Sakhalin if the territory were
to remain a safe Russian possession, and if its coal and oil riches were
to be properly exploited. Soviet experts considered that Northern
Sakhalin could, as a fuel base, become the backbone of the entire
Soviet Far Eastern economy. They estimated that the Northern Sakhalin
coal deposits exceeded two thousand million tons, and the oil deposits
one hundred million tons. Bearing all this in mind Soviet Russia entered
into a race with Japan for the development of Sakhalin. The Soviet
authorities devoted their particular attention to the consolidation of
two localities, the 'socialist oil town* of Okha, and the mining town of
Due, which absorbed colonists from practically every Russian mining
centre. 86 From a purely statistical point of view Soviet Northern

53 5

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

Sakhalin proved unable to equal Japanese Karafuto. Throughout the
inter-war period the population of Karafuto grew from 106,000 in 1920
to 339,000 in 1938. By the outbreak of the Second World War the
population of Karafuto was roughly three times that of Northern
Sakhalin, and in 1945 it had more than 400,000 inhabitants. There was,
however, a considerable difference of quality between the settlements
built north and south of the Fiftieth Parallel. Those constructed on the
Russian side were usually more solid and more suitable to withstand
the harshness of the climate than most of the housing in Karafuto. But
the Japanese did a great deal to develop the fishing and timber industry
and to increase coal mining and in the later stages they also encouraged
agricultural settlement. The cultural progress in Karafuto was also
remarkable. In 1940 the territory had 253 schools with 56,000 pupils
(as against 17,500 schoolchildren in Northern Sakhalin in 1945). There
were also three secondary schools for boys and three for girls and one
commercial college. 37

The necessity for further peaceful competition between Russians and
Japanese on Sakhalin ended in August 1945 when, a few days before
the end of the war in the Far East, Soviet forces moved into Karafuto.
The Soviet troops found themselves in a comparatively densely populated
Japanese country where only a few solid block-houses reminded them
of the Russian rule before 1905. Everything else they saw in Karafuto was
the work of the Japanese administration and of the Japanese people.

On the morrow of the occupation the embarrassing question of what
to do with the Japanese faced the Russian administrators. The revolu-
tionary Soviet nationalities policy of the 'twenties' would have had a
simple answer to the problem: the transformation of Karafuto into a
Japanese Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a base for communist
infiltration into Japan proper. As the Soviet regime had long ago
dispensed with its original concept of internationalism it chose quite a
different approach. The Karafuto Japanese were treated as a conquered
people who, although not enjoying political rights, were, nevertheless,
during a transition period expected to work for the Soviet state under
the supervision of Russian civilian and military authorities. The Soviet
High Command issued, indeed, a proclamation to the Karafuto Japanese
which stated : * The Red Army has brought you peaceful work and
order. It has no intention of interfering with your life. It brings you
freedom and happiness. The High Command of the Soviet Armed
Forces requests you to stay where you are and to work honestly in
factories and workshops, in offices, trading establishments and in
agriculture.'

The proclamation of the Soviet High Command was only a manoeuvre
designed to prevent chaos in Karafuto pending the arrival of the
first Russian colonists : it did not reflect the real intentions of the Soviet

THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

Government, which was determined from the outset not only that
Japanese rule should come to an end but also that Japanese settlers
should leave the island to make room for Russians. Soviet Russia
could not afford the luxury of a Japanese national minority accounting
for roughly 10 per cent of the entire population of the Soviet Far East.

The reunited Sakhalin was to be a Slav bastion as well as a com-
munist outpost in the Pacific. It was natural, therefore, that Russia
should have demanded the evacuation of the majority of Japanese to
Japan proper. A small group of Japanese remained in Karafuto, but they
were told that the country in which they were allowed to continue
to live was a Russian territory from which all traces of Japanese
civilization and Japanese traditions were to be eradicated. In 1946 a
Ukase of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet stipulated that the towns
of Sakhalin were to receive new names which were to bear witness to the
Russian contribution towards the opening up of Pacific territories in
general, and of Sakhalin in particular. The first Russians to be honoured
by having towns named after them were Admiral Nevelskoy and the
officers under his command who, in September 1852, had hoisted the
Russian flag in Sakhalin. The port of Honto was called 'Nevelsk* and
several smaller places were named after other members of the Nevelskoy
expedition, for instance Tonnai became 'Boshnyakovo* and Ushiro
*Orlovo*. The largest port of Karafuto - Otomari - was given the name
of 'Korsakov* in memory of Captain Rimsky-Korsakov who, in 1853,
had taken possession of that place. The town of Shirutoru on the East
coast of Karafuto is now called 'Makarov*, after another Russian
admiral. Another town in Southern Sakhalin was named after the Russian
writer Chekhov who had visited the island and given a vivid description
of its backwardness under Czarist rule. There are other new names with
which nothing of historical interest is associated. Esutoru, the centre of
the coalmining region of Southern Sakhalin, is now known as 'Ugjegorsk*
which is derived from the Russian word 'ugoF (coal). The capital of
Karafuto, Toyohara, which had had 50,000 inhabitants under Japanese
rule was simply renamed 'Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk* - town of Southern
Sakhalin.

These new Russian names were symbols of the victorious entry of
Russian culture into Karafuto, expressed in the foundation of Russian
schools, by a Russian theatre in *Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk', and particularly
by the arrival of a large stream of Russian colonists. They came, as a
Soviet reporter said, *from the most distant places of the homeland*.
They included *oil workers from Baku, miners from the Donbass and
Kuzbass and fishermen of the White, Caspian and Azov Seas'. 38
Collective farmers came to Sakhalin chiefly from the provinces of
Tambov, Ryazan, Kirov, Bryansk, Gorky, Kursk, Smolensk, Kaluga
and Kostroma* Le., from Great Russian areas. Ukrainians do not seem

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

to have participated in the colonization of Sakhalin to any great extent.
Was this resettlement action purely voluntary? It was voluntary in the
sense that the collective farmers who travelled to their new homes were
neither deportees nor victims of the N.K.V.D., as those 'kulaks' sent
to distant Far Northern places in the 'thirties 9 had been. On the other
hand, it would be wrong to think that a peasant of Ryazan or Kursk
was as free to go or not to go to Southern Sakhalin as an Englishman is
when deciding to emigrate to Australia or to New Zealand. The available
evidence shows that 'operation Southern Sakhalin* was connected with
a certain amount of moral pressure. It was carried out roughly as follows.
The Resettlement Administration, which is an agency of the Govern-
ment of the Russian Federation, first fixed the number of settlers which
Southern Sakhalin was to absorb during a certain period. Having done
this, the Administration sent out instructions to the various 'Executive
Committees' of the provinces of Central Russia to recruit peasant
colonists. These instructions were then passed on to the village councils
and the individual collective farms. The riches of Southern Sakhalin, its
forests, hunting grounds and the excellency of its agricultural soil, were
portrayed to the peasants in vivid colours. But the peasants were also
told that emigration to the new Soviet land was a patriotic duty. This
was reflected in the slogan which was chalked on the railway trucks
carrying the first settlers to the distant land. It said 'The Homeland has
sent us to Southern Sakhalin'. 39 However, there were quite a number of
material incentives which prompted people to go to the island. Each
collective fanner ready to settle down in Sakhalin received from the
State a loan of 20,000 roubles only half of which was to be repaid in
instalments spread over ten years.

Even more important than the development of agricultural coloniza-
tion was the recruitment of personnel for the fishing industry of
Southern Sakhalin, The fishing industry of the reunited island yields
about one-seventh of the catch of fish of the U.S.S.R., and about one-
quarter of the world's production of canned crab. A large number of
demobilized soldiers were, therefore, encouraged to take up residence in
the territories reconquered from the Japanese. This part of the Russian
colonization of Karafuto took place under the supervision of one of the
foremost leaders of the Soviet state, Anastas Mikoyan.

Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands have such a high priority as resettle-
ment areas that they are being colonized even at the expense of the 'old'
Soviet Far East. A Government decree of March 1st, 1946, stipulated that
wages and salaries in Sakhalin were to be fifty per cent higher than on
the Far Eastern mainland, and on the Kurile Archipelago, even 100 per
cent higher.

To maintain the stream of colonists to Southern Sakhalin, Soviet
propaganda extolled the achievements of Russian reconstruction work

THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

there in enthusiastic terms which were similar to those previously used
about the building of Komsomolsk. Poets, songwriters and novelists
were mobilized to tell the Russian people that 'there are no distant
islands but only one great powerful Russia', that Sakhalin must remain
Russian for ever, and that 'no smell, no breath' must be left over from
the Japanese, as the poet Feoktisov said in his poem 'Fiftieth Parallel'. 40

KURILE ISLANDS

Soviet occupation of the Kurile archipelago at the end of the Second
World War was different in character from the establishment of Russian
sovereignty over Southern Sakhalin. The occupation of the Kurile
Islands meant the replacement of an Asiatic by a European imperialism.
It cannot possibly be described as a blow to the Japanese people. Only
the two southernmost islands of the Kurile chain, Kunashiri and
Jeterofu Shima, were an exception in this respect since Japanese colonists
had there established themselves and founded ten and five villages
respectively.

The northern Kurile Islands, though unsuitable for colonization for
climatic reasons, proved to be of the utmost strategic importance to
Japan. The northernmost island of the archipelago, Shimoshuto, forms
an ideal jumping board in the direction of Soviet Kamchatka, from
which it is separated by a distance of less than seven miles. The second
northernmost Kurile island, Paramushiro, proved to be a valuable
Japanese naval base, being closer to the westernmost Aleutian Islands,
Attu and Kiska, than the nearest American naval base of Dutch Harbour.
For Soviet Russia, too, the strategic value of the Kurile Islands is
paramount. In Soviet hands the Kurile Islands form a dagger pointed
toward the Japanese island of Hokkaido, as well as improving Russia's
strategic position vis-&-vis the United States.

Ever since Russian sovereignty over the Kurile Islands was re-
established in 1945, the Soviet Government has tried to consolidate
its position there by the encouragement of Russian colonization.
Soviet propaganda has frequently commented sneeringly on the inability
of the Japanese to colonize the archipelago - there were never more than
15,000 Japanese in the islands - and has predicted that Russians would
do their job more efficiently and put the Japanese to shame. Only young
and enthusiastic Soviet citizens, such as Communist Youth League
members imbued with a high spirit of adventure and patriotism, were
considered fit for the difficult task of colonizing the Kurile Islands.

Konstantin Badigin, a *Hero of the Soviet Union', after visiting the
Kurile Islands, told the Soviet youth in the newspaper Komsomolskaya
Pravda: 'Here (in the islands) a wide field is opening for the constructive
energetic activity of our youth, May our boys and girls remember their

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

distant ancestors, those fearless seafarers and untiring explorers who,
centuries ago, did so much to make the Kurile Islands ours, and may
they give their strength to the rebirth of these far-off genuinely Russian
lands.' 41

A few thousand Russians have responded to this and other similar
appeals. Among the new Russian settlers of the Kurile Islands there are
many young demobilized soldiers as well as fishermen from Archangel,
Astrakhan and the Far Eastern mainland. The Russian colonizers paid
particular attention to the three islands in which the Japanese had
been interested, Kunashiri and Jeterofu Shima in the south, and Para-
mushiri in the north. The administrative headquarters of the 'Kurile Dis-
trict' were set up on Jeterofu Shima or Iturup. One of the Japanese villages
of the island was transformed into the Russian settlement 'Kurilsk', and
serves now as a Soviet district centre. Another 'economic and cultural
centre*, Yuzhnekurilsk, was erected on Kunashiri which because of its
nearness to Japan exercises particular attraction on the new colonizers.
A third Russian township, Severokurilsk came into being on Paramushiri,
the former Japanese fortress island.

To encourage further settlers to go to the Kurile Islands official
propaganda tries to create the impression that sport, culture and medical
and economic conditions in the new Soviet colony are little different
from those prevailing in the most civilized parts of the U.S.S.R. The
following is a typical news item trying to 'catch* colonists from among
the young generation:

*A stadium for 3,000 spectators has been built in the youngest

Soviet town - Severokurilsk on the Kurile Islands. Although this

town is little more than one year old, sports have already made

considerable progress in it. The Dynamo, Spartak and other sports

societies have set up branches there. Football is especially popular.

Severokurilsk football teams will participate in the match for the

championship of the Soviet Far East'. 42

Another news item, published from 'Kurilsk', announced the publica-
tion of a newspaper the Red Lighthouse, the foundation of three clubs,
of a 'House of Culture 5 and of three hospitals. 43 A third item claimed
that a circle of young writers and poets had been organized in
Yuzhnekurilsk. 44 The photographs which have been published about
the new Soviet settlements on rare occasions have somewhat contradicted
the optimistic picture of the Press reports; they show a rather primitive
state of affairs.

It is doubtful whether the official propaganda campaign has made the
Kurile Islands in any way more attractive to the average Soviet citizen.
In the popular mind they are tantamount to the end of the world and
people are afraid of being sent there*

THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

KAMCHATKA

In Kamchatka, too, the Soviet regime was able to inflict a heavy defeat
on Japan and make up for a certain 'neglect' of Russian national
interests by the Czarist regime. Being unable to exploit fully the waters
off Kamchatka and of the Okhotsk Sea, Czarist Russia had granted
equal fishing rights to the Japanese in a Fishing Convention signed in
1907. The Convention resulted in a peaceful Japanese invasion of the
Kamchatka peninsula. In 1910 as many as 6,869 Japanese were engaged
in the fishing industry of Kamchatka, whilst its total population was
9,500. In the following years the number of Japanese steadily increased,
and, in 1914, 8,886 Japanese were working in the fishing industry of
Western Kamchatka, as against 1,569 Russians, some of whom were
employed by Japanese firms. 45

During the Russian Civil War, Japan contrived to consolidate her
predominant position on the peninsula. Between 1917 and 1922 she
raised the number of fishing lots in Kamchatka from 200 to roughly 400.
All but one of the twenty-four canneries which existed in Kamchatka in
1923 were in Japanese hands.

When Russian sovereignty over the Far Eastern territories of the
Russian Empire had been fully restored, Soviet leaders deemed it
advisable to tolerate Japanese presence on the peninsula for a certain
period. At the same time, everything was done to consolidate the
Russian position in Kamchatka without openly provoking Japanese
hostility. This consolidation was achieved by the planned increase of
the population of Southern Kamchatka, which, between 1927 and 1934
alone, grew from 9,700 to 28,300. The immigration of Russians into
the economically vital areas of the peninsula enabled the Soviet
authorities to replace Japanese workers by Russians fairly rapidly. As
late as 1928 Kamchatka's fishing industry relied on 52 per cent Japanese
manpower. Four years later that percentage ^vas reduced to 4, and in
1933 there were no longer any Japanese workers in the peninsula's
fishing industry. In the same year the number of Russian canneries in
Kamchatka reached 21 while there still existed 25 Japanese canneries.
Despite all the progress made by the Russians, Japan, in the middle of the
'thirties', was still in control of two-thirds of Kamchatka's catch,
including the most valuable salmon catch. In 1936 between 10 and 12
per cent of the entire Japanese fish production and 40 per cent of
Japanese crab fishing were supplied by the Kamchatka catch.

During the Second World War Japan was allowed to maintain her
canneries in the peninsula. On March 10th, 1944, the Soviet-Japanese
Fishing Convention was extended until the end of 1948. The Allied
victory over Japan, however, made the Convention null and void long

THE POLICY OF THE WHITE SOVIET FAR EAST

before the date of its expiration, and so did away with the last foreign
'concession' in Soviet territory. So it was that the Soviet Union won the
'Battle of Kamchatka*, a keen contest for the first place among the
fishing powers of the world. It was a battle without bloodshed, but it
may prove to have been more costly to the Japanese in the long run
than the battles of Okinawa and Iwojima, provided that the Russians
are able to exploit to the full the advantages they have gained. The
establishment of a Russian fishing monopoly in the north-western Pacific,
which Japan's defeat made possible, meant that the Soviet regime could
broaden considerably the food supply base of her north-eastern posses-
sions and extend Russian colonization in Kamchatka and the areas
around the Okhotsk Sea. It seems, however, that the Soviet regime
took more away from the Japanese than it could digest. It has never been
able to fulfil the fishing part of the Five- Year Plan in the Far East.

Soviet policy towards Eastern immigrants compares unfavourably
with the treatment which the United States and Canada meted out to
the 3 1 3,000 Japanese of Hawaii and North America (1 60,000 in Hawaii,
129,000 in the United States proper and 24,000 in Canada) even after the
Pearl Harbour attack. The differences between the Soviet and the North
American approach can be summarised as follows:
L Canada and the United States evacuated the Japanese from certain
strategically exposed territories at a time when the two countries were at
war with Japan. Every attempt was made not to remove them too far
away from their original homes. Most of Canada's Japanese, for instance,
were allowed to remain within the 'Canadian Far West'. Soviet Russia
deported her oriental immigrants from border areas both before the
beginning of hostilities and after their termination. The immigrants had
either to leave the Soviet Union altogether, as was the case with the
Japanese, or take up residence in areas a great distance from their
original places of residence as in the case of the Koreans and Chinese of
the Soviet Pacific coastal province.

2. In Hawaii the United States have succeeded in Americanizing the
Japanese community and rendering it largely immune against Japan even
in time of war. Less than 1 per cent of the entire Japanese population
of Hawaii were interned, and only 981 Japanese were deported to North
America. These were mostly Shinto and Buddhist priests, teachers, and
other persons known for their sympathies with the Japanese cause. All
the rest were able to continue their work as shop-keepers, fanners and
clerical workers throughout the war. Some of the younger Japanese even
served in the American army. After the war only one hundred Hawaiian
Japanese returned to Japan. From Canada not more than one-sixth or
four thousand of the whole Japanese community went to their country

THE SOVIET EMPIRE VERSUS THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

of origin after 1945. Communist Russia, on the other hand, showed by
the wholesale evacuation measures in the Soviet Far East that she did not
believe in a successful future 4 sovietization' of the Japanese of Sakhalin
and the Kurile Islands, or even of the Vladivostok Chinese and Koreans.

3. In North America even tte Japanese evacuees enjoyed the benefits of
democratic institutions. The Japanese of California took their case,
though unsuccessfully, to the Supreme Court of the United States and
there was freedom of speech in the Japanese 'relocation centres* that
existed in California, Arkansas, Utah and Idaho. Japanese Americans
found champions among Americans of Anglo-saxon stock and a com-
prehensive book which took up their case with great insistence saw as
many as five reprints during the war. The Canadian Japanese too were
not helpless. They had associations and a newspaper The New Canadian
to defend their interests. The case of the Canadian Japanese was amply
discussed in parliament and in the Press. Nothing of all this is possible
under Soviet conditions.

4. All negative measures taken against the Japanese in Canada and the
United States took place under the full control of public opinion. The
administration had to render account for every single evacuated Japan-
ese, for housing and health conditions in the reception areas, and even
for the school attendance of the evacuated Japanese children. In the
Soviet Union the evacuation of Chinese and Koreans took place under
conditions of the greatest secrecy and is not traceable in any accessible
official records. It was the arbitrary action of a police state. 46

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1. N. PRZHEVALSKY, Puteshestvie v Ussuriiskom krae, 1867-69. Travel in the
Ussuri Region, 1867-69. St. Petersburg, p. 111.

2. Guide to the Great Siberian Railway, published by the Ministry of Ways
of Communication, St. Petersburg 1900, pp. 416-17.

3. The statement is reproduced in an official work on the revolution in the
Far East, Kommissiya po istorii Oktyabrskoy Revolyutsii i R.K.P.
(Bolshevikov), Revolyutsiya na Dalnom Vostoke - Commission for the
History of the October Revolution and of the Russian Communist Party
(Bolsheviks), The Revolution in the Far East, Moscow-Leningrad 1923,
pp. 359-74.

4. S. D. ANOSOV, Koreitsy v Ussuriiskom krae - The Koreans in the Ussuri
Region, Khabarovsk. Vladivostok 1928, pp. 24-5. Quoted by John N,
Washburn 'Soviet Russia and the Korean Communist Party*, Pacific
Affairs, March 1950, vol. xxii, Nr 1, p. 61.

5. Sovetskaya Aziya, 1929, Nr 25, p. 45.

6. Tikhy Okean, 1937, Nr 11, p. 579.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II

7. Revolyutsiya i Natsionalnosti, February-March 1931, Nr 11-12, p. 80.

8. F. SHABSHINA, Vehkaya Oktyabrskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Revolyutsiya
i Krestyanskoe Dvizhenie v Koree - The Great October Socialist Revolution
and the Peasant Movement in Korea, Voprosy Istorii, June 1949, p. 12.
This article is the only one published in a Soviet periodical after the Second
World War which throws some light on the history of the Soviet Koreans.
Its purpose was to stress the impact of the October Revolution on the
anti- Japanese peasant movement in Korea. In this connection the author
of the article could not avoid mentioning the Koreans of the U.S.S.R.
but she seemed to consider them as temporary immigrants and not as a
permanent ethnic minority of the Soviet Union. The Korean National
District is not mentioned in the article.

9. I, VOLODIN, Inostranny Shpionazh na Sovetskom Dalnom Vostoke -
Foreign Espionage in the Soviet Far East, Pravda, April 23rd, 1937.

10. Pravda, December 20th, 1937.

11. Sovetskaya Aziya, Nr 25, 1929, p. 47.

12. Novy Vostok, Nr 29, 1930, p. 173.

13. Izvestiya, May 24th and May 25th, 195L

14. Pravda Vostoka, May 30th, 195L

15. Sovetskaya Yustitsiya, July 10th, 1931, pp. 18-19.

16. WLADIMER. K. ARSENJEW, Russen und Chinesen in Ostsibirien, Berlin 1926,
p. 43.

17. PRZHEVALSKY, op. cit, p. 79.

18. N. V. ARKHIPOV, Dalnevostochny Kray - The Far Eastern Territory,
Moscow-Leningrad 1929, pp. 34-7.

19. Zhivopisnaya Rossiya - Picturesque Russia, vol. xii, second part, Moscow-
Leningrad 1895, p. 448.

20. ARSENJEW, op. cit., p. 56.

21. FRIESEN, DerFerne Osten, Moscow 1927, p. 17.

22. A. RADO, Fuehrer durch die Sowjetunion, Berlin 1928, p. 641.

23. OTTO HELLER, The Port of Vladivostok, Once and Now, International
Press Correspondence, October 13th, 1932, p. 962.

24. Zvezda, Nr 2, 1946, pp. 242-7.

25. JOHN DE FRANCIS, Nationalism and Language Reform in China, Princeton
University Press, 1950, p. 106.

26. Pravda, January 31st, 1931. For other material about anti-Chinese agita-
tion, see Pravda, August 4th, 1929, Pravda, January 6th, 1931, and
Sovetskaya Yustitsiya, January 20th, 1931, pp. 29-31.

27. Pravda, December 5th, 1936.

28. People's Commissariat of Justice of the U.S.S.R. Report on Court
Proceedings in the case of the Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rights and Trotzkyites,
etc., Moscow 1938, p. 15.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER II

29. Small Soviet Encyclopedia, second edition, vol. 2, Moscow 1934, p 531.

30. Large Soviet Encyclopedia, second edition, vol. 8, Moscow 1952, p. 228,
See also Ogonyok 1947, Nr 43, p. 24.

31. The Russian Purge and the Extraction of Confession, Hurst and Blackett
Ltd., London 1951, p. 110.

32. P. PAVLENKO, Red Planes Fly East, George Routledge and Sons Ltd.,
London 1938, pp. 500-504.

33. Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo iPravo, Nr 5, 1952, p. 68.

34. Krasny Arkhiv, 1937, vol. 83, p. 94.

35 KONSTANTTN Popov, Ekonomika Yapomi - The Economics of Japan,
Moscow 1936, p. 500.

36. J. Osn>ov, SakhalinskieZapiski- Sakhalin Notebook, Moscow 1946, p. 53.

37. MARTIN SCHWIND, Die Gestaltung Karafutos im Japanischen Raum,
Justus Perthes, Gotha 1942, p. 185.

38. Science and Life, February 20th, 1951.

39. Ogonyok, September 1946, Nr 35-36, p. 19.

40. Oktyabr, Nr 6, June 1950, pp. 123-4.

41. Komsomolskaya Pravda 9 July 25th, 1946.

42. Soviet Monitor, January 1st, 1948.

43. Trud, July 23rd, 1948.

44. Literaturnaya Gazeta, July 28th, 1946.

45. M. A. SERGEEV, Narodnoe Khozyaistvo Kamchatskogo Kraya - The
National Economy of the Kamchatka Territory, Moscow 1936, p. 222.

46. The factual material about the Japanese in Canada, the United States
and Hawaii is taken from the following works: Andrew W. Lind, Hawaii 9 s
Japanese, An Experiment in Democracy, Princeton University Press 1946;
Carey McWilliams, Prejudice, Japanese- Americans: Symbol of Racial
Intolerance, Little, Brown and Cie, Boston 1945; Forrest E. La Violette,
The Canadian Japanese and World War //, A sociological and psychological
account, University of Toronto Press 1948.

3. THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

There are about 60,000 aborigines in the Soviet Far East (excluding
Yakutia and Buryat-Mongolia) belonging to over a dozen different
nationalities. The ethnographers divide them into two main groups.
The first group, the Paleoasiats, includes the Chukchi, the Koryaks,
the Asiatic Eskimos, the Aleuts, Ainu, Nivkhi and Kamchadals. Of the
second, the Manchu-Tunguz peoples, the most important are the
Tunguz proper, or Evenki, the coastal Tunguz, or Eveni, the Nanai
and the Udege. Politically and sociologically all these nationalities
must be considered as one single entity. The Soviet regime has treated
them quite differently from the Korean, Chinese and Japanese minorities.
As the small groups of aborigines are unable to handicap Russian
colonization, the Communist Party has patronised them, and Soviet
propaganda has always devoted a great deal of publicity to them, even
at a time when there was complete silence about the Koreans and Chinese
of the Soviet Far East. This does not necessarily mean that Soviet
Russia has handled the problems of the Far Eastern aborigines
successfully.

TWO VIEWS ON NATIVE POLICY

In the first years following the October Revolution the most authoritative
Russian anthropologists felt that the time had come to take special
measures to protect the Far Eastern and Far Northern natives from the
pernicious influences of European civilization. Demands to that effect
were voiced, in the winter of 1921-22, in the organ of the People's
Commissariat for Nationalities, Zhizn NatsionalnosteL The most
remarkable contribution to the problem of the small nationalities came
from Professor Vladimir Germanovich Bogoraz-Tan (1865-1936), who
had a profound knowledge of the problems of the tribes of North-
Eastern Siberia, particularly of the Chukchi. Professor Bogoraz sug-
gested that the Soviet Government should draw the lessons from certain
experiments carried out in the native territories of Canada, the United
States, Brazil and Argentina. It seemed vital to btm that the mode of

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

life and the living conditions of the primitive tribes should be protected
against every influence on the part of their more civilized Russian neigh-
bours, or even of other stronger non-Russian peoples. Russians,
Bogoraz said, should not be allowed to make any use whatever of the
territories inhabited by the 'primitive tribes'. They should not even be
permitted to enter them. Exceptions were to be made only for three
categories of people, first anthropologists and linguists, secondly
certain persons who would render practical services to the territories,
such as doctors and technicians, and thirdly the ideologists of the new
regime. Professor Bogoraz warned against making any economic experi-
ments with the natives. He said that such experiments would not enhance
the welfare of the Far Northern and Far Eastern tribes, but would, in
fact, undermine their existence. 1

To carry out a systematic policy of protection of the natives Professor
Bogoraz demanded the foundation of a special committee to be attached
to the People's Commissariat of Nationalities. Such a committee was
in fact founded with the prominent participation of Professor Bogoraz
himself. It was the 'Committee of the North'. It had a huge bureaucratic
apparatus consisting of five departments. The first dealt with administra-
tive and legal matters, the second with economic and financial affairs,
the third was concerned with scientific research, the fourth with health
and the fifth with education. The Committee of the North had a Far
Eastern Bureau in Khabarovsk which dealt with the small Far Eastern
nationalities.

From the very beginning two tendencies made themselves felt within
the Committee. People like Bogoraz-Tan viewed its work primarily
from a philanthropic point of view. They thought that the Committee
was nothing more than an organization to assist the Far Northern and
Far Eastern peoples to recover from the blows which contact with
European civilization had inflicted on them. Die-hard Bolsheviks, on
the other hand, had a different approach. They considered the Committee
to be an instrument of economic exploitation of the Far Northern
territories, and for fostering class struggle among the tribes.

Their view did not prevail at once. In the first five years of its existence,
between 1924 and 1929, the Committee did not interfere much with the
tribal system of the Far North and Far East, The administrative pattern
enforced in other parts of the Soviet Union was not extended to the
small native peoples. Those living in the Far East were given such forms
of local administration as were acceptable and comprehensible to them.
Each tribe had a Tribal General Assembly ('Obshchee Rodovoe
Sobranie') which elected a Tribal Executive Committee ('Rodovoy
Ispolnitelny Komitet'). Several related tribes sent delegates to a Tribal
District Congress ('Rayonny Rodovoy Sezd') which elected a Tribal
District Executive Committee (*Rayonny Rodovoy Ispolnitelny

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET ?AR EAST

Komitet*). The Tribal Committees of the lower order were later des-
cribed as 'Native Soviets* (Tuzsovety') of which there were 400 all
over the Far East and Far North. The most remarkable fact about this
tribal administration was that participation in tribal and native Soviets
was not limited by class criteria.

This idyllic state of affairs could not last long. From one plenary
meeting of the Committee of the North to the next the intransigence of
its more radically minded members increased. In 1929 the Committee
firmly decided to apply the principles of class struggle to the Far North,
and from 1930 onwards, the tribal administration was abandoned.
Regular organs of local government ranging from village Soviets to
'National Areas' ('Okrugs') were created instead. This meant in fact the
end of the 'native reserves' which the Russian anthropologists had
advocated in the early years of the Soviet regime. Under the new set-up
Russian and other European Party and State officials were able to
increase their influence in the running of native affairs. The natives
were linked politically and administratively as closely as possible with
the metropolitan territories of the U.S.S.R. In 1935 f the Committee of
the North itself was disbanded.

By the time of its abolition the Committee had lost a great deal of its
previous importance. Many of its original duties had been taken over
either by the Chief Administration of the Northern Sea Route,
'Glavsevmorput', or by local government organs. The Chief Administra-
tion of the Northern Sea Route, which had at its disposal a large staff
of experts on nationalities problems, was originally launched as a body
with extremely wide powers. Among other things, it was supposed to
look after the well-being of the Far Northern tribes, direct cultural
work among them, organize health services and help to promote their
*sovietization\ In the autumn of 1938 the Soviet Government decided
that 'Glavsevmorput* could not carry out these tasks properly. A decree
of the Council of People's Commissars stipulated that it was to hand
over to the territorial administrations all enterprises and institutions
which were not directly connected with the development of the Northern
Sea Route. 1

COMMUNIST ADMINISTRATORS

The abolition of the Committee of the North in 1935, and the curtailing
of the powers of the 'Glavsevmorput 5 in 1938, increased the responsibili-
ties of the administrative authorities and party organizations of
Khabarovsk. It cannot be said that the latter have shown great enthu-
siasm for work in the National Areas and National Districts of the
small nationalities. In fact, up to 1939 most of the officials posted to
distant perts of the Far Eastern (later Khabarovsk) Territory went

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

there as a punishment People who were an embarrassment to the
authorities, for one reason or another, were frequently sent to the
Arctic regions as administrators and Party secretaries. Most cases of
abuse of which such ill-suited administrators had been guilty in distant
territories were hushed up, but occasionally they became public, as in
the case of the Soviet Commander of the Wrangel Island,* which is
part of the Chukcha National Area, and situated off its Arctic coast.

The commander, whose name was Semenchuk, had committed the
most outrageous arbitrary acts against both Chukchi and Eskimos, the
native population of the island. He and his assistant, Startsev, had
caused the death of a number of natives, but the Wrangel Island
scandal would probably not have come to light had they not also
assassinated the local Russian doctor. The two Soviet administrators
were brought to Moscow as defendants in a big trial in which Vyshinsky
himself acted as prosecutor. A sixty-five page Vyshinsky speech contains
an exhaustive description of the Semenchuk regime on Wrangel Island.
Semencbuk's authoritarian idea of the role of a Soviet administrator
in the land of the Chukchi and Eskimos was summarised in the following
pronouncement which he had made. 'I am the GPU here; I am the
court, I am the Public Prosecutor. I have the power of life and death.'

Semenchuk and Startsev were sentenced to death and executed in
1936, but it is still a mystery how the Soviet Government could entrust
the strategically important Wrangel Island to an outright criminal.
Semenchuk had been in prison for the theft of silver cutlery from the
Soviet Embassy ia Teheran shortly before being dispatched to the Far
North.*

The case of Semenchuk and Startsev is obviously an extreme one.
There is no reason to doubt that some of the administrators are ardent
idealists, determined to improve living conditions and promote educa-
tion among the local peoples. If we can believe the Secretary of the
Department of Cadres of the Khabarovsk Territorial Committee of the
Communist Party, there has been a better selection of administrators
for the distant areas of the Far East since 1939. The secretary in question
had promised in that year that Party posts in these territories would be
given in future only to particularly trustworthy persons. He had said,

* Roseau sovereignty over Wrasgd Island was established only with some difficulty
Both Cfcaada and the United States had striven to attach the island which has an area
of 2,700s2are issks to their respectrw territories. The Canadians established their claim
fey wintering oa the island from 1941. They reasserted it by hoisting the flag there m 1921
* I92! l^* Can ?S m Miaa Minister solemnly proclaimed the annexation of the
-if!?^ be f7? *** Otta * a P**fent. The Soviet regime can rightly claim

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

indeed, 'The further away we send a man, the more we must be able to
trust him'. 4 It can be taken for granted that a man whom the Communist
Party considers particularly trustworthy will be a hard-working official,
and that he will not commit any crimes such as those of which Semenchuk
and Startsev had been convicted. But a trustworthy communist is not
necessarily a man who understands the mentality of the Far Eastern
aborigines, and who deals with their problems in the best way.

NATIVES, STATE TRUSTS AND FORCED LABOUR

In addition to the Party and the territorial administration, there is a
third influential factor in the Far East which has a great impact on the
'natives', namely the big State capitalist organizations of Kamchatka,
Chukotka and the territories around the Okhotsk Sea. Instead of assist-
ing and strengthening native economy the Soviet regime encouraged the
growth of State companies such as the 'Kamchatka Limited Company'
(later known as 'Glavkamchatrybprom' - Kamchatka Chief Administra-
tion for the Fishing Industry), the 'State Reindeer Trust', the 'Dalrybt-
rest' (Far Eastern Fishing Trust) and 'Soyuzpushnina*, the State organiza-
tion for fur trading. Soviet experts on the Far East themselves have
admitted that these enterprises employed people who were guided by
a 'narrow-minded business attitude' and who discharged their duties in
a 'crudely materialistic way'. All they wanted was to fulfil the target
figures of the state plan. They were not interested in assisting the natives
either by supplying the most essential food commodities or by encourag-
ing cultural work. The enterprises concerned, in particular the
Kamchatka Company and the Reindeer Trust, seized land, and hunting
and fishing grounds traditionally belonging to the natives. Even land
owned by newly established collective farms of reindeer-breeders was
arbitrarily confiscated by State trusts. 5

Another State enterprise, the previously mentioned 'Dalstroy*, which
operates around the Okhotsk Sea, has also greatly affected the life of the
'natives' who live in its territory. The first director of Dalstroy, E. Beizin,
pointed out in 1936 that the trust had opened schools and hospitals in
all centres of the native population. The budget of the native commur
nities ('National Districts') had increased almost ten times during five
years. 6 What Berzin did not say was that the native schools and hospitals
had been built with the profits which Dalstroy had made by exploiting
forced labour. As a matter of fact, some of the schools of which Berzin
boasted are 'mixed schools', which are attended both by natives and by
children of convicts who weare born in captivity and taken away from
their mothers. 7 In the ai^ea controlled by the Destroy we thus meet the
most sinister aspect of the 'Soviet nationalities policy*, namely, its

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

connection with the forced labour system. A sparsely populated terri-
tory on the Kolyma River and around the Okhotsk Sea, which, not so
long before, had been the home only of Eveni, Yakuts and other natives,
had suddenly become an object of mass colonization by convicts,
probably by as many as 400,000, The sudden emergence of huge forced
labour camps in tribal territories was bound to have a considerable
effect both on the way of life and on the moral outlook of the natives.
It is only logical that the N.K.V.D.-M.V.D. should have tried to enlist
the support of the natives against camp inmates trying to escape.
Former political prisoners have even asserted that the N.K.V.D. pays
the natives, either in cash or in the form of vodka, for every escaped
person whom they capture- 8 This makes it understandable that the
prisoners extend their contempt of the N.K.V.D. to the natives. They
charge the authorities with 'coddling and pampering' them in the very
areas in which many members of Russia's intelligentsia are gradually
being exterminated. 9 It must be said in fairness that the N.K.V.D. is not
the first Russian authority to discover that use can be made of Far
Eastern natives against convicts from European Russia. The priority for
this idea goes to the Czarist governor of Sakhalin Island, General
Konotovkh. Chekhov, mentioned in his book on Sakhalin that the
General had ordered Gilyaks (Nivkhi) to be employed as guards for
Russian criminals.

THE REINDEER PROBLEM

Lack of understanding of the 'natives* is manifested not only by the
activities of the big State trusts, but also in the day-to-day work of
Soviet officials in charge of 'native affairs'. Communist Party officials
think in terns of ready-made patterns, and cut-and-dried formulae.
They are usually convinced that what is good for Moscow and
Vladivostok must be equally good for the most remote parts of the
Union. This frame of mind makes it difficult for them to find the right
approach to the special conditions of the Far North. Much could be
said* for instance, about the peculiar way in which Soviet authorities
have handled the basis of Far Northern economy, reindeer-breeding. As
lale as 1950, the Communist Party of a Siberian province sent large piles
of pamphlets oa sheep-farming and bee-keeping to the nomads living
Bear the Arctic coast, where there are neither sheep nor bees - only
reindeer. ** This actually happened in North-western Siberia, but it could
easily have happened in the Far East The Pravda correspondent in
Khabarovsk stated in 1947 that there was not a single specialist in
problems of ran<ter-breeding in the State and Party offices of that city,
aftfeou^i the Khabarovsk Territory includes the largest reindeer
population of any administrative unit w. the Soviet Unk>n. u

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

Soviet officials failed to understand that the reindeer plays a vital
part in the life of the Northern tribesmen, and that it is not a mere sub-
sidiary to their economy as is the cow of the Russian peasants. According
to the tribal customs of the Koryaks and Chukchi it is a sin to sell a
living reindeer. The Soviet administrators denounced this custom as
sabotage, and imposed on the reindeer-breeders not only compulsory
sales, but also the confiscation measures which accompany collectiviza-
tion. The setting up of collective farms and state farms in the native
territories of the Arctic regions of the Soviet Far East, led in the * thirties*
to the unleashing of a violent class struggle which, in turn, resulted in a
drastic drop in the number of reindeer. Not only did the rich reindeer
breeders engage in large scale 'predatory slaughter* of the animals, but
they also hampered the collectivisation and nationalization measures in
other ways. To escape *de-kulakization' 5 they split their large herds into
smaller ones, and distributed them among their shepherds. Moreover
pastureland was wilfully destroyed, apparently on a considerable scale.
Loss of reindeer occurred not only in the private but also in the State-
controlled sector. The new State farms which were to introduce higher
forms of reindeer breeding were, in reality, far more inefficient than the
individual reindeer breeding nomad. In the Far East the State reindeer
farms lost one-third of their herds within a single year - a catastrophe
which could not be attributed entirely to the infiltration of class-alien
elements.

Official Soviet statistics about the development of Soviet Russia's
reindeer population demonstrate convincingly what damage the col-
lectivization measures caused. In the first years of the communist regime
when state interference with the Far Northern economy was slight there
was a clear upward trend. The number of reindeer in the entire Soviet
Union increased from 1,765,000 in 1923 to 2,193,000 in 1926-27 and to
2,700,000 in 193 1 . The year 193 1 was the turning point In 1932 the stock
fell to 2,333,000, in 1933 to 2,030,000 and in 1934 it was as low as
1,889,000. These figures which apply to Soviet Russia as a whole do not
fully reveal the catastrophic consequences of communist reindeer policy
in the Far East. In the Koryak National Area, for instance, where full
collectivization had been planned for 1933, the number of reindeer
decreased from 264,000 in 1926 to 173,000 in 1932 and 127,000 in 1934."
Soviet statistical evidence about Russia's reindeer population after
1934 is contradictory. Figures produced by various official Soviet
sources show a large margin of difference. The Small Soviet Encyclopedia
says that on January 1st, 1938, the number of reindeer was 1,766,OQQ. 13
This would mean that the situation was then even worse than ia 1933.
On the other hand, a Soviet standard work oa Russian reindeer-breeding
published in the post-war period claims thai the number of reindeer in
1938 was 28 per cent higher than in 1933. But even this book whidi

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

gives an optimistic picture of the Russian reindeer situation states that a
new period of decline set in during the war owing to the increased
slaughter for the army and inferior care of the herds resulting from the
mobilization of many native herdsmen. 14 After the war the position
improved but whether and when the peak figure of 1931 was reached
again, is impossible to say. Such increases in the number of reindeer as
there were, were brought about, it seems, by a more liberal application
of the collective farm statute. Collective farm members were encouraged
to own small reindeer herds privately. The maximum size of these
privately owned herds is not known but cases have been mentioned of
individual collective fanners having as many as 80, 90, 130, and even
up to 200 reindeer each. 35

The reindeer problem has caused difficulties to Soviet administrators
not only in the purely economic sphere but also in the field of education.
What is needed in the Far North is a school which would help to raise
hunting and reindeer breeding to a higher level. The more enlightened
Russian pedagogues are the first to admit that such a school does not
oust. One of the school inspectors posted to Northern Siberia quoted,
sot without a certain measure of approval, a reindeer breeder who re-
fused for a long time to entrust his two sons to a Soviet boarding school.
The father in question said that he taught his children to hunt game, to
catch the polar fox and to ride reindeer. In school, he added, they would
not learn all this, and when they had finished they would have no
practical knowledge. An article in the Teachers' Gazette stated that there
was a 'grain of truth* in the complaint of the old reindeer breeder. "The
school is indeed too much cut off from practice and thus not able to
prepare children for the life in the Far North/ 16 A similar problem, it is
true, also exists in other countries. Richard Finnie, in his book Canada
moves North, says that Eskimo children, after spending years in boarding
schools, return to their families unfitted for the lives they must lead. 17

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Whatever the quality of school education in the Russian Far North may
be, it is a fact that the Soviet authorities have carried out a big cultural
revolution in the native territories. The most important part of it has
been the liquidation of illiteracy. Until 1931 the Far Northern and Far
Hasten peoples could express themselves in writing only in the form of
drawings or through the medium of the Russian language. In May,
1931, they received an alphabet of their own, the 'Unified Northern
Alphabet* as it was called. It was officially approved by the Ministry of
Education of the R.SLF.S.R. The 'Unified Northern Alphabet* was a
Latin alphabet and the decision to adopt it was not taken without a long
struggle fought out behind the scenes between the supporters of iatiniza*

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

tion and those who preferred the Russian alphabet or at least a 'mixed
alphabet* in which Russian letters would predominate.

In the Soviet Far East the ethnographic section of the Society for
Regional Research declared itself with great vigour against all attempts
at russification. In a memorandum the Society listed four reasons why
only the Latin alphabet could be introduced for the languages of the
Chukchi, Koryaks, Nanai, Nivkhi and the other Far Eastern tribes:

1. The successful latinization of the alphabets of the oriental
languages.

2. The genuinely international character of the Latin alphabet.

3. The inadequacy of the Russian alphabet which would have to be
supplemented by a number of letters.

4. The fact that the Russian alphabet itself would not be long-lived
since progressive scholars had already raised the question of its
latinization. 18

These four considerations were shared by the Moscow authorities who
had decreed the introduction of the Latin alphabet for the Northern
peoples.

Tlie Latin alphabet remained in force for less than six years - until
February 1 1th, 1937, when a new decree abolished and replaced it by a
russianized alphabet. The new script was intended for thirteen small
nationalities of whom eight lived either wholly or partially in the Far
East. The replacement of one alphabet by another rendered necessary
the destruction of a large amount of printed material that had been
prepared for the Northern peoples. Between 1931 and 1933 alone as
many as 200,000 textbooks, 100,000 pamphlets of a political nature and
10,000 books on medical and economic subjects had been issued for
them. 1 *

Soviet school policy proper did not suffer from such a disturbing lack
of continuity as the Soviet literacy campaign. The number of schools
increased systematically and steadily and now there are as many as 200
native schools in the Khabarovsk Territory. They are supervised by a
Council of National Schools which was created in 1949 and which
works under the education department of the Khabarovsk territorial
administration, The Council does not only administer schools but also
deals with all problems connected with the writing of text-books, and
the translation of classical Russian and Soviet literary works into the
local languages. The Council relies on the graduates of the teachers*
training colleges in Petropavlovsk (for South Kamchatka), Anadyr
(for Chukotka), Tlgilsk (for North Kamchatka) and Nikolayevsk-on-
Amur. The most important and largest of the four is the college IH
Nikolayevsk. Between its foundation in the early 'thirties* and 1951 it
trained 170 Russian and 105 native teachers belonging to ten different
Far Eastern nationalities. 20 Hie most gifted young people from among

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

the Far Eastern aborigines are sent to the Pedagogical Institute of
Khabarovsk, where there is a department for the Far Northern nationali-
ties, and a few are even admitted to the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in
Leningrad, Courses at the Far Northern Department of that Institute
last three years, and the curriculum includes 'Foundations of Marxism-
Leninism; the great works of Stalin on questions of linguistics; the
history of Russian pre-revolutionary and Soviet literature; folklore, and
many other subjects'.* 1 In addition every student has lessons in methods
of teaching, in the grammar of his own national language, and in the
history and ethnography of the peoples of the North.

Native students are also instilled with a feeling of hatred against the
non-communist world. The results of this indoctrination can be
gauged from the answers which a Yakut student gave, according to
Pravda, at his final examinations at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute.
The Yakut student, E. Sysosyatin, talked at the examination of the
situation of the Eskimos, Aleutians and Red Indians in America. He
mentioned many facts which unmasked the American imperialists, and
their criminal policy directed towards the total extermination of these
peoples. To the horrors of misery, starvation, inhumane privations and
persecutions to which these nationalities are subject in America, even
greater atrocities have been added during the past few years. As has
become known, the American imperialists, preparing bacteriological
warfare, tried out the effects of the deadly microbes on the Eskimos. As
a result of these cannibalistic experiments many Eskimos in America
died of bubonic plague.* 22

Soviet dictatorship indoctrinates all citizens of the U.S.S.R., whether
Russians or Uzbeks, Ukrainians or Georgians, Latvians or Chukchi. It
gives to all of them a completely distorted picture of the nations outside
the communist sphere. This campaign of hatred and distortions, while
iBoraBy wrong in every single case, is particularly contemptible if
directed towards the youth of primitive peoples. By trying to
transform young native intellectuals into agitators of the 'cold war', the
Soviet regime destroys to a considerable extent the good which it is
doing by the spread of culture and knowledge.

COMMUNISTS AND SHAMANS

The young natives trained in Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Khabarovsk and
Leningrad are to hdp the Russian administrators in the fight against
'local nationalism' is all tribai areas of the Soviet Far East. Naturally,
in the territories of the small Far Eastern peoples the Soviet regime does
not fight local nationalism* in the same way as it does in areas where
there are more developed nationalities. There are no parties or political
groups which the communists have to suppsress; there is no feudal-

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

patriarchal literature which has to be banned, and no cultural societies
which have to be closed down because of bourgeois romanticism. Even
so the small peoples of the Far East adhere, just as other peoples do, to
their national traditions which are closely linked with those primitive
religious beliefs usually summed up under the collective name of
'Shamanism'.

Shamanism is fundamentally the belief in good and bad spirits. The
exact nature of the belief varies from one tribe to the other. The spirits
may be deified animals, they may be ancestors, or they may simply be
the forces of nature. Shamanism is not based on an elaborate ecclesias-
tical organization, but there are, nevertheless, mediators between spirits
and ordinary human beings. These mediators are called Shamans. They
enjoy a great deal of respect and prestige in the tribal society and this
alone would have been sufficient reason to make them 'Enemy Number
One' of the Soviet regime in all National Districts and National Areas
inhabited by the Far Eastern aborigines.

The regime has charged the Shamans with many crimes, in particular
with being dishonest and with consciously deceiving the people. This
accusation has been contradicted by many Russian and foreign anthrop-
ologists who have had first hand experience of the Far Eastern Shamans.
They have made the point that most Shamans sincerely believe in their
superior power and are firmly convinced of their ability to cure the sick
and to talk to spirits or to deceased relatives. It does not seem that
Shamans charged more than moderate fees for their services if they
demanded payment at all. 23 According to P. E. Petri, Professor of
Ethnology at the Irkutsk University, it was completely erroneous to
suggest that the majority of the Shamans were charlatans exploiting the
credulity of the natives. For the Shaman, Petri wrote as late as 1928, his
vocation constituted a heavy obligation which the spirits had imposed
on him. The Shaman knew respite neither by day nor by night. He
might at any time be called out and had then to travel dozens of miles in
any weather. The Shaman was rarely at home and his household was
therefore neglected. As a rule the Shamans were poor and only those
living together with their brothers were better off, 24

According to official Soviet evidence the Shamans engaged in 'mad
resistance* to the extension of Soviet power to the north. They dis-
seminated 'provocative rumours' aimed at inditing the tribesmen against
the Russians. These charges against the Shamans are reflected in a
number of novels which Soviet writers have written on life in the Far
East. For example, Syomushkin's novel, Alitetgoes to the Hills, records
the collective resignation of the chairmen of the tribal Soviets in a part of
Chukotka, as the result of the evil influences of one important Shaman.
These chairmen gathered one day in the tent of the Russian secretary of
the Communist Party and surreadea^ed to bim their letters of appoint-

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

ment They tried to get rid of these credentials as quickly as possible,
because they were beheved to be bearers of the evil spirit. The resigning
chairmen suggested that the local Shamans should be appointed in their
place, as they would be more successful in dealing with the spirits. The
Party secretary refused to comply with this request, and, after a great
deal of arguing, most of the chairmen agreed to retain their credentials,
and to resume their jobs. 85 In the novel, Where the Sukpai river flows, by
Kimonko, which deals with the life of the Udege people, the Shaman is
both anti-Soviet and anti-Russian. He expresses his political philosophy
in the following words: *It is better to be doomed than to go to the
Russians. The Russians will make soldiers out of us and destroy us to a
man. . . The Russians and the Udege are different people. The man of
the forest has laws of his own. One must abide by these laws.' 26

The Shamans preserved their influence throughout the 'twenties' and
early 'thirties', They played an important part in the resistance movement
against collectivization. In fact, the terms *Shaman' and 'kulak' became
interchangeable in the official Soviet vocabulary. But this is the usual
simplification with which communist anti-religious propaganda operates.
An official Soviet analysis referring to the social origin of 300 Shamans
showed that between 50 and 60 of them came from poor families
(bednota) and only 5 to 10 per cent were *kulak elements'. More dis-
criminating Soviet writers have stated therefore that Shamans whilst
belonging to various social groups constituted *a reactionary counter-
revolutionary force taking sides with native kulaks and semi-feudal
elements*.* 7

In addition to collectivization the Shamans obstructed practically
every measure taken by the Government in the economic, cultural and
sanitary fields. The target figures of the economic plans could not be ful-
filled because the Shamans dissuaded the natives from fishing and hunting
on certain days or from killing certain animals, for instance walrus.
Soviet newspapers and journals were boycotted because the Shamans
agitated against their dissemination. Also the new schools in the Far
North and the *failtbazy'*suffered fromthe sabotage of the Shamans. The
latter persecuted and threatened the lives of Soviet teachers, particularly
those of Russian nationality. 28 They hindered the re-education of the
northern tribes to a more healthy and hygienic life, and intimidated
people to such an extent that they did ndt dare even to go near a Soviet
medical statios.* 9

Although there is likely to be substance in most of these charges, they

* The 'Mtbazy' or ^Cultural Stations' are political, cultural, and scientific research
centres wfeaefe the Soviet regime organized in the Far North. 'Cultural Stations* usually
iacfeKle a boarding sd^ a kiiH^^

stafcoo, a iDetereoJogkal station and even a museum. Most 'Cultural Stations* later devel-
oped toto townships. Oat of the fifteen 'Cultural Stations' three were founded in the Far
East, one for the Koiyaks, one for the Lamuts and the third for Chukchi and Eskimos.

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

have probably been exaggerated, partly to serve as an excuse for the
inefficiency of Soviet administration and partly as a pretext for the anti-
Shaman measures taken by the regime. The fight against the Shamans
took the same forms as the campaign against other religions of the
Soviet Union, ranging from ordinary anti-religious propaganda to
administrative terror. The Far Northern cells of the League of Militant
Godless were in charge of the former. In view of the complicated
character of Shamanism it was no easy affair to combat it and a more
thorough picture of its regional diversities had first to be obtained. The
League of Militant Godless therefore urged its northern groups to
compile a detailed register of the Shamans which was to answer the
following questions about each of them: What is the range of activity of
the Shaman? Is he a family Shaman or does a larger group of people
avail itself of his services? What speciality does he have? Is he a sea-
Shaman accompanying fishermen on their expeditions? Is he a tamer of
snowstorms? Does he claim to have any influence on the results of
hunting? Is he engaged in healing reindeer and people? What sort of cult
objects does he possess? Drums? Costumes? Does he hold collective
seances? What is his social origin? Detailed information about these
and other points was to be sent at least twice a year to the Central
Council of Militant Godless, Moscow, Sretenka Street Nr 10. 30

It does not seem that the League of Militant Godless had many
people on the spot with a sufficient knowledge of folklore and anthrop-
ology to carry out the 'registration of the Shamans' and it is more than
likely that the whole scheme failed. Other anti-Shaman measures were
more successful. For instance, pressure was brought to bear on Shamans
to give a solemn pledge that they would renounce their activities.
Collective statements of several Shamans were even published in the
local Press stating that in the past they had been 'wreckers' and
'cheaters/ 31 In other cases where such self-recriminations could not be
obtained, Shamans were expelled from their tribal territory or arrested
and put on trial. By arresting Shamans the Soviet authorities wanted to
show the people that they did not fear their power and that Shamans
were not protected by the spirits.

Notwithstanding all these measures of intimidation and persecution
the Shamans were still a fairly important factor at the time of the
adoption of the Stalin Constitution of 1936, When the constitution was
subject to a nationwide discussion the Shamans once more showed their
anti-Soviet bias and they did so again during the elections to the Supreme
Soviets of the U.S.S JL and the R.S.KS.R. in 1937 and 1939 respectively.
According to Oleshchuk, one of the leaders of the League of Godless,
the Shamans tried *to falsify the Soviet Constitution, undermine the
elections and exploit the electoral campaign for counter-revolutionary

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

It would appear from Soviet evidence that Shamanism experienced
a certain revival during the war. Shamans, it is alleged, cunningly used
the temporary absence of young communist educated people from the
tribal areas to regain some of their former influence. The novel of the
well-known Soviet writer Azhaev, War from Moscow, which refers to
conditions in a Nanai village contains, for instance, the following
passage: *He (the Shaman) had lain low for a time but resumed his evil
practices when war broke out He saw his chance to profit from the war
by a crafty and insolent device. Many of the Nanai boys of the village
had been called to the colours. They wrote letters home from the front,
and the Shaman made his "prophecies" by these letters. His clients were
mostly old women anxious about the fate of their sons, and he fleeced
and fooled them to the top of his bent.* 33

Soviet novels about post-war conditions in the Far East try to convey
the impression that the Shamans have ceased to be figures that are res-
pected and feared. The Shamans of these novels are desperately isolated
and universally despised. In one case the Shaman is even an enemy agent
whom the Americans have sent from Alaska to provoke 'acts of diversion'
among the natives of the Soviet Far East

Some of the Soviet charges made against the Shamans coincide more
or less with the criticism which a Western colonial administrator would
direct against the African witch-doctors and juju-men. Western and
Soviet administrators will, however, often differ as to the way in which
the Shaman and the juju-man are to be fought In West Africa, though
not in East Africa, the fight against the juju-man is no more than a
campaign of enlightenment in favour of a more hygienic way of life. In
other words it is an aim in itself. The fight against the Shaman in the
Soviet Far East and Far North is only a small part of a great struggle
which is aimed at crushing every kind of political and religious
opposition.

THE FIGHT AGAINST CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

la the Far East and Far North the regime fights religion on 'two fronts*.
If the liquidation of Shamanism is one aim of communist anti-religious
policy, the total prevention of Christian missionary activities is another.
Christianity has had a certain influence on the small nationalities of
the Far East Missionaries preaching the faith in a God who loves and
helps man, have tried with some success to oust from the hearts of the
natives that deep-rooted fear which is accompanied by belief in evil
spirits. But the work of the missionaries was far from being finished when
the Soviet authorities interrupted it As it often happens in Africa, the
superstitions of paganism survived even where the Church made formal
converts. Those Lamuts of Kamchatka, for instance, who accepted the

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

Christian faith, acquired Christian ikons, but did not want to part with
their Shamanist idols. The same can be observed among other Far
Eastern and Far Northern aborigines. Many Christian converts wear
crosses around their necks, but, at the same time, have idols made of
walrus bones and reindeer skin on their belts. Naturally the communists
have thrown ridicule on this pagan-Christian dualism, which they have
described as 'Shamanism-Orthodoxy', but it is an unavoidable transitory
stage in the religious development of any primitive people. Certain
sections of the northern tribes of Soviet Russia had been sufficiently
Christianized at the time of the establishment of Soviet power to resent
the forcible withdrawal of priests, and the removal from forests and ways
of crosses which, in the popular belief gave protection against 'devils*.
A protest lodged by a group of natives of the Beryozovo district in
North-western Siberia was characteristic in this respect. The natives in
question wrote a letter complaining that the local communist secretary
did not allow them to have a priest. Their actual words were: We can't
do without a priest because this is our faith.' (*My ne mozhem bez popa
potomu chto vera nasha takaya'.) The letter of protest was printed in
1934 in Revolyutsiya i Natsionalnosti, the official organ of the Soviet of
Nationalities as a general illustration of the fact that priests still enjoyed
confidence in certain parts of the Far North.*

Today most of the Far Eastern tribes are outside the reach of those
reduced activities which are still permitted to the Russian Orthodox
Church in the U.S.S.R. Whilst churches are tolerated in old towns
where their existence is traditional, it has been the consistent policy of
the Soviet Government not to allow Christian houses of worship to be
erected in the so-called 'socialist cities* which are the products of the
Soviet period. In the Far East this applies to Magadan and Komsomolsk,
places which among their polyglot population count quite a number of
detribalized natives. Members of the two larger nationalities of the
Soviet Far East, Yakuts and Buryat-Mongols, are, as far as they are
converts to Christianity, in a better position than the members of the
smaller tribes. There are churches in the capitals of Yakutia and Buryat-
Mongolia and presumably also in other localities of these Republics.
These are under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Irkutsk and
Chita, whose diocese is larger than the whole of Western Europe.

STALIN -THE SUN

Against Shamanism and Christianity the Soviet regime uses one and the
same metaphysical antidote - the Lenin-Stalin cult. In the territories of
the Far Eastern tribes this cult has a particularly colourful variant It
takes the form of folk-tales which depict Lenin and Stalin as 'super-

* Revofyutsiya i Natstonalnosti, Nr 53, July 1934, pp. 51-57.

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

shamans* fighting and exterminating the 'evil spirits'. Lenin and Stalin
appear in these 'folk-tales' as legendary heroes, as eagles liberating the
people from the 4 bad black kite* (a Tunguz folk-tale), and, in particular,
as something approaching *sun-gods\

It is understandable that the idea of the sun must have a powerful
appeal for peoples living in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Everything
associated with the sun is good, wonderful and divine. The Soviet regime
has made ample use of this. The Soviet literary journal Zvezda rightly
said that several volumes could be compiled from all the legends,
stories, tales and songs in which Lenin and Stalin are depicted as heroes
who gave to the people of the North the inextinguishable sun. 34 Typical
of this *sun literature' produced for the Far Eastern aborigines is the
Nanai folk-tale - Sun of the People', - *and there came a time when a
hero (who, although living far away from the Nanai people, saw and
knew everything) took the sun into his hands, and turned it in such a
way that its wannest rays shone where it was dark, and where down-
trodden peoples were suffering. And they then knew well-being, warmth
and happiness. The name of the hero was Lenin. When a great disaster
befell the earth - when Lenin died - bad people were pleased. They
thought that the sun would stop shedding its light on the people, but
their gtee was shorter than the space of a minute, because the people's
sun was guarded by another hero. He is the nearest friend and companion
of Lenin, and his name is Stalin. Nobody can equal the strength of that
hero. His eyes see everything that goes on on earth. His ears hear every-
thing that people say. His brain knows all that people think. His heart
contains the happiness and the woe of all peoples. The depth of his
thought is as deep as the ocean. His voice is heard by all that inhabit the
earth. Such is the greatest of the very greatest in the whole world. And
he took the sun out of Lenin's hands, and lifted it very high. And since
then happiness shines on earth, because it is impossible for the sun not
tosfaiae/* 6

The same motif as in the Nanai tale The Sun of the People is to be
fomad, with slight variations, in the poems and tales produced for the
benefit of the other small ethnic groups of the Far East and Far North.

Something could be said even in favour of the Soviet *sun' propaganda
m as far as it banned the fear of *evil spirits*. Unfortunately, the Soviet
regime lias replaced the fear of the spirits by the fear of its own power
aad the institutions and bogies which it has created. One of them is the
wicked foreigner, always ready to attack the natives with the most
ghastly and devastating weapons.

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

FAR EASTERN ABORIGINES AND SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY

Destiny has placed the Far Eastern natives into politically and strate-
gically important regions, the mouth of the Amur, the Russian islands
of the North-west Pacific, and the territory bordering the Bering
Strait. Consequently, the nationalities concerned can only too easily be
dragged into the struggle of the big powers for the Pacific. In fact, they
have already played their modest part in world politics, and may do so
in future. The Nanai, Udege and Nivkhi have participated in Russian-
Chinese rivalries. The Udege, Nanai and Ainu have stood between the
lines in Russian- Japanese conflicts. The Chukchi, Aleuts and Asiatic
Eskimos are involved in the American-Russian antagonism.

The Soviet regime has always been aware of the special position of the
small Far Eastern nationalities, and has framed its propaganda accord-
ingly. It has presented itself to the peoples concerned as their saviour
rescuing them from 'Chinese merchant capitalism* or from 'Japanese
militarism" or from 'American robbery'. The aim of Soviet 'native
policy' in the Far East is thus to make the local nationalities anti-
Chinese, anti- Japanese or anti-American, as the case may be, and to
instil in them a feeling of gratitude towards Russia and the Russians.

Not everything which Russian propagandists tell the natives about
other nations is necessarily untrue. It is a fact that Chinese merchants
were, for a long time, almost sovereign rulers in the interior of the Russian
Pacific province, and exerted a tyrannical overlordship over the aborig-
ines. In some cases the aborigines were reduced to outright serfdom. But
even Russian sources have had to admit that the Chinese were interested
not merely in profits, but also in spreading their culture. In the absence
of any major Russian cultural activities the Chinese ran schools for the
aborigines. The latter studied Chinese history, and grew familiar with
Chinese institutions. Russia and things Russian were either ignored
altogether, or represented in a distorted light 36 Some of the aborigines
completely abandoned their mother tongue, and adopted the Chinese
language. The Soviet regime brought about a complete change. It ended
the economic exploitation of the natives by Chinese merchants and
stopped Chinese cultural propaganda. Cultural domination passed into
the hands of the Russians. From a Russian nationalist point of view this
was undoubtedly a great success, but whether it is preferable for a Far
Eastern people to accept Russian or Chinese civilization is a matter of
opinion.

THE NANAI

The most important nationality which the Soviet regime has claimed to
have rescued from the Chinese are the Nanai They are the largest single

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

group of aborigines in the southern part of the Soviet Far East. In the
Soviet Union there are between 5,000 and 6,000 Nanai, or Goldy, as they
used to be called, while about 1,800 of them live in Manchuria, at the
confluence of the Ussuri and Sungari rivers. In the inter-war period this
partition of the Nanai between Russia and Manchukuo had a certain
political importance. Russia conducted propaganda among the Nanai
tribesmen in Manchukuo, and tried to induce them to emigrate and join
their brothers on the other side of the border. The Manchukuo Govern-
ment also did a great deal to obtain the goodwill of the Nanai by associat-
ing them with the local administration.

In June 1931, the Soviet regime organized the Nanai National
District and the Evenko-Nanai National District. A third National
District was founded for the Ulchi or Olchi, a small Far Eastern tribe
which is very closely related to the Nanai, and whose number does not
exceed 1,000. At the time of their foundation, the three National
Districts covered over 60,000 square miles. However, by the end of the
First Five-Year Plan, the 'natives' of the three districts found themselves
reduced to small minorities. Between 1926 and 1933 alone, the total
population in the Nanai and Ulchi Districts was nearly doubled through
European colonization, and it increased three times in the Evenko-Nanai
National District.

Far from having a sheltered existence in the National Districts, the
Nanai hunters and fishermen were thrown into the melting pot of
industrialization. In fact, one of the largest industrial centres of the
Soviet Far East, the city of Komsomolsk, was built in the midst of
fonaer Nanai territory. Komsomolsk has become a magnet attracting
the Nanai and regulating their lives. They either work in its industrial
undertakings, or have moved to one of the numerous collective farms
which supply the 'City of Youth* with vegetables, fruit and dairy
products. Many Nanai now have a better command of Russian than of
their own language. Their complete absorption by the Russian environ-
ment is merely a question of time.

The small Nanai people were greatly exploited for Russia's military
effort in the Secoud World War. As many as 248 Nanai of the Nanai
National District and of the Komsomolsk District were awarded military
daoocatioQS for service on the German front Some Nanai, including the
Nanai poet, AkimSaroer,even participated and perished in theStalingrad
battle.

*THE LAST OF THE UDEGB*

The neighbours of the Nanai and their close relatives are the Udege,
who live in the Maritime Territory, east of the Amur and Ussuri rivers,
ia dose proxijBity to the Pacific, particularly in the hinterland of the

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

port Sovetskaya Gavan (previously Imperatorskaya Gavan). Estimates
as to the exact number of the Udege differ, they vary between one and
two thousand. The official census returns for 1926 recorded 1,347 Udege.

The name 'Udege' became known to the Soviet public through the
novel The Last of the Udege, by the well-known Soviet writer, Aleksandr
Aleksandrovich Fadeev.* The very title of Fadeev's novel has been
exploited by Soviet propaganda as a striking example of the solicitude of
the Communist Party for the small Far Eastern nationalities, but such
an inference is misleading. Fadeev had purposely chosen a title that
sounded attractive to the Russian reading public, since it recalled
Fenimore Cooper's famous book The Last of the Mohicans. Of course,
the ideological message of Fadeev is contrary to what Soviet critics have
read into the work of the American author. While Fenimore Cooper
'idealized' - in the Soviet view - 'the primitive patriarchal customs of
the Red Indians', Fadeev makes the point that there can be no return to
the past for the Udege, but only a forward march towards revolution
and socialism. 37 The Last of the Udege is not primarily concerned with
the Udege tribe, although a Udege supporter of the Bolsheviks, named
Sari, is one of Fadeev's principal heroes. Fadeev had planned to write
a monumental novel on the Civil War in the Far East, which, when
completed, was to comprise as many as six volumes. Only four of them
have actually been published. The last came out in 1937. Fadeev seems
to have abandoned the idea of completing his work, presumably in view
of the re-evaluation which the history of the Civil War in the Far East
has undergone since the time of the great purges.

There is another novel which tells us more about the Udege people
than the four volumes of Fadeev. It was written by an educated, half-
Russianized Udege, Dzhansi Kimonko (1905-1949), who was trained at
the Leningrad Institute of the Peoples of the North. After his return to
his homeland, he became the chairman of a village council. In his spare
time he wrote the history of the Udege people in the form of a novel,
Where the Sukpai River Flows. The book is remarkable as the first and
presumably last step in tixe development of Udege literature. Its inten-
tion is to show the beneficial influence which the Soviet regime exerted
on the Udege people, but at the same time it reveals that the Udege have
by no means been united in their support of Communist Russia.
Kimonko indicated that there had been both a pro-Russian and a pro-
Japanese Party among the Udege during the Civil War. One of the
Japanese sympathizers was even killed in a violent clash, and so, too,
was a wealthy Udege whom Kimonko describes as the 'Udege Czar*,

* Fadeev is the only preeminent living Communist who can be considered as a Tar East-
erner'. He was bom in the Tver region in European Russia in 1901, but came to the Far
East at the age of six. He went to school in Vladivostok, where he joined the Commomst
Party in 1918. He partkapaied proiraaea% in the Far Eastern Ctvfl War, wfekfe is the
subject of afl his eariicr novels.

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

The Soviet authorities transferred the Udege from the isolated huts
which were scattered over a wide area to larger compact settlements.
This brought them within the range of medical attention and educational
facilities. As a result of this contact with Soviet Russian culture, the
young generation of the Udege now speak the Russian language 'almost
without any accent'. 38 The next step in the development of the Udege
will be that they will forget their own native tongue, and soon 'the last
of the Udege' will really have disappeared.

THE NIVKHI

Near the mouth of the Amur is the National District of the Nivkhi.
They number just over 4,000, of whom 1,700 live in Northern Sakhalin,
and the rest on the Soviet Far Eastern mainland and on three small
islands lying off the mouth of the Amur, These islands, Udd, Langr and
Kevost, were ignored by the Soviet authorities until 1936, when the
famous Russian pilots Chkalov, Baidukov and Belyakov, landed on
Udd Island during their trans-polar flight. From that moment the
islands became very popular. They were renamed after the three pilots,
and it became almost a Russian patriotic duty to develop and colonize
the little archipelago. The Soviet Far Eastern fishing industry established
a plant there, and Russian workers' settlements were built on both
Cfakalov and Baidukov Islands, which had previously been inhabited
exclusively by Nivkhi.

The Nivkhi of the Asiatic continent are very conscious of the fact that,
together with the Nivkhi of Northern Sakhalin, they form one single
people. Accordingly, under pressure of persecution by the Soviet author-
ities in the late 'twenties', the Shamans of the mainland Nivkhi fled to
their kinsmen on Sakhalin. But these Shamans only fell out of the frying-
pan into the fire, because of the activities of the local anti-religious
fanatics. la 1930 the League of Militant Godless in Northern Sakhalin
even destroyed the Nivkh cemetery in an attempt to cure the 'natives*
of tbeir religious prejudices, This action caused considerable unrest
amoog the Nivkhi, who lodged a complaint with the authorities. The
latter apparently condemned the 'left-wing excesses' of the Sakhalin
atheists.**

la theory, the Sakhalin Nivkhi live in two National Districts, the
^Western Sakhalin National District', and the 'Eastern Sakhalin
National District* which, together cover a large part of Northern
Sakhalin. In point of fact, both National Districts have been completely
fictitious right from tite beginning of their existence. The so-called
Western Sakhalin National District, for instance, had, in 1933, only a
few hundred natives among its 17,000 inhabitants.

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

KAMCHADALS

Soviet propaganda has never been very outspoken about the native
people of South and Central Kamchatka - the Kamchadals - for a very
good reason. Even Soviet historians could hardly claim that friendship
between Russians and Kamchadals (or Itelmeny, as they are now called)
ever existed in the past. It is a well-established fact that the presence
of Russian Cossacks in Kamchatka provoked endless struggles and
revolts in the early part of the eighteenth century. While it is true that
many Cossacks lost their lives, it is equally undeniable that the first
Russian colonizers wiped out the majority of the Kamchatka natives.
Only the fact that Kamchatka is rather unsuitable for European coloniza-
tion saved the Kamchadals from dying out entirely. While their number,
which was about 30,000 before the Russian conquest, had dropped to
about one-sixth, their relative strength was still fairly important at the
end of the nineteenth century. The census of 1897 showed that the
Kamchadals then formed over 48 per cent of the population of their
homeland. Russian colonization under the Soviet regime changed things
rapidlv, to the detriment of the Kamchadals. In 1928 they comprised
only one-quarter of Kamchatka's population, and in 1939, at the maxi-
mum, only 12 per cent.

In absolute figures there were 4,217 Kamchadals in 1926, but only
868 of them were able to speak their national language; the others were,
as far as their culture is concerned, completely Russianized. In Petropav-
lovsk, the capital of Kamchatka, only 69 Kamchadals were counted in
the 1926 census.

'ALEUTIAN NATIONAL DISTRICT*

East of Kamchatka are the Commander Islands, consisting of Bering
Island, where the famous explorer, Vitus Behring, died in 1741, and
Copper Island (Medny), The two islands now form the 'Aleutian
National District*, which was set up in 1932. There are not more than
400 Aleutians in the Soviet Union. Practically all of them live in the
'District* which is to impress the 5,800 Aleuts of Alaska.

Soviet propagandists have always taken great pride in the cultural suc-
cesses of the 'Aleutian National District'. Its primary claim to fame is the
fact that it was the first administrative unit of the Far East which achieved
100 per cent literacy. However, this triumph was not such a remarkable
one as it may seem. Two thirds of the Soviet Aleuts were literate as
early as 1926 at a time when the other Far Eastern tribes included only
between 1 and 10 per cent of literate people. So the Soviet authorities
can hardly take credit for an achievement whidht in all likelihood was

85 7

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

brought about by Orthodox Christian missions. Unlike most other
peoples of the Soviet Far East the Aleuts of the Commander Islands
had been completely Christianized. In the first five years of the Soviet
regime there was one church on Bering Island and another one on
Medny. By 1934 the church of Bering Island was closed and that of
Medny was reported as *no longer functioning'. An increasing number of
voices could be heard, said an official report, urging that the church
building should be used for Cultural needs*. 40 Such 'spontaneous popular
movements' for the closing down of churches have often been reported
from many parts of Soviet Russia. On the other hand, it is true that the
percentage of communist party members in the Aleutian National
District is higher than in any other territorial unit, not only in the Far
East but in the whole of the U.S.S.R. 35 per cent of the population is
organized either in the Communist Party or in the Communist Youth
League, according to the latest figures available.

Before the war the local Soviet authorities of the Commander Islands
were composed exclusively of natives. However, no undue significance
should be attached to this fact, since the Aleuts as a people are half-
Russianized, and Russian is the official language in the District. The
Aleutian language, which is used by the Soviet Aleuts in their homes
and for private conversation, is actually a mixture of Aleutian and
Russian, in which Aleutian endings are added to Russian words. 41
Moreover, the inhabitants of the two Commander Islands speak different
Aleutian dialects and can converse with each other only in Russian.
Russian is also the language in which a small newspaper is printed
cm Bering Island for the benefit of the Aleuts and the handful of
Russians who are all working on the blue fox State farm *Komodor\
The name of the paper is The Aleut Star. Its sub-title shows that the
Commander Islands, despite their tiny population, have a highly organ-
ized political life. It reads as follows: 'Organ of the Aleutian District
Committee of the All-Union Communist Party, the Ail-Union Leninist
Communist Youth League, the District Executive Committee and the
District Trade Union Council/* 2

In the post-war period considerable attention has been paid to the
Commander Islands in connection with the *cold war'. Their population
seems to have increased An official Soviet report of November 1949
said that the islaskls had several seven-year schools - only two schools
had existed before the war - and that many prefabricated houses had
been shipped from the continent 49

AINU, RUSSIANS AND JAPANESE

Wbea CKxaipying Southern Sakhalin in 1945, the Soviet authorities
took charge not only of a large Japanese population, but also of small

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

groups of aborigines. These included over 300 Tunguz, over 100
Nivkhi* and over 1,500 Ainu. Several hundred Ainu also came under
Soviet rule through the annexation of the Kurile Islands. The Soviet
Government has tried to strengthen its case for the undivided possession
of Sakhalin by asserting that only the Russians were able to establish
correct relations with the Ainu, while the Japanese oppressed them. The
propagandists of the Soviet regime have even alleged that the Czarist
Admiral Nevelskoy, who established Russian rule over Sakhalin, did
so with the express purpose *of defending the Ainu against the acts of
violence of foreigners'. The Ainu, the propagandists affirm, gave
enthusiastic support to the Russians when they landed in Sakhalin in
1853. 44

Zadornov, a Soviet writer of historical fiction on the Far East, tries
to show that the Ainu are almost fanatically pro-Russian. He asserts in
his novel Distant Country that the Ainu of Southern Sakhalin looked
forward eagerly, throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, to
the arrival of the Russian liberators. 'We have been waiting for them for
many years, we have been waiting for the time when it will be possible
to kUl the Japanese', Zadornov's Ainu said. 45

In reality the Ainu of Southern Sakhalin did not seem to be very
keen on killing the Japanese or driving them away. In 1875, when the
Russian sovereignty over Southern Sakhalin became final, and when the
Japanese formally renounced their rights on the island, 800 Sakhalin
Ainu left for Hokkaido. They did not return until 1905, after the re-
annexation of Karafuto by Japan. For a long time there was a consider-
able cleavage between these Ainu re-immigrants and their less advanced
former fellow-tribesmen, who had never been away from their home
island. This cleavage did not disappear until 1933, when all Ainu were
granted Japanese citizenship. Originally the Japanese authorities on
Karafuto had put five schools at the disposal of the Ainu minority, but
when all members of this minority became full Japanese citizens, these
schools were abolished, and the Ainu children transferred to Japanese
schools. 46

Since 1945 the Ainu have frequently been mentioned by Soviet prop-
aganda, and their case has become typical of the hypocrisy of Soviet
nationalities policy. While several hundred thousand Japanese were
expelled from the new Soviet territories, the Ainu were proclaimed
'equal members of the family of Soviet peoples', and at once granted the
right to participate in the elections to the Soviet Parliapaent. 47 Soviet
scholars immediately started to study the interesting Ainu people, and
the Soviet Academy of Sciences even set up a special branch in Southern

* Under Japanese rule the Tunguz and Nivkhi lived in a native reserve near the town
of Shikuka (Poronay&k). Their administrative head was the Karafuto 'reindeer-king', a
Yakut, who, with his famify, had fled from So vkt territory,

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

Sakhalin which was entrusted, among other things, with 'raising the
cultural and living standard of its native population*, the Ainu in
particular. 48

Three years after the establishment of Soviet sovereignty over
Karafuto Russian propaganda claimed that *a revival of the ancient,
original culture of the Ainu people' was noticeable, and that an 'Ainu
national literary language' was in the process of being created. 49

THE 'NATIONAL AREAS* OF THE EVENI AND KORYAKS

In 1930 three 'National Areas' were founded in the Far Eastern Terri-
tory, one for the Eveni (Lamuts), one for the Koryaks, and one for the
Chukchi. The last two are still in existence, but the 'National Area' of the
Eveni - Okhotsko-Evensky National Area was the official name - was
disbanded after four years. It is doubtful whether the Eveni National
Area, which covered 400,000 square miles, ever existed except on paper.
The Eveni as a nomad people were not prepared to accept the notion of a
territory with stable frontiers and a permanently fixed cultural and polit-
ical centre. The attempt to erect such a centre, first in Okhotsk, later in
Nogayevo, failed. 50 The National Area of the Eveni was formally
abolished as a result of the progress which Russian colonization by con-
victs had made around the Okhotsk Sea in the early 'thirties'. By 1934
the proportion of natives in the population of the National Area had
dropped to 40 per cent as against 80 per cent shortly before its foundation.

The Koryak National Area has been able to survive because the
Soviet authorities have not yet succeeded in fully exploiting its riches,
and have not, up to now, swamped the area with convicts and other
settlers. The Koryak National Area covers the northern part of the
Kamchatka peninsula, and the adjacent part of the Asiatic mainland.
It is 125,000 square miles in area, and had 11>400 inhabitants in 1926.
Out of this total, 61 per cent were then Koryaks, 8-9 per cent Chukchi,
7-1 per cent Kamchadals, and 5-5 per cent Eveni. The Russians
accounted for 14-3 per cent.

The leading Soviet expert on the arctic and sub-arctic regions of the
Soviet Far East, M. A. Sergeev, considers that the Koryak National
Area is, politically and economically, one of the most important parts
of North East Asia, in view of its close proximity to Japan and the
U.S. A. Sergeev, who wrote the only available monograph on the Koryak
National Aijea, pointed out that the Area had a considerable part to
play in Russian foreign trade, and that it could develop into a territory
earning for the whole Soviet Union an appreciable amount of foreign
currency.* 1 Among the economic assets of the National Area Sergeev
lists its riches in fish, reindeer and fur animals, as well as gold and oil.
AH these items should be used for export, whereas the chief importance

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

of 'Koryakia' for Soviet Far Eastern economy would lie in its extensive
coal deposits. Although Sergeev gave very detailed data about the
location of the deposits, it does not seem that exploitation has begun on
any noteworthy scale.

The development of the Koryak National Area has lagged behind
from the Russian communist point of view, not only in the economic,
but also in the political sphere. The small Communist Party organization
of the National Area, it is true, has issued statements on behalf of the
tribesmen, abounding with such terms as 'dictatorship of the proletar-
iat*, or 'creation of a culture, national in form and socialist in content*,
but it does not seem that this has meant very much to the natives. The
few communist agitators - in 1932 the Party organization had 120 mem-
bers, including 'candidate members* - found it extremely difficult to
encourage the class struggle among the Koryaks and other local tribes.
The appearance in the National Area of State enterprises which were
led and directed by Russians and other strangers, must have consolidated,
rather than disintegrated, the primitive tribal unity comprising both the
rich and the poor. Sergeev himself said that class consciousness, let
alone class struggle, was practically absent in the Koryak National
Area at the beginning of the 'thirties'. The 'kulaks*, the well-to-do
reindeer breeders, operated fairly successfully by stirring up hatred of
the Russians, and by using 'tribal traditions, religious prejudices and
superstitions* in their campaign against the new Soviet order. Soviet
class war propaganda was countered by such simple but realistic phrases
as 'rich and poor live together', or, *the rich are feeding the poor*.

CHUKOTKA-THE RUSSIAN COLONY FACING ALASKA

The National Area of the Chukchi occupies the north-eastern tip of
Asia facing Alaska, and is bordered by the Arctic Sea on the north, and
the Bering Sea on the east and south. Several islands are part of the
Chukcha National Area, including the Soviet island of Big Diomede,
which is separated by only four miles from the Little Diomede, which
belongs to the United States.*

The Soviet nationalities policy has done its best to take advantage of
the indisputable geo-political importance of the Chukcha National Area

- in short, Chukotka. This policy had to allow, in the first place, for the
fact that the natives of Chukotka, both the Chukchi themselves and the
Eskimos, who are related to them, had a long tradition of close economic
co-operation with their American neighbours, whereas links between
Russians and Chukchi had been tenuous.

* The Diomede Islands are also known as Ratmanov Island and Kruzenshtem Island
respectively. Admiral Kruzenshtern commanded the first Russian round-the-world
voyage and Ratmanov participated in this expedition,

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

The danger of an americanization of 'Chukotka' was not caused by a
deliberate offensive of 'dollar imperialism* against that territory, but
was due to the natural inter-dependence of the more highly developed
American Alaska and the underdeveloped Russian territories on the
western shore of the Bering Strait De jure, Chukotka has been a
Russian possession ever since the middle of the seventeenth century,
when Cossacks had first penetrated into the land of the Chukchi. De
facto, however, the Russians did not exert any sovereign rights over
either the territory or the territorial waters around the north-eastern tip
of Asia. A few Russians who had settled down in Chukotka in the
seventeenth century, became completely intermixed with the native
population, and quite indistinguishable from them as far as their
exterior appearance was concerned. In 1897 there were 300 Russians in
Chukotka, and 500 persons officially described as 'russianized natives',
who might easily have been Russians turned native. The bulk of the
population - the 1 1,771 Chukchi - lived in complete segregation from
the Russians, and had they not been so primitive, it might have been
said that they formed a State of their own. Up to the end of the nine-
teenth century the Chukchi were completely ignorant of Russia. They
were even unaware of the existence of a Russian Czar. Nor did the
Chukchi ever pay the Russians any *yasak% the famous fur tribute by
which the Siberian peoples implicitly recognized the overlordship of
Russia* 8 *

In the middle of the nineteenth century the Americans started the
exploitation of Russian coastal waters in the Behring Strait, and in the
Okhotsk Sea, with its vast abundance of whales. Since the Russians
displayed no interest in whaling, the Americans soon became the un-
challenged masters of those Russian waters. 'Predatory American
whaling* had nearly exhausted the whale stock of the north-western
Pacific before the Russians even thought of organizing whaling expedi-
tions of their own.

After the purchase of Alaska fay the United States in 1867, American
wbafers were almost the only civilized people with whom the inhabitants
of the Chukot peninsula came into contact. The Americans sold them
afl the goods they seeded, including rifles and ammunition, and later
even little boats in which they went to Alaska, trading and intermarry-
ing with Alaskan natives. Both the Chukchi and the Asiatic Eskimos
learned English, and some of them travelled with the assistance of
American whalers and traders as far as Seattle and San Francisco.
Eskimo children from Chukotka went to Alaska to attend mission
schools.

A learned Russian traveller to Chukotka, said, as early as 1888, that
nearly all Chukchi of the Chukot peninsula, women and children in-
cluded, understood some English, and that many Chukchi spoke it as

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

well as a 'genuine American'. Gradually the Americans became so
familiar to the Chukchi that they used to call all foreigners appearing
on their shores * Americans'. 53

It was only in 1889 that the Russian Government transformed the
land of the Chukchi into a separate administrative unit - the Anadyr
District - and it was not before the 'nineties', when the district was under
the command of a young, broad-minded District Commissioner,
N. L. Gondatti, that Russian rule over the Chukchi became more effect-
ive, and attempts were made to counteract American commercial
competition. Gondatti ordered regular fairs to be organized for the
benefit of the Chukchi, and every native coming to his headquarters
was offered a meal and a small present.

The attempts to consolidate Russian rule in Chukotka were, however,
checked by the development of Alaska at the beginning of the twentieth
century. To the American public the advance of economic and cultural
life in Alaska seemed to proceed at too slow a pace. But what the
Americans criticised as 'neglect' the Russians praised as the most
astonishing progress. In 1909 the Russian scholar Kokhanovsky des-
cribed the Alaskan town of Nome as 'an outstanding cultural centre'. 54
Obviously nothing in Chukotka, Kamchatka or around the Okhotsk
Sea could bear comparison with Nome during its short-lived boom at
the beginning of the century. At that time the danger of the United
States expanding economically from Alaska into Chukotka was partic-
ularly real. Between 1902 and 1912 there existed an American 'North-
Eastern Siberian Company', which eagerly propagated the idea of
American investments for the exploitation of Chukotka's national
riches - gold, iron-ore and graphite. The company was entitled to
exploit 60,000 square miles of Russian land. During the ten years of
its existence, it established an American trading monopoly on the
Russian side of the Bering Strait. About 200 Americans settled more
or less permanently in Chukotka. Their solid, well-furnished houses
aroused the envy of the few local Russians, and the admiration of the
natives. After the Second World War Soviet propaganda gave a very
coloured version of the 'American period' in Chukotka's history. To
show the far-flung ambitions of American imperialism, the Soviet Press
made great play of a very unrealistic private American project to link
Alaska with Chufcotka by a submarine tunnel, and to build a railway
across Northern Siberia. 55 The scheme had caused a minor sensation at
the beginning of the century, but it was never taken very seriously.

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

THE SOVIETIZATION OF CHUKOTKA

Only the Soviet regime transformed Chukotka into a safe Russian
possession and held foreign influence at bay. It could not raise Chukotka
to a higher cultural and economic level than that of Alaska, but it
could at least destroy the old interdependence of the two territories.
Even this could be achieved only gradually and incompletely. Friendly
direct contact between Alaska's and Chukotka's natives went on for
several years after the establishment of Soviet power in the areas east
of the Bering Strait. A fairly large number of Chukchi continued to
speak some sort of broken English and there are indications that trips
between Chukotka and Alaska went on until as late as 1944. Until that
year parties of as many as forty people were observed to arrive from
Siberia on the Alaskan coast on hunting, fishing and trading expeditions
whilst American Eskimos visited Siberia for similar purposes. 56

The transformation of Chukotka into an integral part of the Soviet
Empire has been described in detail in Syomushkin's novel Alitet goes
to the Hills. The book, which has already been quoted, was published
in 1947. It was awarded a Stalin Prize for prose, for, from the point of
view of the regime, it had the great merit of drawing the attention of a
large Russian public to the strategic and political importance of the
Chukotka outpost in the 'cold war' against America. Later, a film was
produced on the basis of Syomushkin's book, but this was not such a
great success.

Syomushkin, who had lived eight years in Chukotka, depicted in
detail the methods which the Soviet governor employed to achieve the
Sovietization of the land of the Chukchi. This man, whom SyomushMn
caHed Los 9 , was posted to Chukotka as he might have been to Kursk,
Jala, or any other place in Central Russia. He had not the slightest
knowledge of the country which he was to administer. He did not
know anything about its customs. On the very first day of his arrival
m Chukotka, without having gained even a superficial knowledge of
local conditkras, he stated flatly to his Russian companion: 'We'll make
communists and komsomois out of them, mark my words/ And the
^^administrator did make 'communists* out of the Chukchi, but
tfcese communists' were unable to understand such words as *com-
mmwm , ^oviet* and 'revolutionary*. His assistant, a young intellectual
c^Aodrey Zhukov, who had studied the customs and languages of
tbe Chukchi, was more sceptical of the transplantation to the Arctic of
tbe Communist Party jargon. When Los asked him to translate the
word [revolutionary* to a Orakcha, Zhukov said: 'I should like to see
you dandate the word revolutionaiy>\ Itis not so easy.' Los was ^5
imposed by this refusal, but assured his subordinate that he would get

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

the word translated, and that the Chukchi would learn the word. After
gathering some experience in propaganda work among the local people,
Los and his assistant drew up a political vocabulary. Here are some of
its principal terms:

Communism The new law

Lenin The Russian who invented

the new law of life
Communist A man who wishes to

remake life
October Revolution

Anniversary Celebration Feast of the big speech-
making. (The Chukchi
themselves call it The
Russian Feast'.)

Communist Party Card Bearer of the good spirit

Petrol Good Spirit Benzine

The most difficult thing was to translate the word 'State'. How could
one explain to the Chukchi that a thing called 'State' had confiscated
the reindeer, and that it had become the most important property owner
in Chukotka? A Chukcha woman, Rultina, found an adequate and
truthful translation of 'State' by suggesting that the State was just a
white man. A young Chukcha communist answered to this that the
State was not only the Russian administrator, but 'many, many people'.*
Syomushkin's novel showed that the Soviet regime had to make a
particularly great display of its efficiency in Chukotka because the
Chukchi had an opportunity to compare the respective merits of
Russian and American technical skill, even if only in the form of
Russian and American matches. At one point of his book Syomushkin
said that a pro-American Chukcha settlement had to be bribed by a
motor whale boat before it would agree to join the Soviet hunting and
fishing co-operative. Russia's position vis-ct-vis the United States was
also strengthened on a larger scale by the building of new settlements
opposite Alaska - the Eskimo village Naukan and the administrative
base Uekn, which was mainly populated by Chukchi.

The fight against native kulaks and traders was one of the most
important activities of the Soviet authorities in Chukotka. Hie Russian
communist officials tried to take control of fur hunting, fur trading and

* The Soviet regime is not the only one trying to teach the peoples of the North Ac
political A. B.C. in a simplified and even over-simplified language. This is how The Eskimo
Book of Knowledge of the Hudson Bay Company explained to the Eskimos of Labrador
the transformation of Canada into a dominion 'In his wisdom, the King of Britain said
to the people of these new countries beyond the seas, his sons: "You have always loved me
and the things which I love. You are now grown to fuH manhood, you have learned the
things which I can teach you, you have your families and your children. It is right that
you should direct your ways for the benefit of your children. I wOl appoint a Governor
for your lands, but he siiafl be guided by yoer wishes. For are not yoiff wishes my wishest*** 67

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

reindeer breeding. This was a difficult task, since the measures for col-
lectivization were less understood in Chukotka than in most other
'backward' territories of the U.S.S/R, Syomushkin himself had to admit
these difficulties when he described the effect of the imprisonment of
the 'wicked kulak Alitet 5 (a Chukcha trader of this name really existed)
on the local atmosphere in Chukotka. The local people saw in Alitet's
arrest not a measure taken by the champions of the proletariat against
the kulaks, but the persecution of a Chukcha by Russians. This is how
Syomushkin described the despondency which the 'Alitet case* had
created in Chukotka:

*Something amazing had happened on the coast. The Russians had
locked Alitet up in a wooden yarang, and he sat there like a seal in a
net The news spread tike wildfire, magnified by monstrous rumours.
Alitet was in everyone's mouth, in the yarangs of the seal hunters,
among the trappers, at meetings on the trail, in the depths of the tundra
and wherever men came together in twos or threes.'

*The Shamans said that the Russians were building strong wooden
yarangs in order to catch and lock up the Chukchi in them'.

"People dare not live now on the big rivers. The Russians would come
down in the summer on their self-going whaleboats, and seize all the
reindeer herds in order to do away with them. The reindeer men must
not live in big encampments. They must break up into small camps of
one or two yarangs, not more. The Russians want to destroy the herds/ 58

CHUKOTKA DURING THE WAR : ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION
ANJ> 'IDEOLOGICAL* CONCESSIONS

The story of Syomushkin's book is carried further in the novel Swift-
moving Reindeer by Nikolay Shundik. It describes life in Chukotka in
the years of the war. The situation is then fundamentally different from
that presented in Alitet goes to the Hills. The Soviet regime has already
won the first round in the fight for Chukotka, the Soviet administration
is firmly established, the collective farm system dominates and the young
Chukchi are organized in the Komsomol. Many of them, it is true, do
not know what the ^Communist Youth League* really stands for* but this
does not matter as long as the Chukcha Komsomol members support the
regime wholeheartedly and make their contribution to the development
of local economy. The emphasis of Shundik's book is on this economic
aspect The Russian officials who figure in his novel are of a quite
different type from the Los and Zhukov of Syomushkin, They are no

* Sfeundik's definition of the Komsomol as iwt into the mouth of a Chukcha girl is very
simfiar to the definitions of political team in Alitet goes to the Hills; The Komsomol is
& very big fam3y of young lads and gais. These lads and girls are honest and strong.
They do o<ae big job that is necessary to aH, namely, to buiH life anew. The Komsomoltsy
do aot fear anything, neither an enemy, nor heavy wc^ nor sjw>wstorm, not even death'.**

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

longer interested in indoctrinating the Chukchi and explaining to them
the essence of communism and the working of Soviet power, they do not
even talk about Lenin and Stalin. Their primary objective is to make the
Chukchi work harder and to extract from them greater material
contributions, particularly in the form of fur supplies.

The Russian officials and their Chukcha collaborators need all their
ingenuity to increase the trapping of fur animals. Although the hunters
are working under great strain, day and night, they must raise their
targets further - under the pretext that the front expects more. To achieve
this every collective farmer must look after a larger number of fox-traps.
Women, too, are enrolled into the 'fox-hunting brigades'. One Russian
administrator even has the idea of forcing reindeer-breeders to give up
their herds and devote themselves entirely to hunting. This scheme is
tried out but it does not work. It puts an unfair burden on the remaining
shepherds and provokes profound dissatisfaction among the Chukchi
who for generations have been used to combining fox trapping with
reindeer-breeding. As a result less furs are provided than before. The
man responsible for this failure, Karaulin, the head of the economic
department of a Communist Party District Committee in Chukotka, is
dismissed. He had been highly unpopular with the local population and
it is interesting that this final removal occurs over an economic problem
and not because of the high-handed way in which he had for several
years been treating the Chukchi. One of his 'exploits' was the confisca-
tion of a number of charms and idols belonging to an old Chukcha. Such
arbitrary actions against helpless natives must have frequently happened
in the past, both in Chukotka and in other native territories of the Far
North and Far East. Nobody took exception to them in 1935 or 1938
but in the new situation that existed during the Second World War
confiscation of idols became a left-wing distortion*.

Far away, in Moscow, Stalin gives the example. He has revised the
official policy towards religion and concluded an armistice with the
Orthodox Church. The Party secretary in Chukotka thinks that some-
how he must adapt this new line to the conditions peculiar to North-
Eastera Siberia. So he disowns his too zealous subordinate, Karaulin.
The confiscated idols and charms are neatly wrapped up and bundled
and restored to the owner who, incidentally, is a first-class and generally
respected reindeer-breeder the regime can ill afford to antagonize.

CHUKOTKA AND THE *COLD WAR*

The situation of Chukotka in 1945, as depicted in Shundifc's novel is
still not quite satisfactory from the Soviet point of view. The author
introduces us to such *hostile elements' as a reindeer-breeder who stIH
refuses to join the kolkhoz, a kulak who, though foraally a kolfctoz

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

member, continues to be harmful and treacherous, and even an alleged
American spy who for a certain period successfully poses as an official
of a Soviet trading post. What is even more remarkable is the survival
in Chukotka of 'devilish superstitions* but about this point at least a
more official testimony is available than Shundik's book. *In the minds
of the Chukotka peoples*, says Pravda of July 2nd, 1947, 'the old times
are still surviving/ "The Party organization*, the newspaper adds,
*must carry out a tremendous cultural and educational work among the
local population. Books are needed in the languages of the Chukchi
and the Eskimos* to expose the prejudices of the past.'

The main handicap to communist activity in Chukotka has always
been the fact that the country is ruled from Khabarovsk, which is as
far away from Uelen, the settlement of the Chukchi on the Bering
Strait, as Murmansk is from Tiflis. The communist leadership of
Khabarovsk has found it extremely difficult, for obvious geographical
reasons, to become interested in the special economic problems of the
Chukchi, and in their cultural and economic needs. When the Party
secretary of the distant National Area went to Khabarovsk in 1947, he
had more than one reason for complaint. His most urgent grievances
were the following: none of the Khabarovsk communist leaders ever
visited Chukotka; the Khabarovsk paper The Pacific Star (Tikhookean-
skaya Zvezda) rarely reported on events in the territory; no literature
on Chukotka was published by the Regional Publishing House, Dalgiz;
and the Khabarovsk trade organization, Severotorg, did not supply the
goods badly needed by the population, such as tea, tobacco and petrol
stoves. The publication of the article in Pravda coincided, quite accident-
ally, with the beginning of the *cold war', and it constituted a turning
point in the official Soviet attitude towards the Chukotka problem. Once
again events in Alaska had a bearing on the situation in Chukotka.
In view of the importance which Alaska acquired in the defence system
of the Western hemisphere, the Soviet authorities paid increased

* Tbe 'Rossian or Asiatic Eskimos' live in the coastal areas of the Chukot peninsula.
Tfee part of the Qmkcha National Area which they inhabit, and which also comprises
Wraaget jsiaad and the island Kg Dtomede, forms a special Chukcha-Eskimo
National Dtstnet of 150,000 square miles. It includes about one-sixth of the National
Aim. The Soviet regime has attached considerable importance to 'its' Eskimos in view
ofto large somber of their kinsmen living in North America. The first expression of a
Soviet Eskimo pofacy* was tbe organization in 1929 of an 'Eskimo Congress of Soviets*.
Tlie Soviet Government has also published pamphlets in Eskimo on basic political topics,
as weH as on reindeer-breeding, and an experiment was made with an Eskimo wall news^
paper.

ixS 1 -^ 7 *** ? ovict autlK)nties texte* that the Eskimo language hitherto in use in the
U-S.S,R, was based on a 'wrong alphabet*, and a 'wrong spelling' The Minister of
l^f ^ ?2 R ' S - F - S - R - ***** Kalashnifcov, issued adecree by which the existing
s&rax> alphabet was changed, and a more phonetic system of spelling adopted The
changes made it necessary to rewrite the existing Soviet literature in thTSkimo language

teSS^SZ^

to be introduced by tbe Soviet regime within less than twenty years.

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

attention to Alaska's neighbour, the National Area of the Chukchi.
Educational activities, for instance, were greatly extended. At the
beginning of 1950 there were as many as 76 schools in the National
Area, with more than 3,000 pupils. 61 *

Hand in hand with the development of schools for the children of
Chukotka has gone the increase of propaganda activities among the
adults. The Party secretary of the National Area stated, in May 1952,
that Chukotka had as many as 350 'agitators', who had been recruited
from among the Chukchi, Eskimos, and other 'natives'. Some of these
locally recruited agitators were trained in the Territorial Party School
in Khabarovsk. Others were indoctrinated in Party schools working in
the National Area itself. In 1951-52 alone, 900 Party and Komsomol
members of Chukotka, including both natives and Russians, studied the
'classics of Marxism-Leninism*, and the 'Short History of the All-Union
Communist Party'.* 2

All this indoctrination work among the Chukchi is concentrated in
the hands of a Russian Party secretary, who shares his political power
with the native Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Chukcha
National Area. The division is very unequal, for the Party secretary
has the powers of the governor of a colony, and the Chairman of the
Executive Committee is only a figurehead and a spokesman of native
interests. A man called Kukai was chairman just before the wan
During the war the job was filled by a graduate of the Leningrad
Institute of the Peoples of the North, Otke. He has frequently been
mentioned and quoted in the Soviet Press, and there is no other native
of the Soviet Far East and Far North who has come into such promin-
ence. Not only does he serve as an example of how the Chukcha people
have advanced under the Soviet regime, but he is also used for anti-
American propaganda purposes. As a small boy, so his official biography
says, Otke was offended by an American merchant, who poured the
contents of a whole bag of duck feathers over him. Otke never forgot
this episode. Apart from telling the story of the duck feathers, he is
credited with making more profound political statements, such as the
following: 'From Chukotka to Moscow there are 15,000 kilometres,
and to Washington the distance is naturally considerably less. But there
are different kinds of distance. There is a very great distance between the
thoughts and feelings of people working in Chukotka and the intentions
of the people in Washington. In this respect there is no distance what-
ever between Chukotka and Moscow.'

* The record of the Canadian Government in providing education for the
Indians is at least as good as that of the Soviet government in Chukotka. In 1949, out of
the 135,000 Canadian Indians, 23,285 were attending school, that is to say more than one
out of six. By comparison the school population in Chukotka is roughly the same, granted
that the National Area has about 18,000 inhabitants, which is a very low estimate. The
figure includes not only Chukchi- and other natives, but also the Russian colonists,

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

IMMIGRATION OF RUSSIANS AND RESETTLEMENT OF CHUKCHI

It is impossible to say what is the numerical proportion of Russians to
natives in Chukotka. It is a fair assumption, however, that the Russian
element has greatly consolidated its position after the end of the Second
World War, when something approaching a mass immigration seems to
have taken place for the first time. Before the war the Soviet Government
had mapped out a big colonization plan for Chukotka, the population
of whkh was supposed to increase to 30,000 by 1938, the end of the
Second Five- Year Plan. Luckily for the Chukchi, but very much to the
detriment of Russia's strategic interests, this plan failed to materialize.
Chukotka's population remained stationary, at about 15,000. A sub-
stantial increase of the Russian immigrants after the war may be assumed
from the fact that, in 1951, as many as 31 per cent of all deputies of
local District and Area Soviets of Chukotka were officially classified
as not belonging to the northern peoples. 63 In other words, they were
Russian and European colonists and officials. If the council seats were
distributed in accordance with the proportionate strength of the
nationalities inhabiting Chukotka, an inference which cannot be made
with absolute certainty, then almost one third of its population must
have been European immigrants. This must be compared to the situation
around 1930, when only 3 - 8 per cent of the population of the National
Area consisted of non-natives. 76-3 per cent were Chukchi, and almost
20 per cent were Eskimos and other aborigines. 64

Apart from Russian immigration, the National Area was the scene
of yet another important development after the Second World War - the
liquidation of nomadism. The complete triumph of the Soviet system in
the Far North will be possible only when the entire population becomes
sedeatary, and within easy reach of the Communist Party and State
organs. This is why active measures have been taken to settle the
nomads in the various National Areas of the Soviet Arctic. The task
has beeaa a difficult one. It has required considerable financial invest-
ments, and a great deal of work on the part of the Soviet authorities. 65
la 1947 Chukotka's first nomadic collective farm engaged in reindeer
breeding decided (according to an official statement) *to settle down
completely, and for good*. 06 In the middle of 1952 it was stated that
a 'mass resetttetoent' took place, whereby the Chukchi were moved from
their yarangs into 'comfortable houses*. This meant a greater concentra-
tion of the Chukchi in a number of larger collective farm settlements,
probably for many of those concerned a rather painful operation. 67

Both the immigration of Russians and the resettlement of the Chukchi
have set civilization in Chukotka on a higher leveL On the other hand,
these two meosmes are bound to pave the way to the extinction of the

THE ABORIGINES OF THE SOVIET FAR EAST

Chukchi as a separate national group. Accordingly, the forecast of the
great Russian anthropologist Professor Bogoraz-Tan with regard to the
Chukchi seems to be coming true: 'If civilization comes too near, the
Chukchi will probably follow the way of other primitive peoples, and
will die out and disappear.' 68

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III

1. Zhizn Natsfonalnostei, January 10th, 1922.

2. Pravda, August 30th, 1938.

3. VYSHINSKY, Sudebnye Rechi, Speeches in Court, Moscow 1948, p. 225.

4. Pravda, September 12th, 1939.

5. M. A. SERGEEV, Koryaksky Natsionalny Okrug - The Koryak National
Area, Leningrad 1934, p. 113. A. SKACHKO, Narody Krainego Severa i
Rekonstruktsiya Severnogo Khozyaistva - The Peoples of the Far North
and the Reconstruction of Northern Economy, Leningrad 1934, p. 86.

6. E. BERZIN, Golden Kolyma, Pravda, November llth, 1936.

7. ELINOR LIPPER, Eleven Years in Soviet Prison Camps, London 1951, p. 121.

8. Statement by M. L. GOLUBOVICH at the Trial of the Soviet Concentration
Camp Regime' in Brussels, La Belgique JJbre 9 May 23rd, 1951.

9. VLADIMIR PETROV, // Happens in Russia, Seven years forced labour in the
Siberian goldfields, London 1951, p. 260.

10. Kultura i Zhizn, April llth, 1950.

11. Pravda, July 2nd, 1947.

12. M. A. SERGEEV, Narodnoe Khozyaistvo Kamchatskogo Kraya> The National
Economy of the Kamchatka Territory, Moscow-Leningrad 1936, pp. 409-
10.

13. Small Soviet Encyclopedia* second edition, vol. 7, 1938, p. 703,

14. P. S. ZHIGUNOV and K A. TERENTEV, Sevemoe Olenevodstvo, Reindeer-
breeding in the North, Moscow 1948, quoted from Polar Record, vol. 6,
Nr 41, January 1951, p. 109.

15. Sovetsky Taimyr, September 19th, 1950, quoted from Voprosy Istoru*
Nr 2, 1953, pp. 41-2. See also a Toss report of August 16th, 1953.

16. Uchitetekaya Gazeta, October 13th, 1951.

17. RICHARD FINNIE, Canada moves North, The MacmiHan Company, New
York, 1942, p. 78.

18. Dalnevostochnoe Obshchestvo Kraevedeniya (Etnograficheskaya Sektsiya),
Yediny Seventy Alfavit - Far Eastern Regional Research Society
(Ethnographical Section), l^e Unified Northern Alphabet, Khabarovsk
1930, p. 6.

19. Voprosy Istorii, Nr 2, 1953, p, 45.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III

20. Uchitekkaya Gazeta, June 30th, 1951.

21. Pravda, June 2nd, 1952.

22. Pravda, June 2nd, 1952.

23. A. V. OBSUREV, Obshchii Ocherk Anadyrskogo Okruga - General Outline
of the Anadyr District, St. Petersburg 1896, p. 117: 1. W. SHKLOVSKY, In
Far North-East Siberia^ London 1916, p. 248 See also WILLIAM HOWELLS,
The Heathens^ Primitive Man and his Religions, London 1949, p. 126.

24. PROF. B. E. PETRI, Staraya Vera Bwyatskogo Naroda - The Old Faith of
the Buryat People, Irkutsk 1928, pp. 52-3.

25. SYOMUSHKIN, Ahtet Uhhodit v Gory - Alitet goes to the Hills, Moscow
194S, pp. 259-61.

26. Zvezda, Nr 6, June 1950, p. 49.

27. L KOSOKOV, K Voprosu o Shamanstve v Severnoy Azii - On the question
of Shamanism in Northern Asia, Moscow 1930, p. 70.

28. OLESHCHUK, Borba Tserkvi protiv Naroda - The Fight of the Church
against the People, Moscow 1939, p. 104.

29. SYOMUSHKIN, Children of the Soviet Arctic, London 1944, p. 221.

30. L M. Susksv, Shamanstvo i Borba s mm - Shamanism and the Fight against
it, Moscow 1931, pp. 143-5.

31. KOSOKOV, op. cit, p. 71.

32. OUESHCHUK, op. cit., p. 70.

33. AZHAEV, Far from Moscow, Soviet Literature, Nr 10, 1949, p. 37.

34. Zvezda, April 1950, pp. 263-4.

35. Skazki Narodov Severa - Tales of the Peoples of the North, Moscow-
Leaingrad 1951, pp. 358-9.

36. WLADMR ARSENFEW, Russen und Chinesen in Ostsibirien, Berlin 1926,
p. 79.

37. A- DEMENIEV, E. NAIBIOV, L. PLOTION, Russkaya SovetskayaUteratura -
Russian Soviet literature, Leaiingrad-Moscow 1951, p. 372.

38. Izvestiya, April 12th, 1952.

39. Antiretigtoznik, November llth, 1931, p. 26.

40. Sovetslcy Sever, Nr 4, 1934, p. 45.

41. Za btdustriolizfftsiyu Sovetskogo Vostoka, Nr 2, 1933, p. 188.

42. M. A. SER<^EV, Sovetskte Ostrova Tikhogo Okeana- The Soviet Islands
of the Pacific, Leoingrad 1938, pp. 70-8 and 135-8.

43. Soviet Monitor, November llth, 1949.

44. 1. VINOKUROV and F. FLORIN, Podvig AdrmraJa Nevelskogo - The Feat of
Admiral Nevelskoy, Moscow 1951, pp. 127-8.

45. R ZADORNOV, Ddyoky gray, Distant Country, Leningrad 1950, p. 375.

46, MARTEN SCHWIND, Die Gestaltung Karqfutos im Japantechen Raum
Go&a 1942, pp. 66-7.

100

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER III

47. Soviet News, December llth, 1945.

48. Soviet Monitor, April 8th, 1947.

49. Geografiya v Shkole Nr 3, 1947, pp. 16-17.

50. Sovetsky Sever Nr 3, 1933, p. 60.

51. M. A. SERGEEV, Koryaksky Natsionatny Okrug -The Koryak National
Area, Leningrad 1934, p. 129.

52. A. P. SILNTTSKY, Poyezdka v Kamchatka i na Reku Anadyr - Journey to
Kamchatka and the Anadyr River, Khabarovsk 1897, p. 77.

53. Izvestiya, Imperatorskago Geograficheskago Obshchestva, St. Petersburg
1888, vol. xxiv, pp. 180-7.

54. Izvestiya Imperatorskago Russkago Geograficheskago Obshchestva, St.
Petersburg 1909, vol. xiv, p. 516.

55. Ogonyok, Nr 2, January 1952, pp. 15-16. MELCHIN, Amerikanskaya
Interventsiya na Sovetskom Dalnom Vostoke - American Intervention in
the Soviet Far East, Moscow 1951, p. 9.

56. Military Review, vol. 32, Nr 6, September 1952, p. 11.

57. GEORGE BINNEY, The Eskimo Book of Knowledge, Hudson's Bay
Company, London 1931, pp. 38-40.

58. SYOMUSHKTN, Alitet Ukhodit v Gory - Alitet goes to the Hills, Moscow
1948, pp. 501-2.

59. NIKOLAY SHUNDIK, Bystronogy Olen - Swift-moving Reindeer, Oktyabr,
Nr 10, October 1952, p. 52.

60. Soviet Monitor, February 7th, 1947.

61. Soviet Monitor, February 27th, 1950.

62. Pravda, May 6th, 1952.

63. Stbirskie Ogni, Nr 3, May-June 1951, pp. 116-22.

64. M. A. SERGEEV, Kamchatsky Kray-Tbe Territory of Kamchatka, Moscow
1934, p. 31.

65. Uchitelskaya Gazeta, October 10th, 1951.

66. Soviet News, August 26th, 1947.

67. Pravda, May 6th, 1952.

68. BOGORAZ-TAN, Chukchi, Leningrad, 1934, p. 78.

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

MULTI-NATIONAL YAKUTIA

Yakutia covers 14 per cent of the entire surface of the U.S.S.R. It is
not only the largest of the sixteen autonomous Republics, but also the
largest single territorial unit of the whole of the Soviet Union. It is
approximately equal in size to the Republic of India.

This vast territory of Yakutia, or the Yakut A.S.S.R., was inhabited
by 288,000 people in 1926, and by 400,000 in 1939. No recent data as to
the racial composition of Yakutia are available, but in 1926 the Yakuts
constituted 82 -3 per cent of the entire population, the Evenki and Eveni
4 -08 per cent and the Russians 10 -43 per cent The rest were Chukchi,
Yvkagirs, Chinese and Koreans.

The Evenki and Eveni of Yakutia, though numerically and politically
unimportant, live scattered over a large part of the country. In the early
years of the Soviet regime, little attention was paid to these minority
groups- Theturningpointcamein 1930and 1931, when 'National Districts*
were formed for their benefit Five 'National Districts* were set up for
the Evenki. They covered almost one-third of the whole Republic, and
stretched from the western borders of Yakutia to the eastern bank of
the Lena river. Nine more 'National Districts' were founded in eastern
and northern Yakutia for the Eveni. A fifteenth mixed 'National District'
was created in the north-eastern border area of Yakutia for Eveni,
Chukchi and Yukagirs. The Yukagirs are a paleoasiatic people who,
in the seventeenth century, occupied almost the entire north of Yakutia.
The northward-pushing Yaki|ts decimated them, and compressed them
into a narrow area.

In relation to the minor nationalities of Yakutia, the Yakuts have as
a rule played the role of a master race. Even under the Soviet regime
they have continued to exercise political control over the other nation-
alities. In 1933, ten of the fifteen 'National Districts' were administered
by Yakut district council chairmen. This shows that the Yakuts occupy
a special position among the non-Russian peoples of Siberia, and that
they have to be considered apart from the small nationalities of the
North and the Fa? East They differ from them in their numerical
strength and in the higher degree of their social and cultural develop-

102

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

ment. From the point of view of the Communist Party they present
an incomparably greater problem than do such peoples as the Chukchi,
Nanai and Nivkfai. Belonging to the big family of Turkic peoples, the
Yakuts had a fairly developed national consciousness before the
October Revolution. Unlike many other small nationalities in the Far
East, they do not owe the beginnings of a national culture to the Soviet
regime.

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: FROM 1630 TO 1924

The Yakuts have been under some form of Russian rule since about
1630. Russian officials collected *yasak* in Yakutia, but otherwise they
left the country alone. Catherine the Second established Russian domina-
tion in a more formal way, but Yakuts enjoyed far-reaching autonomy,
even under and after Catherine. Their tribal organization, headed by
the Toyony*, the Yakut princelings, remained untouched, although the
Russian Government had to confirm them in their dignity. Right to the
end of the nineteenth century, Russia practised, in many ways, a policy
of non-intervention in Yakutia in both a good and a bad sense. She did
not interfere a great deal with local customs, but she also made no
efforts to raise the level of civilization. There was no Russian cultural
activity worth mentioning in Yakutia. No attempt at russification was
made in practice, although theoretically it was the aim of the Czarist
regime. Russian colonization was on a very small scale. Many of the
Russian colonists who settled in Yakutia spoke Yakut, some to the
extent of forgetting their own tongue.

Nevertheless, the fact remained that the Yakuts were a conquered
people, and the Russians the conquerors. At the beginning of the
twentieth century the Yakuts became aware of this. Their national
consciousness awoke. Yakut newspapers and books were published,
and in January 1906 a nationalist organization, the 'Yakut Union*
(Soyuz Yakutov) came into existence. The 'Yakut Union' demanded
that all land in Yakutia alienated by the State, monasteries, and
Russian political exiles should be handed back to the Yakut people.
It also urged that Yakuts be appointed to local police posts. The Czarist
authorities, in an attempt to subdue the nationalist Yakut agitation,
arrested the leaders of the 'Yakut Union', an action which only encour-
aged further Yakut nationalism. The 'Yakut Union* was a genuine
home-grown Yakut movement, entirely unconnected with Russian
revolutionary forces. The Bolsheviks, in particular, failed to take up
any links with the Yakut nationalists, and even denounced their
organization as the instrument of a 'clique of kulaks and tribal
aristocrats*. 1

From its own standpoint the Bolshevik Party continued to handle

100

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

the Yakut problem badly, even after the October Revolution. The first
Bolshevik officials who were posted to Yakutia behaved in a tactless
and clumsy way, and the Party failed, therefore, to enlist any support
from the Yakut people. Stalin's own mouthpiece, Zhizn Natsionalnostei,
openly admitted this failure. The paper wrote, 'The Soviet Government
conducted an incorrect policy with regard to this territory (Yakutia)
in 1918. It did not take into account its special climatic and living
conditions . . , The Soviet Government did not pay attention to the
psychology of the native, particularly to his distrust of the Russian,
which was rooted in history. As a result of this mistake, the natives did
not understand the nature of Soviet power. They considered it with
distrust like everything Russian, and the broad masses kept completely
aloof from the efforts to build up the Soviet State*. 2

The absence of any collaboration between the Bolsheviks and even
a section of the Yakut people accounted very largely for the fact that
civil war in Yakutia dragged on longer than in many other parts of the
Soviet Union. As late as September 1922, almost five years after the
October Revolution, the 'Whites* recaptured from the 'Reds' the locality
of Verkhoyansk in the Yakut Far North. Even this was not the end of
the civil war, for in the winter of 1922-23 General Pepelayev launched
a new counter-revolutionary movement in Yakutia. He was finally
routed in the summer of 1923, and executed in January 1924.

THE GOLD REPUBLIC

Hie Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was founded in
October 1922. It was roughly identical with the Yakut Province as it
existed under the Czars. As a political entity, the Yakut Republic has
remained very largely a constitutional fiction, not only because Soviet
'autonomy* in general has very little in common with real autonomy,
but also for quite specific local reasons. The vastness of Yakutia and the
scarceness of communications make it difficult to rule the country effect-
ively from one centre. It is true that the establishment of numerous
airlines has greatly improved the situation, and has made government
much easier. Nevertheless, for the bringing up of supplies, civil
aviation is of little help, and since there are no railways in the
Yakut A.S.S.R., river and road transport have still to do the bulk of the
work. Both forms of transport in Yaiutia have to overcome great
difficulties. River navigation means primarily navigation on the river
Lena and its tributaries, and the navigation period on the Lena is
shorter than on most other Siberian rivers. It lasts not more than 1 35 days
on the sector Vltim-Yakutsk, and even less on the sector stretching from
Yakutsk to the Arctic Ocean. As to roads, a great many are impassable
m the summer months, since they are covered with mud. In 1 93 7, out of

104

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

the 35 districts of Yakutia, only four had communications with the
capital, Yakutsk, all the year round, fourteen districts during ten months,
eight during eight months, and the remaining nine only duringsix to seven
months. Although the situation is bound to have improved considerably
since 1937, the problem of communications is still a very acute one for
the Yakut A.S.S.R.

Practice has shown that it cannot be solved centrally from Yakutsk,
but only by an economic decentralization of the Republic. This is
exactly what has happened. The northern part of Yakutia is no longer
dependent on Yakutsk and the southern districts of the country for
supplies, but gravitates towards the Arctic sea-port, Tiksi, which owes
its existence to the Chief Administration of the Northern Sea Route
(Glavsevmorput), and is one of its principal bases. Glavsevmorput has
organized supplies to the northern Yakut districts from Murmansk,
instead of via Irkutsk and Yakutsk.

In the south-eastern corner of the country, too, an entire district has
gone its own way - the gold-mining region on the upper reaches of the
Aldan river. Economically, and from the point of view of its communica-
tions, the Aldan region is now at least as closely connected with the
Khabarovsk Territory as with the Yakut A.S.S.R. The development of
the Aldan region into one of the most important gold-producing areas
of the country has greatly altered the economic and social structure of
the Yakut A.S.S.R., and has also affected its ethnographic physiognomy.
Gold deposits on the Aldan river were discovered near a small place
which was then still called 'Nezametnoye' - *the Unobtrusive'- The dis-
covery led to a gold rush. All sorts of adventurers went to the previously
almost uninhabited area. In one year, between 1924 and 1925, the pop-
ulation of the area jumped from 1,200 to 13,000. The newcomers
included, apart from Russians, people of many other nationalities,
particularly Chinese and Koreans. This 'private initiative' soon came to
an end. The Government brought order into the Aldan gold-mining
business. A powerful State trust, * Yakutzoloto*, was established. It not
only organized and greatly increased gold production, but also
developed trade, improved housing, and provided cultural facilities in
the area. Besides, Yakutzoloto owned the largest lorry park in the whole
country.

The name of the gold centre, The Unobtrusive*, was no longer
appropriate for a place which produced such vast wealth. In April 1939
it was therefore changed into 'Aldan*. Although the Russians are a
minority in Yakutia, they constitute the majority of the population in
the Aldan area. The Russian town of Aldan, the headquarters of
Yakutzoloto, is more and more overshadowing the capital Yakutsk,
which is 'only* the headquarters of the Government

Yakutzoloto is not the only big State capitalist enterprise whose wide

105

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

powers make Yakut autonomy an illusion. There are others in charge
of gold, timber, fishing, and the fur trade, and there are, above all, the
powerful organizations which look after navigation in the Lena basin.
The latter operate in complete independence of the Government in
Yakutsk, which does not own a single one of the ships which link one
Yakut locality with another.* The navigation is in the hands of three
enterprises; one is the 'Lengospar* which belongs to the Ministry for
Water Transport in Moscow; the second is 'Lenzolotoflof which is run
by the State trust exploiting the Lena goldfields, and the third is the
Chief Administration of the Northern Sea Route.

The development of goldmining and transport under the Soviet
regime created a small native proletariat. By 1936 there were 1,845
Yakut miners and industrial workers. They constituted only 4*19 per
cent of the entire working class in the country, whilst the Russians sup-
plied the bulk of it (70 per cent), and Koreans and Chinese a very
substantial minority (15 per cent). 3

Russian colonization in Yakutia is expanding, not only in the Aldan
area, but also in Central Yakutia, where it is spreading out in the
valley of the Vilyuy, a tributary of the Lena river, particularly in connec-
tion with the development of coal mines. 4 Northern Yakutia, too, has
become more attractive for Russian colonists through the work of
Glavsevmorput It has old Russian settlements such as Ust Yansk,
Russkoye Ustye, and Nizhne-Kolymsk, which are situated at the mouth
of the rivers Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma respectively. With the develop-
ment of Arctic and river navigation, these places have become more
important. Other ports have been founded as well, and Russians are
needed to keep them going.

YAKUT NATIONALISM

Today Yakutia has a new aristocracy, the managers of the gold trusts
and transport undertakings, and the Stakhanovites of the gold mines
and power stations, and of the new tanning and leather goods factories.

* Although all matters concerning mining, heavy industry and river transport are excluded
from the competence of the Yakut Government the latter is, nevertheless, an exorbitantly
large bureaucratic body considering the smallness of the population of the country.
According to article 42 of the Constitution of Yakutia the Council of Ministers consisted
until 1953 of a prime minister, several deputy pnme ministers, the chairman of the planning
commission, 13 ministers in charge of internal affairs, State security, health protection,
municipal economy, timber industry, local industry, food industry, education, social
welfare, trade, finance and justice and seven heads of 'administrative boards* The latter
were in charge of highways, cinemas, automobile transport, local fuel industry, industry of
building matena!, cultural and educational institutions and matters concerning the arts.
The whole Council of Ministers had at least 25 members, which is more than most govern-
ments of Western Europe. The same ministries and 'administrative boards' existed in all
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics irrespective of the size of their population. In 1953
the number of ministers was slightly reduced.

105

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

Most, but not all, of the members of the new upper-class are Russians.
To put the new aristocracy firmly into the saddle, the old one, which
was Yakut, had to be destroyed, and so had its ideological foundations,
Yakut 'bourgeois nationalism'.

Until 1928, the Soviet authorities of Yakutia were rather liberal.
They tolerated even a Yakut cultural organization, 'Sakha Omuk' (The
Yakut People), which was founded in 1921; and a nationalist literary
journal, Cholbon (The Morning Star). In its first issue the journal
stated that it would deal with Yakut themes to the exclusion of every-
thing else. The editors of Cholbon, Leontev and Sofronov, meant what
they said. In the middle of the 'twenties' they still had the courage to
refuse the publication of a poem carrying the title 'Lenin is alive*. The
Soviet authorities had to reconcile themselves to the fact that out of the
five or six Yakut writers known in the years 1922 to 1925, only one
could be described as 'proletarian*. All the others were 'nationalists'.
The most important of the latter was the poet and ethnographer,
Kulakovsky.

The essence of Kulakovsky's political philosophy is contained in a
poem, 'The Dream of the Shaman'. Speaking through the medium of a
Shaman, Kulakovsky warned his people that the 'new-comers', the
Bolsheviks, would bring doom to the Yakuts, and would make slaves of
them. Only by acquiring modern science and technique could they survive
the struggle for their existence. Kulakovsky was an enemy of distinction,
who commanded a great deal of respect from his communist opponents.
The journal Revolyutsioiwy Vostok, that ardent advocate for the Soviet-
ization of the East, had to admit that Kulakovsky hated the Russians
with the sophisticated hatred of an intellectual, and not with that of a
petty bourgeois. 5

Politically more important was the writer Altan Saryn, who preached
pan-Turkism among the Yakuts. He advocated the purge of Russian
expressions from the Yakut language, and their replacement by terms
borrowed from other Turkic languages. No wonder that Saryn soon
became the principal antagonist of Bolshevism in Yakutia. His con-
ception of Yakut culture ('Sarynovshchina*), was branded as the ideology
of the tribal aristocracy.

In 1928, the Central Committee of the AE-Union Communist Party
intervened, and imposed on Yakutia the same irreconcilable Bolshevik
attitude towards nationalism as was adopted all over the U.S.S.R. The
local party leaders of Yakutia, the members of the 'Provincial Com-
mittee' (*Obkom*) were deposed. In a stiff statement dated August 8th,
1928, the Central Committee enumerated the political mistakes which
the Yakut communists had up to then committed, their alleged friend-
liness towards kulaks and *toyony*, their support for nationalist intellec-
tuals who had been gi^ea important posts, and their neglect of the

107

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

small nationalities of Yakutia.

The new men who took over, following the Central Committee
statement, set about their task energetically. They expelled from the
territory of the Yakut A.S.S.R. those whom they considered the 'most
fanatical representatives* of the Yakut national intelligentsia. They
disbanded the 'Sakha Omuk* organization, and reorganized the journal,
Cholbon. On the economic front, collectivization was carried out in the
face of considerable resistance and sabotage.

The final act of this large-scale offensive which the Soviet Government
conducted against its enemies in Yakutia took place thousands of
miles away from the Lena River along another important waterway
of the U.S.S.R., the Baltic-White Sea Canal. Among the workers build-
ing that canal there was a considerable number of Yakut deportees.
They were kept apart from the Russian convicts employed on the con-
struction site, and, together with a large number of other Asiatics,
formed special 'National Minority Brigades*. They were also billeted in
special 'National Minority Barracks', the sanitary conditions of which
were *beneath criticism', even according to the Soviet standard book on
the canaL* This book, to which a large number of eminent Soviet
writers contributed, gives a rather contradictory evaluation of the work
performed by national minorities, of which only Yakuts, Uzbeks,
Tadzhiks and Bashkirs are expressly mentioned. First they are branded
with unparalleled idleness, and later they are praised for performing the
most herculean tasks. In one case the 'national minority heroes* are said
to have worked 38 hours without a stop, and in another case of emergency
even as many as 50 hours.

But whether the Yakuts and the other members of the so-called 'Canal
Army* were idlers or record-breakers has little importance. What
became known of life and work in the National Minority Barracks of
the Baltic-White Sea Canal was bound to deter many would-be oppon-
ents of the regime in the minority territories themselves, even as far
away as Yakutia. Nevertheless, opposition by no means died down
entirely, and the big purge of 1937 affected the Yakut A.S.S.R. as much
as any other autonomous Republic.

According to the official version, 'Japano-German spies, bukharinist-
trotztyiie diversionists and bourgeois nationalists* were its victims.
Such dements were discovered in all important State offices, in the
Coanefl of People's Commissars, in the State Planning Commission,
and ifi the ^office of the Yakut plenipotentiary of the Ministry of
Supplies, which is responsible for the compulsory deliveries by farmers
eattjebreeders and fishermen. 7 *

Even the 1937 purge did not finally dispose of bourgeois nationalism.
Nationalist tendencies made themselves felt once again during the Second
Worfd War, when Soviet cultural policy for a moment seemed to be

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

inspired by greater magnanimity. Yakut communists used what appeared
to be a new situation by reviving the memory of the two outstanding
Yakut inteDectuals already mentioned, Kulakovsky and Sofronov.
Despite their anti-Bolshevik bias, they were, so to speak, smuggled
back into the intellectual patrimony of the Yakut people, and
rehabilitated.

THE BASHARIN INCIDENT

In 1944 a Yakut historian, Georgy Prokopovich Basharin, published a
book in Yakutsk which presented Kulakovsky, Sofronov, and another
pioneer of Yakut literature, Neustroev, as progressive people who were
spiritually related to such Russian revolutionary democrats as Belinsky
and Chernyshevsky. Basharin gave a positive evaluation of the literary
work of the three *enlighteners', as he called them, and considered their
nationalist concept as a healthy reaction to the colonial oppression of
Czarism. During several years it seemed as if this reinterpretation of
Kulakovsky was officially accepted. For a long time no protest against
Basharin's thesis came from higher quarters. In 1950 a rehabilitation of
Kulakovsky was even incorporated in a book on Russian-Yakut
relations, published by the Yakut branch of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences.

It was not until December 1951 that Moscow told the Yakut intel-
ligentsia that they must drop the wrong appraisal of their literary
heritage, and must revert to an attitude of Bolshevik intransigence. On
December 10th, 1951 Pravda published an article, Tor a correct
elucidation of Yakut literature*, which did not mean very much to the
readers of the Bolshevik central organ in European Russia, but which
was, from the Yakut point of view, a new landmark in Soviet cultural
policy. The article was signed by three people who included the well-
known Russian poet, Alexey Surkov, and the expert on Turkic literature
in the Union of Soviet Writers, Lutsyan K. Klimovich. The three took
Basharin heavily to task for his courageous book on the founders of
Yakut literature. They charged him with justifying the bourgeois-
nationalist views of Kulakovsky, with an uncritical attitude towards his
'fantasies', and with hushing up his reactionary character. The whole
thesis put forward by Basharin, so Pravda pointed out, was 'clearly
erroneous and anti-Marxist*. 8 Not only was the Pravda article on Yakut
literature one more example of how Moscow interferes with cultural
life of the non-Russian nationalities, but it also acquired particular
importance in view of the personality involved. By no stretch of imagmar
tion could Basharin be described as a 'class enemy*. He was the son of
a poor peasant, and spent his entire conscious life in the service of the
Soviet regime. First, he was active in the Komsomol, and later in tlie

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

Party. Until the publication of the Pravda article of December 10th,
1951, his life-story reflected only the positive sides of Soviet nationalities
policy in Yakutia. Under the Czarist regime he would have become
nothing more than a hunter in the Yakutian taiga, but under the Soviet
regime he was able to study at first in one of the new Soviet village
schools, * later in the Yakut Pedagogical Institute, and finally in Moscow.
In 1943 he became 'Candidate of Historical Science', and in 1950
'Doctor of Historical Science'. 9 There are hundreds of members of
small nationalities who went a way similar to that of Basharin. They
accumulated knowledge, acquired academic degrees, and became
famous, not only in their homeland but also all over the Soviet Union.
Then, suddenly, there came a point in their career when they felt the full
oppressive weight of the communist totalitarian regime. This is exactly
what happened in the case of Basharin. This Yakut communist had
digressed from the official ideological line. Although belonging to a
new Soviet generation, he had produced a work which was funda-
mentally nationalistic in Soviet eyes. Such a strange phenomenon had
to be denounced in Pravda. But whether such a denunciation can stifle
the desire for independent thinking and research is a different matter.

'SHORTCOMINGS* AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF YAKUT SOVIET
LITERATURE

The Pravda article was not written for the sole purpose of settling the
'Basharin incident*. It also drew attention to *major errors and defects*
in Yakutia's contemporary literary output. One of the offences of the
Yakut writers consisted in *an uncritical utilisation of archaic images
from ancient folklore to illuminate the Soviet reality of today'. This was
a roundabout way of admitting that Yakut folklore was falsified in
order to fall in with certain requirements of political propaganda. How
this is done in practice was once explained by the Yakut writer,
Kulachikov-EUyay. According to him, some poets simply took an old
Yakut national song and made it topical by inserting the word 'kolkhoz*
and the 'new names of heroes', 10 Such manipulations probably account,
in part, for the large number of 'folksongs* in honour of Stalin and the
Soviet regime in the languages of all Soviet nationalities.

Both the Yakut Communist Party organization and the Union of
Soviet Writers of Yakutia repeatedly dealt with the ideological short-
comings of Yakut literature. A conference which the Writers* Union

* In 1947 Yakutia had 580 schools in which over 61,000 children were educated. This
included 141 seven-year schools, and 28 secondary schools. In the school year 1916-17
there were only 173 schools with 4,460 children (Uchitelskaya Gazeta, June 28th, 1947).
In 1952 almost two-fifths of the teachers employed in Yakutia's schools were Russians.
{Vdatelskaya Gaxeta, June 28th, 1952).

110

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

held in Yakutsk in 1948 denounced the uncritical attitude which some
of the Yakut writers were said to have assumed towards the 'survivals
of the past', by professing mysticism, inserting 'religious exorcism into
their works and indulging in romantic adoration before the River Lena'.

However much the Soviet regime persecuted ideological heresies
among Yakut writers and poets, it is a fact that Yakut literature has
made great progress, even if it is primarily a Soviet literature in the
Yakut language. In the first 25 years of the Yakut A.S.S.R., 3,000
different textbooks and other books were printed in the Yakut language,
Yakut state publishing houses turned out many translations from the
Russian classics, and a small number of translations from foreign
authors. On the other hand, a large proportion of the books printed in
Yakutia were worthless from a literary point of view because they
consisted of communist propaganda material. The Yakut language is
the only one among the languages of the smaller Soviet nationalities
into which Stalin's 'Complete Works' are translated. As a rule they are
published only in the languages of the Union Republics.

The Soviet literature which is published in Yakut is written in a
language which has become to no small degree russianized. This is
not entirely the work of the Soviet regime. As many as 2,400 Russian
words had penetrated into the Yakut language by the end of the nine-
teenth century. 11 Under communist rule, it is true, the Russian language
gained further ground. Today, every seventh word used in contemporary
Yakut literature is a Russian one, quite apart from the influence of
Russian on the syntax of Yakut. In Yakut newspapers, Russian words
form 30 per cent of the vocabulary used.

RUSSIAN CULTURAL SUPREMACY

The gradual russification of the Yakut language is accompanied by
the imposition and propagation of Russian cultural supremacy in the
Yakut A.S.S.R. Russian cultural propaganda reached its culmination
point in 1950, when the Yakut branch of the All-Union Academy of
Sciences published an important work of scholarship, already mentioned.
Its full title is The Progressive influence of the great Russian nation
on the development of the Yakut people. It is interesting that, already,
the title of this book expresses a discriminatory patronizing attitude
towards the Yakuts. It not only calls the Russians 'great', but refers to
them as 'nation' ('natsiya'), whilst the Yakuts are only a 'people'
('narod'). The chapter headings are even more revealing. Here are some
of them: 'The great Russian People - the elder brother of the Yakut
People*; 'The positive results of Russian coionizatioE in connection
with the accession of Yakutia to the Russian State'; 'Russian peasants
as pioneers of agriculture among Yakuts'; 'The help of the Russian

RUSSIANS AND YAKUTS

People in the industrialization of Soviet Yakutia*; The leading role of
the Russian People in the development of Yakutia's means of com-
munications'; The progressive influence of the Russian People on the
development of musical culture of the Yakut People.' 12 And so it goes
on, until tribute is paid to the Russian contribution in every branch of
economy and culture. The characteristic feature of the symposium is
that its authors, mostly Yakuts and Russians living in Yakutia, gloss
over the negative aspects of Czarist and Russian rule in general. Even
the few miserable schools which the Czarist regime had established in
Yakutia are hailed as a positive achievement, because the Russian
language, and the 'progressive ideas of Russian pedagogical science',
penetrated with their help to the Yakuts. The Soviet regime also takes
the credit for the work of the orthodox missions in Yakutia, and a few
missionaries, who were the first to create an alphabet for the Yakut
language, are mentioned in the symposium.

It is tempting to contrast the harmonious picture of Yakut-Russian
relations contained in the work of the Yakut Branch of the Soviet
Academy with statements which official Soviet organs had previously
made on the same subject. This is what the organ of the People's
Commissariat of Nationalities wrote in an article published on August
13th, 1921: 'The Yakuts know the Russians as conquerors, as corrupt
chinovniks, as merchants and exploiters, as exiled criminals who
ridiculed all their best feelings and committed acts of violence, and as
neighbouring peasants who oppressed them. Only the political exiles
left a good memory.* 13 This statement probably went too far towards the
other extreme, although it may be taken for granted that the Yakuts
had not been very appreciative of the blessings of Russian rule in the
past Yakut popular sayings, as collected by Soviet folklore experts,
even betray a certain hostile scepticism towards the Russians. These
include the following: *Am I a Tunguz nomad or a Russian passer-by
that you do not believe me?'; or 'Even on Ms death-bed will a Russian
stretch out his hand for the repayment of a debt* 14

Despite everything, a great deal of what Soviet propagandists have
said after the Second World War about the civilizing role of the Russians
IE Yakutia is historically true, but no enlightened colonial power
would make such play of the backwardness of a colonial people and
force that people to admit it The symposium on the progressive Russian
influence has a certain similarity with literature which the colonial
government of the Belgian Congo publishes for the 'natives*. There one
can read phrases such as, 'the Belgians, our civilizers, our benefactors*.
It is difficult to find any similar exhibitions of enforced, undignified
servility towards the European colonizers, either in British or in French
West Africa.

112

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

1. M. VETOSHKIN, Iz istorii bolshevistskikh organisatsii i revolyutsionriogo
dvizheniya v Sibiri-From the history of the Bolshevik organizations and
the revolutionary movement in Siberia, Moscow 1947, pp. 234-5.

2. Zhizn Natsionalnostei, August 13th, 1921.

3. Rewlyutsiya i Natsionalnosti, April 1936, p. 53.

4. Izvestiya, July 16th, 1948.

5. Revolyutsionny Vostok, Nr 27, 1934, p. 205-7.

6. The White Sea Canal, English edition prepared from the Russian version
and edited, with special introduction, by Anabel Williams-Ellis, London
1935, p. 144.

7. KOLESOV and POTAPOV, Sovetskaya Yakutiya - Soviet Yakutia, Moscow
1937, p. 13, p. 338.

8. Pravda, December 10th, 1951.

9. Ogonyok, Nr 13, March 1951.

10. Literaturnaya Gazeta, July 7th, 1948.

11. Sovetskaya Etnografya, Moscow-Leningrad 1951, vol. iv, p. 233.

12. Voprosy Istorii, 1951, Nr 1, pp. 140-4; Sovetskaya Etnografiya, 1951,
Nr 4, pp. 230-4.

13. Zhizn Natsionalnostei, August 13th, 1921.

14. Yakutsky Folklor, Moscow 1936, pp. 276-7.

1J3

/iroviNiAKl

KAZAKHS^

tfOMCOL

4. THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC IN RELATION TO CHINA

114

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

In the Russian Far East, the Soviet Government is confronted not only
with Chinese, Japanese, Korean and American influences; she has to
face yet two other opponents, encountered nowhere else in the U.S.S.R.
These are pan-Mongolism and Buddhism.

This pan-Mongol-Buddhist 'danger' must be dealt with in two terri-
tories which are closely interconnected, but which enjoy different
political status. One is an Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic within
the Soviet Union - Buryat-Mongolia - while the other is formally
independent and only de facto a Soviet territory - The People's Republic
of Mongolia (M.P.R.).

J. THE BURYAT-MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

The Buryat-Mongols comprise only a quarter of a million people.
Nevertheless, they occupy a unique place both in Soviet Far Eastern
policy and in Soviet nationalities 5 policy as a whole. They are the only
people of the U.S.S.R. belonging to the Mongol group by both race and
language, and they are also the only Buddhist people of the Soviet
Empire.*

* In the inter-war period there was another Buddhist and Mongol people in the Soviet
Union, die Kalmucks, but they have heen eliminated from the ethnographical map of the
U.S.S.R. Groups of Kalmucks may still live scattered about Russia, but they no longer
have any place in the cultural and political planning of the Soviet Government It stands
to reason that the abolition of the Kalmuck A.S.S.R. in 1943 and the deportation of the
Kalmuck people must have made a strong impression on the Buryat-Mongols and the
Khalka-Mongols of the Mongol People's Republic. There used to be a certain amount of
contact between Kalmucks, Buryats and Khalka-Mongols, and during several years the
Soviet re^me itself promoted their cultural co-operation. In January 1931, representatives
of the intelligentsia of the three Mongol nationalities held a meeting in Moscow that was
officially described as 'First Cultural Conference of Mongol Peoples'. It dealt with the
reform of Mongol spelHng on the basts of the Latin alphabet, and with the co-ordination
of the scientific terminology of all three languages. 1 Later the Soviet authorities were less
eager to develop cultural intercourse between Kalmucks and Buryats or between Kalmucks
and the M.P.R, in view of the pan-Mongol danger. Nevertheless, k seems likely that
Buryat and Khalka-Mongol inteftectuals continued to be interested in the destinies of

115

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

The Buryats have played a part in Russian policy which is quite out
of proportion to their numerical strength. The Czarist Government
thought that through their Buddhist connections, they might assist
Russia to establish a protectorate over Tibet. Under the Soviet regime
their mission in foreign policy consisted in assisting Russia to exercise
efficient domination over Outer Mongolia, the Mongol People's
Republic (M.P.R.). They did in fact supply a large number of agents
for the bolshevization of that country. At a time when Mongolia itself
was lacking qualified personnel, the Buryats provided the staff for the
leading cultural and economic institutions of the M.P.R., particularly
the Montsenkoop, the Mongol State trade monopoly, and the
Mongolians, the Soviet controlled transport company of the 'People's
Republic'. In the Mongol Army the Buryats distinguished themselves as
officers and instructors.

The fate of the Buryats provides the most outstanding example of the
success of Russian colonization. Although living thousands of miles
from the centres of Russian civilization, the Buryats have been split up
into groups by wedges of Russian colonists, in the same way as the
peoples of the Volga valley were split up. This Russian colonization,
which took place in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, resulted
in pressing the Buryats away from the important rivers of their home-
land, such as the Lena, Angara, Selenga and Ingoda. It was particularly
fateful for the Buryats that the Russians dislodged them in 1799 from
both banks of the Ingoda River. This operation not only narrowed down
the Buryat 'living space*, but also created a small Buryat enclave near
Chita, cut off from the bulk of the Buryat people. Russian coloniza-
tion and Russian policy split the Buryats not only geographically, but
also culturally. The Eastern Buryats remained Buddhists and were less
exposed to Russian cultural influences, while the Western Buryats
became largely christianized and russianized

In the years following the October Revolution, Western and Eastern
Buryats were also politically separated. The former were incorporated
into Soviet Russia, the latter into the Far Eastern Republic. The Buryat
lake, Lake Baikal, became the frontier between the two. The Far Eastern
Republic attached considerable importance to the Buryat question,
perhaps less for reasons of principle than out of fear that the Buryats
could become a tool of Japanese policy. Five articles of the constitution
of that Soviet satellite republic dealt with the special legal position
which the Buryats were to occupy. Article 116 said, 'The entire area
inhabited by the Buryat-Mongols shall form a special territory under
the name of "Autonomous Buryat-Mongol Province"/ Article 1 18
guaranteed to the Buryats the right to establish courts of justice as well
as ecoaomic, cultural and administrative institutions in their territory.

116

THE BURYAT-MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

Article 119 provided for the formation of a Buryat-Mongol National
Assembly entitled to legislate on local matters.

The communists of Russia proper were less eager than their Far
Eastern comrades to grant the Buryats a special status. The communist
organization of Irkutsk which was most directly concerned with the
problem expressed its outright hostility to Buryat autonomy. The
Irkutsk communists argued that the Buryats were not sufficiently civil-
ized to have an autonomous administration of their own. The spokes-
man of the Buryat communists, Mikhei Nikolayevich Yerbanov,
denounced this chauvinistic attitude and complained to the People's
Commissar for Nationalities, Stalin. Stalin ruled that an Autonomous
Buryat Province was to be organized in Eastern Siberia, in the Irkutsk
region, despite the resistance of the local Russian communists. Con-
sequently, during a certain period there were two Buryat autonomous
territories, one belonging to the Far Eastern Republic, and the other
being part of the Russian Soviet Federation. In 1923 the two territories
were amalgamated into one single Autonomous Republic. To draw the
frontiers of the Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R. was no easy task. Whichever
way Buryat-Mongolia's frontiers were to be fixed, the Republic was
bound to have a Russian majority, in view of the successful Russian
colonization which had been carried out in the Buryat country.

SOVIET POWER AND BUDDHISM

The real problems of Soviet policy in Buryatia started only after the
framework - the Autonomous Republic - had been created. Should the
Soviet regime treat Buddhism in the same way that Christianity had been
treated ? Could Buddhism and Communism be reconciled with each
other ? What should the Party do with the Buddhist monasteries? These,
and similar questions faced the regime in the early 'twenties'. The Com-
munist Party and the Soviet Government found it difficult to answer
them, and vaccilated in their Buryat policy between an attitude of
relative liberalism and one of utter intolerance.

In the 'twenties', the Soviet Government was at first inclined to make
use of the Buryats as a revolutionary, or at least 'progressive*, vanguard
of the entire Buddhist world. In the winter of 1926-27 when the situation
in China was heading for a crisis, the Soviet Government granted
permission for the holding of a 'Congress of Soviet Buddhists* in
Moscow, in which most of the participants were Buryats, The Congress
produced an 'Appeal to the Buddhists of Mongolia, Tibet and ladia*,
calling on them 'to support with all their power the fight for the emancipa-
tion of the Chmese people?. 2

In Buryat-MongoM^ itself the local Soviet administration was allowed,
for a time, to proceed cautiously in religious questions. The local

117 9

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

People's Commissar of Agriculture, Oshirov, organized the Buddhist
priests, the lamas, into co-operatives. His idea that the lamas could be
gradually integrated into the new socialist order was widely shared.
Buryat cultural workers, in particular, were eager to conserve Buddhist
monasteries and religious music. To put the co-operation between
communists and Buddhists on solid foundations, a number of Buryat
intellectuals conceived the theory of *Neo-Buddhism', which the Soviet
Government at first viewed rather benevolently.

The chief theoreticians of Neo-Buddhism were the head of the Budd-
hist community in Buryatia, Agvan Dordzhiev, and the Buryat Professor
Zhamtsarano. They alleged that Buddhism was actually a 'religion of
atheism*. There was no difference between the Buddhist ideas on the
emancipation of mankind and those professed by Marx and Lenin.
Gautama Buddha was, in fact, a forerunner of Leninist materialism. 3

From about 1929 onwards, the Neo-Buddhist theories were officially
described as 'most harmful*, since they served 'to obliterate the class-
consciousness of the revolutionary masses'. 4 The regime stopped
discriminating between Buddhism and other religious creeds, and
launched an anti-religious campaign of great violence throughout
Buryat-Mongolia. A small but active group of 'militant godless' com-
munists, by terrorist means, tried to prevent the celebration of Buddhist
holidays, interfered with religious processions by deliberate provoca-
tions, and by administrative measures, achieved the closing of Buddhist
monasteries. All this brought such discredit to the anti-religious cause
that the Buryat organization of the League of Militant Godless had to
be disbanded in 1930. 5 Anti-religious propaganda was then inactive
until about 1937.

In that year a new anti-religious campaign started in connection with
misunderstandings which the new Stalin constitution had caused, not
only among Buddhist believers, but also among other religious groups
of the Soviet Union. Until the coming into force of the new constitution,
the lamas had been disfranchised, and the fact that voting rights were
restored to them was, therefore, bound to create a certain optimism.
The lamas believed, indeed, for a while that there was a fundamental
change in Soviet policy towards religion. Their illusions were soon
destroyed by the energetic measures which the regime took against them.

Nevertheless, on the eve of the Second World War, Buddhism in the
B.M A.S.S.R. was still a factor with which the Communist Party had to
leckon. This is what one of the leaders of the League of Militant Godless
wrote at the beginning of 1939: *In Buryat-Mongolia the lamas have
stiS considerable influence on the masses. It suffices to say that even
some pedagogues and medical workers seek the advice of lamas in their
capacity of specialists in 'Tibetan Medicine* Y e

THE BURYAT-MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

PAN-MONGOLISM - REAL AND ALLEGED

Closely connected with the problem of Buddhism is that of Buryat pan-
Mongolism. The Buryats had been notorious for their inclination
towards pan-Mongol tendencies ever since the Japanese victory in the
Russian- Japanese War of 1904-5. In the Civil War many Buryats
played a counter-revolutionary role; they sided with the Japanese inter-
ventionists who had proclaimed the idea of a 'Greater Mongol Empire'.
The *white guard* puppets of the Japanese, Ataman Semyonov and
General Ungera-Sternberg, were able to recruit quite a number of
Buryat volunteers for their detachments. A pan-Mongol congress, which
was summoned on Japanese initiative in February 1919 in the town of
Chita, also enjoyed a considerable measure of Buryat support. The
congress demanded that all Russian colonists living east of Lake Baikal
should be expelled. It also elected a delegation which was to submit to
the Peace Conference in Paris a project for a Greater Mongol State
consisting of various Russian and Chinese territories. When the Bol-
sheviks advanced into the land of the Buryats, and the Greater Mongolia
project collapsed, certain sections of the Buryat people propagated the
idea of emigration to Manchuria. There the Buryats were to wait until
the plan of a Greater Mongolia could be resumed with Japanese help. 7
Under the Soviet regime pan-Mongol tendencies made themselves
felt throughout the twenties* and 'thirties'. Communist publications fre-
quently complained about 'bourgeois-nationalist* and 'national-
democratic* tendencies among the Buryats, and about the display of
pictures of Genghis Khan. The nationalist pan-Mongolist intelligentsia
was even able to delay the introduction into Buryatia of the Latin
alphabet, which scored its final victory only in 1933, after having been
officially introduced in 1931. The Buryat Party secretary, Yerbanov,
thought it wise not to provoke the nationalists too much. He sent their
representatives occasionally to prison, but did not launch a large-scale
anti-nationalist offensive. When in 1933 local nationalism* was declared
in both the Ukraine and Byelorussia to be the *main danger on the
national front*, Yerbanov made a statement that this change of policy
did not apply to Buryat-Mongolia, There, *Great Russian chauvinism*
would continue to remain the main danger. The Bolshevik Politbureaii
in Moscow seemed to be satisfied with Yerbanov and his policy. la
January 1936 be was invited to the capital as head of a Buryat-
Mongol delegation which was received in the Kremlin by Stalin,
Molotov, Voroshilov and other Soviet leaders. Molotov delivered a
bigspeech on this occasion; he praised the economic and cultural advance
of Buryat-Mongolia, and baited in particular the emergence of a new
Buryat intelligentsia, Yerbanov, too, made a speech in which he

119

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

promised to establish in Buryat-Mongolia a 'strong rear' for the Red
Army, In an emergency, he said, the Buryats would come immediately
to the rescue of their great fatherland, the Soviet Union. For his share
in transforming the B.M.A.S.S.R. into *one of the most advanced
republics of the U.S.S.R.', Yerbanov was awarded the Order of Lenin.

Between January 1936 and summer 1937 the Politbureau changed
its mind completely about the Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R. 'One of the
most advanced Republics* became suddenly one of the darkest spots on
the map of the U.S.S.R. The fine Buryat intellectuals were, according
to official Soviet statements, but a 'band of gangsters, bourgeois national-
ists, Japanese and German spies, diversionists and wreckers 5 . 8 There
was no crime under the sun which the Party secretary, Yerbanov, the
president of the B.M.A.S.S.R., Dampilon, and the members of the
Council of People's Commissars, were not found to have committed.
This is how Yerbanov's successor as Party secretary, Semen Denisovich
Ignatev,* summarised the activities of his predecessor and his associates:
*The abject dirty dogs of fascism, the ferocious enemies of the Buryat-
Mongol people, the bourgeois nationalists, in conjunction with
trotzkyite-bukharinist bandits, conducted their dirty, dark and treacher-
ous work for many years. These trebly contemptible Judases poisoned
people, infected and destroyed cattle, wrecked industry, incited towards
national hatred, and behaved everywhere disgustingly like beasts. They
tried to separate Buryat-Mongolia from the U.S.S.R., and to put the
country under the protectorate of the black fascist Samurai of Japan.' 9

We do not know how the N-K.V.D. proved its point about the exist-
eoce of a pro-Japanese conspiracy in Buryat-Mongolia, but it is
possible that it took refuge in deliberate provocations. Such provocations
are known to have been tried out with considerable success in other
parts of the Soviet Union. One case was mentioned by the former
Soviet historian, Avtorkhanov, who is now living in a Western country.
In his book, Genocide in the U.S.S.R., Avtorkhanov tells how, in
Ingushetia in the Caucasus, a Soviet police official posed as a Japanese
agent He approached all potential enemies of the Soviet regime and
recruited them for a fictitious organization. To make the farce complete,
be made his victims take the oath on the Koran, and even distributed
money and arms among them. As soon as a sufficient number of persons
had committed themselves to a pro-Japanese policy, the NJKL.V.D.
started to arrest 'Japanese spies'.f Such tactics may also have been used
in Buryat-Mongolia.

* S. D. Ignatev specialized in nationalities problems. Having carried out the purge in
Buryat- Mongolia he was sent to Bashkiria and later to Byelorussia and Uzbekistan. In
ibe spring of 1953 be became a secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Com-
munist Party, but fell into disfavour a few weeks later.

f A. Avtorfchanov, Narofbiteistvo v S.X. 9 Genocide in the U.S.S.R., Munich
1952, pp, 31-33.

12Qt

THE BURYAT-MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

The 'Japanese spies' and 'Buryat bourgeois nationalists', dominated
everywhere, according to official statements - in agriculture, in industry,
among the leading personnel of most 'aimaks' (the districts into which
the Republic is sub-divided) and m all cultural institutions. The counter-
revolutionary nationalists were firmly entrenched in the Buryat State
Publishing House, in the local Union of Soviet Writers and in the
principal Buryat communist newspaper Unen. The Institute of Buryat
Culture was 4 a jumble of all sorts of human scum', employing four
Mongol princes and twenty adventurers, kulaks and white guards. 10

Were all these charges pure imagination, or did they contain a certain
amount of truth? It is difficult to believe that Yerbanov the *chief-bandit*
of Buryat-Mongolia, to speak in the official jargon, was at any time a
'bourgeois nationalist*, 'Japanese spy* or *pan-Mongolist*. Even before
the First World War he belonged to a 'Marxist circle* in the Siberian
town of Barnaul. From 1917 onwards he was a Communist Party
member and took an active part in the fight against the White Admiral
Kolchak. After the foundation of the Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R., in 1923,
Yerbanov occupied the highest posts in the Republic, first that of prime
minister, and from 1929 that of Party secretary. It is true, however,
that Yerbanov advocated moderation in the fight against Buryat nation-
alism and national culture. He also favoured the *Buryatization' of the
Republic, in as far as this was possible in view of continuous Russian
colonization. The Soviet Government on the other hand, haunted
by the fear of a Japanese attack on the U.S.S.R., wanted the ruthless
suppression of all nationalist elements in Buryatia which might have
collaborated with the invader. Buryat nationalism, in the Soviet view,
was a natural ally for Japan, just as Ukrainian nationalism was an
ally of German imperialism. A half-hearted attitude towards Buryat
nationalism, such as that manifested by Yerbanov, was thus a criminal
ofience and had to be mercilessly exterminated.

The explanation of the fight against the Yerbanov deviation cannot
be found in the purely political sphere alone. Thane is no doubt that the
economy of the B.M.A.S.S.R. was in a state of disorganization when
the N.K. V.D. launched its big action against the 'enemies of the people*
in Buryatia. Buryat-Mongol industry drastically under-fulfilled the
Second Five-Year Plan. The most important plants of the Republic
under-fulfilled the plan by as much as 40 per cent The greatest failure
was the Locomotive and Waggon Repair Works of Ulan Ude, in the
construction of which over 20,000 people had participated. This plant
was to be the principal railway repair shop for the whole of the Soviet
Far East and for Central Siberia. Russia's transport and supply systejn
in the Japanese border areas depended on its efficiency. The plant was
hastily constructed with faulty material, and some of the buildings col-
lapsed soon after their completion. The local Party leadership had to

121

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

take the blame, although the Railway Repair Works were an 'industrial
gianf of all-Union importance and, consequently, a primary responsibil-
ity of the central government

THE DISMEMBERMENT OF BURYATIA

The liquidation of the 'Yerbanov band* proceeded with amazing rapidity.
Yerbanov was denounced as a 'Japanese spy' by the Communist Party
organization of Ulan Ude on September 26th, 1 937, and he was executed
barely three weeks later on October 12th. His trial, though short, was
one of the biggest which took place in Soviet Russia during the great
purge of 1937. It ended with a total of 54 death sentences and executions.
This alone shows the degree of nervousness which the Kremlin felt over
the situation in the Buryat Republic. Executions, mass dismissals of
Party and State officials and their replacement by new people were
however, not enough to restore order in the B.M.A.S.S.R. The Soviet
Government inflicted on the Republic a sort of collective punishment
and deprived it of six of its aimaks (districts). Four of them were located
in the westernmost part of the Republic, beyond Lake Baikal, and the
two remaining ones formed an enclave in the Chita Province, and were
situated 120 miles from the borders of Manchukuo. The 'reform' was
justified by the assertion that Yerbanov's misrule had been particularly
disastrous in the outlying districts of Buryatia, and required special
measures of remedy. The four western aimaks were added to the Irkutsk
Province and the two eastern aimaks incorporated into the Chita
Province. Within these two provinces the former Buryat territories
formed 'National Areas* (okrugi), that lower form of Soviet national
autonomy which is otherwise confined to the small tribes of the Far
North.

The administrative reform, as such, was not unreasonable from a
practical point of view, since the aimaks concerned were organically
linked with the two Russian Provinces into which they were formally
included by the Decree of September 26th, 1937. The timing of the
reform suggested, however, that it was meant to be a reprisal against
Buryat nationalism, and, in the case of the eastern aimaks, also a measure
of military security. According to the official version, dozens of 'bandits
working on the direct instructions of the Japanese secret service were
busy sabotaging all efforts of the Soviet Government* in the outlying
districts of the B.M .A JS.S.R. These Japanese agents were not powerful
admiaistratorswho abused their office, but ordinary fanners belonging to
kolkhozes with such pretentious names as 'Karl Marx' or 'Comintern*. 11

The re-drawing of Buryatia's frontier cost the Republic only 12 per
cent of its territory, but had considerable economic consequences. The
six aimaks affected by the change included one-third of Buryatia's cattle

122

THE BURYAT-MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

population, whilst one quarter of Buryatia's sowing area was situated
within the western aimaks which went to the Irkutsk Province as the
*Ust Ordynsk Buryat-Mongolian National Okrug'. The separated Buryat
territories in the east, now the 'Aginsk Buryat-Mongolian National
Okrug*, contain some of the biggest lead deposits of the ILS.S.R.

Buryat cultural and educational activities, within the strict limits of
communist ideology, were safeguarded even in the 'National Areas*
with the help of national schools and a Buryat-Mongol department at
Irkutsk University. 12 *

In the more important Ust Ordynsk National Area, cultural work in
the Buryat language labours under a difficulty for which the Soviet
regime bears no responsibility, namely, the far-reaching denationaliza-
tion of the local Buryats. Of the three Buryat poets and writers of the
National Area, two are writing their works in Russian. 13

The victory of the Soviet central authorities over Yerbanov and his
friends made the Russian State safer against a particularly harmful brand
of 'local nationalists', the 'pan-Mongolists' of Buryatia. It led to the
aggrandizement of Russian Provinces at the expense of an autonomous
republic and it probably made Russia's position slightly more secure in
the Far East

THE TRIUMPH OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

The victory of Soviet centralism in Buryat-Mongolia was followed by
the introduction of the Russian alphabet for the Buryat language on
April 7th, 1939, and by the arrival of a new wave of Russian immigrants.
The special privileges for new settlers in the Far East, which were
included in the decree of November 17th, 1937, expressly applied to the
B.M.A.S.S.R.

Russian colonization in Buryatia, it is true, had never ceased under
the Soviet regime but, on the basis of the new decree, the influx of
Russians became more intense and more systematic. As early as 1926,
the Russians formed 52.7 per cent of the population of the B.M.A.S.S.R.
against 43.8 per cent Buryat-Mongols. During the first and second
Five- Year Plan period, Russians and other Europeans wore brought
into the Republic because it proved to be difficult to recruit native
workers into industry. In 1935 only 16 per cent of Buryatia's industrial
workers were Buryats. Even in 1938 the Railway Repair Works of Ulan
Ude included hardly 500 Buryats among their 6,000 workers. The

* The Irkutsk University, which is geographically the nearest Russian University to the
Soviet Far East, has established a kind of cultural protectorate not only over the Ust
Ordynsk National Area, but over the whole of the B.M.A-&S.R. The Irkutsk University,
and not the Ministry of Education in Ulan Ude, decides how the Buryat language is to
be taught in the schools of the * Autonomous Republic*, and what reforms are to be
introduced into the Buryat language itself. (Izvestiya^ July 10th, 19521

123

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

growth of Ulan Ude, the Buryat capital, was almost entirely due to the
arrival of Russian workers. The town, which had 30,000 inhabitants in
1927, increased its population to 55,000 inhabitants in 1932 and to
129,000 in 1939. It does not seem that the Buryats have formed, at any
time, more than 20 per cent of the population of the city.* Also the
other towns of the B.M.A.S.S.R*, such as Kyakhta and Babushkin
(named after the Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, Ivan Vasilevich
Babushkin) have a predominantly Russian character. This could hardly
be otherwise, for the majority of the Buryats became fully sedentary
only during the first two Five-Year Plan periods. In 1928-29 only 9.8
per cent of all Buryats were officially classified as sedentary, 78.6 per
cent were described as semi-nomadic, and 11.6 per cent as nomadic. 14

This senii-nomadic and nomadic past of the Buryat people made it
impossible for even the young Buryat Soviet generation to play a major
part in the *new socialist life' of Buryatia. In 1948 the country had over
7,000 specialists with higher and secondary education who worked in
industry, transport and agriculture of the B.M.A.S.S.R. Only 1,379 of
them were Buryats. 16

The preponderance of the Russian urban element in Buryatia
provoked hostility amongst the Buryats against the towns, which the
Soviet regime rightly interpreted as hostility against the Russian
proletariat and Bolshevism itself.

CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC DEVIATIONS

The spokesman of this antipathy to city life was the most gifted Buryat
poet, Solbone Tuya, who had enough courage to tell the communist
Russian colonizers:

No, keep your overcrowded cities,

With their sophisticated air!

Guileless and free, I need the country,

The coo! wind blowing through my hair.

Give me the steppe, limitless, windswept,

Its vastness stretching on each side,

Where free frbm orders and surveillance,

Man's goodness is his only guide.

* Ti*e last o&cial statistics giving the ethnic composition of Ulan Ude refer to 1926. In
that year S3 per cent of the inhabitants of the town were Russians. A similar Russian
predominance existed then and still exists, m the capitals of other Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republics. The capital of Tartaria, Kazan had, in 1926, 70 per cent Russians;
Ufa, the Bashkir capital had 76 per cent and Izhevsk, the capital of Udmurtia 91 per cent.
In Yakutsk, Yakutia's capital, the situation was more favourable from the point of view
of the local people. Tne Russians accounted for only 56 per cent of all inhabitants and the
Yakuts for almost one third. But at the time of the 1926 census Yakutsk had only 10,000
inhabitants. Siaoe then its population has increased sevenfold and the Yakut capital is now
ethnically at least as Russian as Its Buryat-Mongol counterpart.

124

THE BURYAT-MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

The author of these verses, whose real name was Pyotr Nikiforovich
Danbinov, was one of the most remarkable personalities whom the
Buryat people produced in the twentieth century. During the First
World War, the Czarist regime persecuted him for nationalist Buryat
activities. The communist government of the Far Eastern Republic
recognized Danbinov as Buryat national leader and made him Deputy
Chairman, first of the Constituent Assembly, and later of the National
Assembly, of the buffer-state. After the amalgamation of the Far Eastern
Republic with the Russian Soviet Federation, Danbinov devoted him-
self entirely to literary and cultural work. 16 The Encyclopedia of
Literature, published by the Communist Academy, described him as
the 'most outstanding Buryat poet'. 17 Until the middle of the 'thirties',
Danbinov was frequently criticized as a 'national democrat*, but he was
respected for his great abilities as a poet and writer. He seems to have
been purged at the time when Yerbanov and his supporters were
liquidated. His name is omitted from the section of the new edition of
the Soviet Encyclopedia which deals with the development of Buryat
literature. A similar fate befell all other Buryat poets and writers who
founded the modern Buryat literature such as Baradiin, Namzhilon and
Bazaron. These representatives of 'kulak-noyon* literature*, who
defended the interests of the Buryat steppe against those of the Russian
Bolshevik towns, were all tolerated as long as there were no proletarian
Buryat writers but as soon as a proletarian Soviet literature in the Buryat
language had grown in communist hot-houses, the nationalist pan-
Mongolist writers were doomed to silence.

Pan-Mongolism also strongly affected linguistic problems. Buryat
nationalist writers and intellectuals, whilst stressing the cultural diff-
erences between themselves and the Russians, endeavoured to draw
closer to the Khalka-Mongols of Outer Mongolia. They replenished the
Buryat-Mongol language with expressions borrowed from the Khalka-
Mongol language and tried to adapt the phonetics, syntax and morph-
ology of Buryat-Mongol to Khalka-Mongol in the expectation that the
latter might become the literary language common to all Mongol peoples.

Grammars and dictionaries of this artificial Khalka-Buryat synthetic
language were published in 1932, but the Communist Party opposed this
attempt at linguistic pan-Mongolism. The new language was banned,
and the dialect spoken in Southern Buryatia was chosen as the basis of
the literary language. 18

Great pains were taken by the Soviet authorities to eliminate from
the officially recognized Buryat language all Mongol expressions for
political terms, and to replace them by international and Russian words.
It was feared that the sense of the basic notions of communist propaganda

* The 'Noyony* are the members of the tribal aristocracy of the Buryats, Kalmucks and
otto 1 Mongol peoples.

125

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

might be distorted if they were taken from the vocabulary of the 'feudal
Mongol language'. There was reason for this anxiety. The Mongol word
for 'dictatorship*, for instance, meant 'government maintaining itself in
power by violence 5 . This may have been, from the Soviet standpoint,
quite permissible if referring to a foreign dictatorship, but it was also
applied to the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' existing in Russia, and,
in this case, the Mongol term meant an open attack on the Soviet regime.

IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLES IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD

During and after the Second World War, Buryat-Mongolia, as many
other national territories, experienced a certain nationalist revival which
found a visible expression in literature. As late as December 1950, the
Party secretary of the B.M.A.S.S.R. stated: 'The writers' organization
of the Republic committed in the post-war period various serious
ideological mistakes. Bourgeois-nationalist elements in their books
expressed enthusiasm about the archaic period in which feudal lords and
khans ruled. They tried to give a picture full of deceit of the relations
between the Mongols and the Russians. The Party helped the writers of
the Republic to unmask the exponents of bourgeois-nationalist distor-
tions in literature and to purge them. 19 A year after this statement was
made, official quarters still referred to the 'considerable amount of work*
which the communist organizations of Buryat-Mongolia carried out to
expose 'bourgeois-nationalist and cosmopolitan distortions in the study
of Buryat-Mongol history and in literature and art'. 20

The main target of the campaign against Buryat-Mongol cultural
nationalism in the post-war period was, however, not a living poet and
writer, but the legendary national hero of the Mongols, 'Geser'. The
legend of 'Geser* is several centuries old. In 1715 it was put into print
for the first time in the form of an epic. It has always enjoyed great
popularity with the Mongols, not only with the Buryats, but also with
the people of Mongolia proper. Originally, the Soviet Government and
the Communist Party thought it wise to respect 'Geser*, and to identify
the epic as the expression of an age-long dream of the people about
happiness and a better life. Such a positive view was still held in 1948.
The publication of the full Russian text of *Geser* was prepared for the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the B.M A.S.3.R., which was celebrated in
June of that year. 21 Also in 1948 the Ail-Union Academy of Sciences
published a book on 'Geser* which was a eulogy of the *Epic of the
Mongol People*. Only in the latter part of 1948 did the Party start
challenging 'Geser* as a symbol of feudalism, pan-Mongolism and
religious prejudice. The mythical 'Geser*, it was suddenly stated, was
none other than Genghis Khan and a Genghis Khan cult in disguise
could not be tolerated.* 2

126

THE BURYAT MONGOL AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC

The ban against the 'Geser* cult was such an important event in the
life of Buryat-Mongolia that it could not be enforced by an order alone.
The provincial committee of the Party, in conjunction with the local
Union of Soviet Writers, therefore organized a *discussion\ As usual
in the case of such discussions, it was not intended to establish the truth
on the problem in question. The 'discussion* was primarily a manoeuvre
by which pan-Mongol intellectuals were forced into the open. Those
who came out in defence of *Geser* were, of course, labelled as reaction-
aries and nationalists.

A *NEW' IDEOLOGY FOR THE BURYATS

However absurd the official attacks on *Geser* might appear, they are
extremely logical from the point of view of the regime. A young Buryat
who gets enthusiastic about the exploits of *Geser* has not the approach
befitting a Soviet citizen and patriot. The Soviet regime wants the young
generation of the Buryats not to look towards feudal Mongol history,
but to focus attention on the positive sides of their association with
Russia. It is no longer advisable for a Buryat to lay stress on the wrongs
which the Czarist regime did to his people by expelling them from their
best lands. The Buryat-Mongol people are now taught to consider even
Czarist Russia as a friend. This is the essence of the new historical
concept which the Buryats had to endorse in a 'Letter to Stalin*.
'Until the Transbaikal region became united with the Russians', the
letter said, *the Buryat-Mongols were the victims of systematic raids
carried out by the savage hordes of the Mongol-Manchurian Khans and
feudal lords. These raids were so frequent that complete annihilation
threatened the Buryat-Mongol people. The union of Transbaikalia with
Russia saved the Buryat-Mongols from this fate.* 28

In line with this conception, the young generation of the Buryats has
been urged to turn away from 'Geser' to Peter the Great A collector of
Buryat folklore conveniently discovered a Buryat ballad paying tribute
to the Russian Czar for assistance granted to the Buryat people. The
ballad refers to the chiefs of eleven Buryat clans who, in 1703, sent
a delegation to Peter asking him to protect them against unjust demands,
levies and oppression on the part of Chinese officials. Peter granted
their request, and a few years later sent his ambassador, Count
Ragozinsky, into the Transbaikal region to fix the Russian-Chinese
border in such a way as to include the Buryats, beyond any doubt, in
the Russian Empire.

Apart from Peter the Great, there is another *bero' to whom Soviet
Russian propaganda in the Buryat-Mongol A-S.S.R., has attached con-
siderable symbolic importance - Dorzhi Banzarov, 'the first Buryat
scholar* (1822-1855). Banzarov demonstrated through his whole life

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

that the place of the Buryat intelligentsia is on the side of the Russians.
His biography is striking evidence of the absence of any racial dis-
crimination in the old Russia. The Mongol village boy, Dorzhi,
attended a grammar-school together with Russian boys. Later, he
studied at Kazan University, and, at the age of 26, was made an official
attached to the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. Shortly before his
death, Banzarov became a member of the Irkutsk branch of the Russian
Geographical Society, and a splendid career, both as a scholar and
civil servant, might have been in store for him had he not died
prematurely.* 4

The story of Banzarov is certainly a good and useful one from the
point of view of the Soviet regime, but will it be sufficient to bring about
the triumph of the new ideology? Will it be able to efface the entire
historical traditions of the Buryat-Mongols to a greater degree than
abstract Marxist internationalism was able to do?

//. THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

The Mongol People's Republic, as big as France, Spain, Portugal,
Great Britain and Ireland put together, occupies a unique position in
Soviet nationalities policy. The Republic is formally outside the political
framework of the Soviet Union, but it cannot be described accurately
as a sovereign state. The experiment with the M.P.R. has shown that
a state can be, in all essentials, a copy of the Soviet Republics proper,
without being formally annexed by the Union and transformed into
a fully fledged Soviet Republic.

MONGOLIA'S PLACE IN THE STRATEGY AND THEORY OF
WORLD COMMUNISM

Both the Comintern and the Soviet Government thought originally
that the example of the Mongol People's Republic might be followed by
territories in otter parts of the world. Bohumil Smeral, one of the
leaders of world communism in the inter-war period, wrote in the
official organ of the Communist International in 1930: 'The colonies
can learn a great deal from what is taking place in the independent
Mongol People's Republic. Tlie M.P.R. is an interesting proof of how
a backward people, which until recently lived the life of nomads, is
making rapid progress white avoiding the purgatory of capitalism,
because it is led by a national revolutionary party which is benefiting
from the experiences of the Russian October Revolution.* 25

Contrary to the expectation of the Comintern the example of the
M.P.R, made little impact on colonial territories, but certain features
of the Mongolian prototype were, nevertheless, widely imitated. After

128

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

the Second World War, the model of the M.P.R. influenced the develop-
ment in the new People's Democracies of Eastern Europe and East
Asia. Of course, it could not be a one-hundred-per-cent imitation.
Mongolia, a country of cattle-breeders, could not put into effect
one of the most fundamental principles of Leninism, the leadership of
the proletariat over all other classes of society, peasantry in particular.
Soviet politicians in practice, and sociologists in theory, have found
ways and means of filling the void in the proletarian hegemony in
Mongolia. Since the Mongol proletariat could not lead the trans-
formation of Mongolia into a socialist State, for the simple reason that
such a proletariat did not exist, the Russian proletariat had to take
over this task. As the Soviet academician, E. M. Zhukov, the Director
of the Oriental Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences put it, *the
constant disinterested assistance as well as the ideological and political
support of the Soviet Union ensured the necessary proletarian leader-
ship for the Mongolian people's regime.* 26 In other words, Mongolia is
the classic example of the fact that proletarian leadership in a given
'People's Democracy' need not necessarily exist inside the country, but
can be imposed from without. 'The whole teaching of the non-capitalist
path of development', says Zhukov, 'lies precisely in the fact that the
working class of the land of victorious socialism (i.e., Soviet Russia)
takes upon itself the leadership of a backward country with a peasant
population.' The history of the Mongolian People's Republic is, there-
fore, a warning to all peasant countries, particularly those of Asia,
against the danger of a Russian 'proletarian imperialism'.

OUTER MONGOLIA AND CZARIST RUSSIA

In the same way as Russian interest in Eastern European countries such
as Bulgaria, Rumania and Poland, did not suddenly awake under the
Soviet regime, so, too, in Outer Mongolia, Soviet Russian policy has a
historical background. This means that the somewhat crude europeaniz-
ation of this Far Eastern country should not be attributed to communism
only, but should rather be interpreted as the work of Russian civilization.
The Russians started economic penetration into Mongolia in 1860
with the foundation of the first Russian business firm in Urga. * By 1910
twenty Russian firms were established in the Mongol capital, but not
until Russia obtained political control over Outer Mongolia could she
exercise a serious influence on the Mongols. The establishment of
political control over Outer Mongolia did act mean a step forward for
Russia; it was a coasequeiice of her failure to become a strong Pacific
power. Outer Mongolia was a consolation prize which Japan granted

* In 1924 Urga changed Its same into 'Ufent-Bator-kboto' or Town of tbe Red Hero*.
It is nsttaBy called Utea Bator.

129

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

Russia for the loss of Port Arthur and Southern Sakhalin by a secret
treaty concluded in 1907. The 'concession' could be made the more
easily as Japan obtained, on the same occasion, Russia's recognition of
the extension of her own zone of influence into Inner Mongolia. A
formal treaty between Russia and Outer Mongolia, concluded on
November 3rd, 1912, established the Russian protectorate over the
country. The treaty reduced Chinese sovereignty over Outer Mongolia
to an empty legal fiction, and excluded both Chinese colonization and
Chinese influence.

A total transformation of Mongol society was required if Mongolia
were to become a factor in world economy, and if the Mongols were to
work for the 'White Czar' and for their own advancement. The Mongols,
whose ancestors had been the *vilest butchers of their fellow-men' and
the most blood-thirsty warriors of history, had lost their warlike spirit
under the influence of Buddhism and succumbed to total lethargy.
Caruthers in his book, Unknown Mongolia, showed convincingly how the
*indolent life of the lamaseries, the Buddhist monasteries, became the life
of the Mongol people as a whole'. Lamaism not only determined the
character of the Mongol people but also affected unfavourably Mongol
economy. The principle of inactivity inherent in lamaism prevented the
development of cattle fanning, the economic backbone of Outer
Mongolia. 27

Several years before the Bolshevik revolution with its anti-religious
bias, Caruthers forecast that russianization of Outer Mongolia would
weaken the power of the Khutukhtu, the religious, and, to a large
extent the political, head of the Mongols, and would also lead to an
impoverishment of the lamaseries. The establishment of an 'autonomous
Mongolia* under Russian protection, added Caruthers in anticipation
of further developments, would bring^ about 'fundamental changes in
the life of the people and in the future of the Mongol race'. Mongolia
would thus become a land of activity and progress* instead of a 'land
of stagnation and suppression*.

Any Russian State interested in Outer Mongolia as a huge cattle
reserve and as a military base, was bound to awaken Mongol activity.
Any Russian State, regardless of its ideological complexion, was bound
either to do away with the Khutukhtu, 'the Khan of Outer Mongolia*
as he was also called, or to transform him into an instrument of .Russian
polky. No dual loyalties could be tolerated if Outer Mongolia were to
be a de facto Russian possession.

The Khutukhtu proved to be an obstacle to Russian policy from the
moment that Russia gained political control over Outer Mongolia. He
manifested his desire to have Japan rather than Russia as overlord.
Towards the end of 1913, he wrote a letter to the Tenno asking him to
assist the Mongols in uniting Outer and Inner Mongolia, and to send a

130

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

Japanese diplomatic agent to Urga. As Russia was then in charge of
Outer Mongolia's foreign relations, it devolved upon the Russian
Ambassador in Tokyo, Malevsky-Malevich, to hand over the Khutukhtu
letter to the Japanese Foreign Minister, Baron Makino. Malevsky-
Malevich loyally complied with the request, but the Japanese Govern-
ment asked him to return the letter to the Khutukhtu, as Japan's
aspirations did not then embrace Outer Mongolia, The Czarist Govern-
ment was magnanimous enough not to take the matter too seriously and
mildly warned the Mongols to let the incident be a lesson to them. 28

THE FOUNDATION OF THE M.P.R.

The history of Outer Mongolia under Soviet rule shows that the Soviet
Government was more efficient but less liberal than the preceding
Czarist regime, in its relations with the Mongols. It is not easy to give
a proper outline of this history. The sources are not only very meagre,
but also full of contradictions, for the history of the Mongol People's
Republic has been officially rewritten in the same way as has the history
of the Russian October Revolution and of the Soviet Union. In the case
of Outer Mongolia this 'rewriting* has been more successful because the
the new official history of the Mongol revolutionary movement, and of
the M.P.R. itself, cannot easily be contradicted. There is no Mongol
Trotzky who has acquainted the outside world with his own version,
nor has a foreign observer had an opportunity to follow the crucial
periods of Mongol history day by day. However, various material in
Russian periodicals of the early 'twenties' makes it possible to reconstruct
at least to some extent the origins of the first 'People's Republic*. This
material clearly contradicts the claim that the present 'Mongol Revolu-
tionary People's Party* and its creation, the Mongol Republic, owe their
existence to two men, Sukhe Bator, the 'Mongol Lenin*, and Marshal
Choibalsan, the 'Mongol Stalin*,

The Mongol revolutionary movement had at least five founding
fathers, and they represented various strata of Mongol society, and
various ideological trends. There was the more coaservative-iBinded
Lama Chardorzhab, who had important connections with Mongolia's
theocratic leadership* There was the liberal centre of the movement,
represented by Lama Bodo, an employee of the Russian Consulate in
Urga, and by a small official, Danzan, who was an enemy of Mongolia's
theocratic rulers. There was the kft, formed by Sukhe Bator, a worker in
the Russian printing shop of Urga, and a very young man, Khoriogiia
Choibalsan (alternative spellings - 'Chobalsan', 'Cfaoibakang*,
'Chaibalsan*) who bad been educated first in a Lama monastery, and
later in a Russian school at Kyakhta, an the border of Mongolia.
Whatever may have been the ideological differences between the five,

131

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

they were united in their desire for a far-reaching Mongol autonomy
and, at least temporarily, for close links with the Russian Revolution.
One of the first practical steps taken by the 'Young Mongolia' group, as
it was then called, was to get in touch with Russian Bolsheviks. In 1920
the five revolutionaries went to Verkhneudinsk and met representatives
of the Soviet authorities of Siberia. They also came in touch with a
rather strange personality with the name of Rinchino, who described
himself first as a 'Narodnik-Maximalist' and later as a 'non-party
Bolshevik*. He was a convinced supporter of a communist pan-
Mongolia, and played a great part in revolutionizing both the Buryats
and the Khalka-Mongols. Rinchino took the Mongol delegation to
Moscow, and introduced it to the Kremlin. 29 The Politbureau, including
Lenin, Stalin and Bukharin, received the Mongol delegates who had
been joined by Agvan Dordzhiev, head of the Buddhist community in
Russia, who had once acted as a go-between the Czar Nicholas II and
the Dalai Lama.

The Mongol delegates asked for Russian support for the re-establish-
ment of the autonomous Mongol State, which after the fall of the
Czarist regime had been reoccupied by the Chinese Army. Soviet Russia
granted this help. Thanks to the Red Army, the Government of Mongolia
was ultimately restored to the Mongols, but, prior to this, the country
was still the scene of a number of dramatic incidents. Whilst the Mongol
delegates were on their way back, news reached them that the white
guard general, Baron Ungern-Sternberg, had captured Urga. In this
situation the Mongol revolutionaries decided to set up a proper organ-
ization. In March 1921 they held the constituent congress of the Mongol
Revolutionary People's Party in Kyakhta. Only 25 to 30 people attended,
but the congress was, nevertheless, a very important event. It decided to
set up a Revolutionary Mongol Army, and to form a government, and it
also adopted a programme often points. This original party programme
had nothing in common with the present aims of the Mongol Revolu-
tionary People's Party. It demanded the unification of all Mongol
territories, and the formation of a pan-Mongol Republic. The congress
did sot declare Mongolia's complete independence from China. The
delegates, including Sukhe Bator and Choibalsan, considered that the
new Mongolia ought to be primarily an ally of the Chinese Revolution
and only secondarily of Russian Bolshevism. A fortnight after the
congress, the Central Committee of the Mongol Revolutionary People's
Party issued a 'Manifesto to the entire Chinese People, to the Chinese
Communist Party, and to all revolutionary-democratic groups and real
patriots of China* which called for Mongol-Chinese unity of action.
Both the pan-Mongol concept of the Mongol People's Party and its
positive attitude towards revolutionary China, were endorsed by the Far
Eastern Bmeau of the Comintern** 9

132

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

Contrary to later accounts, at the First Congress of the Mongol
People's Party, Choibalsan played only a secondary role. The key
positions in the Party and the State went to Danzan, who became the
first party chairman, Chardorzhab, who became first prime minister,
and Sukhe Bator, who was appointed commander-in-chief. There was
still another person who played an outstanding part in the struggle for
power that took place in Mongolia in 1921. His name was Maksarzhab;
he co-operated at first with the counter-revolutionary camp, but, at the
decisive moment, he deserted Baron Ungera and went over to Sukhe
Bator. The Soviet Government recognized the great merits of
Maksarzhab by awarding him the 'Order of the Red Banner* in 1922.
The story of the involved and cunning manoeuvres through which
Maksarzhab helped the cause of the Mongol Revolution is told in a
Mongol play, 'Khatan Bator Maksarzhab*, which was produced in
Ulan Bator in 1940.* Maksarzhab was not given full credit for his
historic importance, but at least he was not a victim of those many
purges which took place in Mongolia after the victory of the revolu-
tionary party. As soon as the revolutionaries had captured the capital,
Urga, from the white guards in July 1921, the first internal crisis
broke out. Chardorzhap was replaced as prime minister by Lama Bodo.
Neither did the latter remain long in power. After having been a
year in office, he was not only deposed, but also executed, together with
his predecessor and thirteen other prominent politicians. Bodo was
accused of being too pro-Chinese, and of having sent a delegation to
General Tchan-Tso-Lin to negotiate a Mongol-Chinese reunion.

Even after Bodo there was no real pro-Russian politician in the country
to take over, but Mongolia at least obtained its first secular prime
minister in the person of Danzan. For two years Danzan was extremely
powerful. After the death of Sukhe Bator in February 1923, he also
became commander-in-chief of the army. Thus he controlled the Party,
the Government, and the Armed Forces. Through his close associate,
Bavasan, he also supervised the Mongol youth organization, the
Revsomol. Danzan wanted genuine independence for Mongolia and

* Maksarzhab, who had little connection with Russian revolutionary ideas, and who was
a real home-grown Mongol revolutionary - his name figures prominently in the history
of the revolution which took place in Outer Mongolia in 1911 - has had a stronger
appeal to the Mongols than has the rather colourless guerilla leader, Sukhe Bator. Between
1933 and 1938, four plays about Sukhe Bator were performed on the Mongol stage. In
all of them Sukhe Bator appeared as a pate figure, whilst all of them described Maksarzhab
in much more lively colours. No Mongol playnght who remembered foe true story of the
events of 1921, was able to create that exaggerated picture of Sukhe Bator's historical
importance which from a pro-Soviet angle was essential. Two Russian playwrights,
A. Borshchagovsky and Ya. Varshavsky, had to be commissioned, therefore, to do this
and to produce an 'ideologically sound 7 ptay on Sukhe Bator. It was called Heroes of the
Steppe and was performed in the theatre of Ulan Bator in 1942. (Uvarova^ Sowememty
Mongolsky T&&> 9 1921-1945 - *O CooieiBpQraiy Mongol Theatre, 1921-1945*,
Moscow-Leningrad 1945* pp. 89-91).

133 10

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

not a Russian protectorate. He put out feelers to China, and even to
the United States, and he ako tried to encourage the development of
foreign trade. Formally, Outer Mongolia was then still a constitutional
monarchy under the Khutukhtu Bodo-gegen. When the monarch died
in May 1924, Danzan remained, for a few days, prime minister of the
Mongol People's Republic. He was overthrown by the Third Party
Congress. This strangest of all party congresses transformed itself into
a supreme court, sentenced Danzan to death as a plotter against
Mongolia's independence, and executed him on the spot, with Bavasan,
the chairman of the Revolutionary Youth League. 31

The Soviet Government had had a hand in the execution of both Bodo
and Danzan. The Third Party Congress, which liquidated the so-called
*Danzan conspiracy*, carried the hallmark of direct Soviet interference.
It decided that the M.P.R. should follow 'the road of a non-capitalist
development', a formula which could not possibly have been coined by
the Mongol lamas and cattle-breeders, who constituted the bulk of the
congress delegates. It was obviously inspired by the Soviet envoy in
Urga, and by Russian communist emissaries. Nevertheless, even after
Danzan's death, Soviet Russia, then still under the premiership of
Akxey Rykov, observed a fairly liberal attitude towards the Mongol
Republic. It was still allowed to trade with foreign countries, particularly
with China, Germany, the United States and Britain and to allow foreign
business men to enter its territory. The country was also free to send
students to German and French universities, and to conduct cultural
propaganda in the capitalist West. This spell of tolerance came to an
end in the winter of 1928-29, when the right-wing political leaders of the
M.P*R. 9 were exiled to Leningrad and when the Seventh Party Congress
appointed a new left-wing Committee.

This time the deposed dignitaries of the People's Republic could not
be charged with plotting against Mongolian independence. They were
eliminated from the political scene because they were too independent-
minded, adhering to the original pan-Mongolist programme of the
Revolutionary People's Party. Shortly before the downfall of the right-
wing leaders, a Mongol Government spokesman, the Berlin representa-
tive of the Ministry of Education of the M.P.R., Ishi Dordji, had
openly admitted that pan-Mongolism was the political ideology of Ulan
Bator. He stated that the 'unification of the Mongols around Outer
Mongolia* was the aim which the Government and the Revolutionary
People's Party of the M.P.R., pursued. The cultural activity conducted
in Mongolia*, he said, 'has its importance and is bearing its fruits far
beyond the borders of autonomous Mongolia . . . Independent
Mongolia, with her developed national culture and her political and
economic programme, is attracting great interest among the intellectuals
and youth of the other Mongols living outside Outer Mongolia*.

134

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

Ishi Dordji added, that one could meet in Ulan Bator, representatives of
all kinds of Mongols ranging from the Kalmucks of the Lower Volga to
the Mongols of the Yellow River. Ishi Dordji frankly expressed the view
that the cultural and political revival centred in Ulan Bator would
ultimately influence both the half-russianized Buryats and the half-
sinicized Mongol groups in Inner Mongolia, such as the Tumets.* 2

These amazing utterances of a Mongol Government official were made
in the form of an article in the review Osteuropa, which was probably
written shortly before the purge of the pan-Mongolist elements in
the M-P.R. Government, but published only after that event. The article
made abundantly clear why Russia, from her own point of view, had to
intervene in Ulan Bator and put new people into the Mongol Govern-
ment. By the end of the 'twenties', the Soviet leaders had lost all previous
illusions that pan-Mongolism could ever be used to Russia's advantage.
They no longer believed that pan-Mongolism could be made a Soviet
tool, or that it could serve the cause of the revolution in East Asia.

LEFT-WING EXTREMISM

When the Seventh Congress struck its blow against Mongol nationalism,
the leading Party and Government circles were just about to summon to
Ulan Bator a pan-Mongol congress of lamas, for the old leadership
was not only nationalistic, but also friendly to Buddhism. It had not
only not touched the Buddhist monasteries, owning almost one-fifth
of the country's cattle, but it had even granted them loans through the
State bank. The Seventh Congress completely reversed the pro-religious
policy. The property of the lamaseries was taken over by the State, and
a whole chain of legislative and administrative measures forced the
individual lamas to return to secular life. A 'Central Anti-religious
Commission* was attached to the new government of the M.P.R. to
co-ordinate all measures directed against the Buddhist monasteries. It
was supported by a mass organization, modelled on the 'League of
Militant Godless* in the U.S.S.JL

The new leaders of Mongolia tried to copy not only the anti-religions
policy of the Ail-Union Communist Party, but also its economic policy.
It was no longer simply a question of a 'non-capitalist development* .
The new slogan was 'socialist transformation of the entire economy
of the country*. The transformation was to be carried out during the
first Mongol Five- Year Plan, which was supposed to run from 1930 to
1935. Destruction of all private enterprise in cattle-breeding and trade
was the main objective of the Mongol plan. With this aim in view, the
Eighth Congress of the Mongolian People's Party in 1930, which was
entirely dominated by left-wing extremists', decided to found collective
farms on the Soviet pattern. The decision was implemented so hurriedly

135

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

that 35 per cent of all cattle-breeder families had joined the new
'Kolkhozy' by 1931. The Russian communist Press, far from disapprov-
ing this new course, welcomed it enthusiastically.

This Soviet enthusiasm for the new left-wing trend in Mongolia was
of short duration, for it very soon had the most disastrous results. If
rapid collectivization was a mistake in the Soviet Union, it was even
more out of place in Mongolia. Within two years the number of cattle
dropped from 23-4 millions in 1930 to 16 millions in 1932. The crisis
of cattle-breeding, and the impoverishment of the population ensuing
from it, were made worse by the decline of trade and transport. Private
trade had been forcibly liquidated, and the state and co-operative
enterprises were not able to cope with their increased responsibilities
and to provide goods in adequate quantities. The same was true of
transport. The Government had rendered the work of private camel
transport undertakings impossible, without developing motor transport
on a corresponding scale. Finally, the Mongol State farms, which had
been formed on the model of the Russian Sovkhozy, could be kept
going only at the price of heavy losses to the public finances. Thus, the
activities of the left-wing regime brought nothing but misery to the
people and bankruptcy to the State.

As popular risings became increasingly frequent in all parts of the
country, and as the general situation in East Asia became more and
more threatening, Moscow decided to reverse once again its policy in
Mongolia. Through the personal intervention of Stalin, the left-wing
adventurers* were ousted from the Party and the Government. The
implementation of the Five-Year Plan was stopped. The collective
farms and State farms were liquidated, Private trade was re-introduced.
The anti-religious campaign lost in momentum.* On the whole there
was a return to sanity. This new policy was not initiated by a congress
of the Mongolian Revolutionary People's Party. The Party was in too
much chaos to allow for the election of delegates. The new line was
decided at an extraordinary meeting of the Central Committee and the
Central Control Commission of the Party, and a new congress, the

* Legal discrimination against Buddhist ecclesiastical dignitaries continued in the M.P.R.
longer than in the Soviet Union, The Mongol Constitution of 1 940 expressly deprived higher
lamas of their voting ngnts. No such limitation was inserted into the Stalin Constitution
of Soviet Russia which came into effect hi 1936. When high ecclesiastical dignitaries hi
Soviet Russia were used for propaganda purposes, the Mongol Government adapted its
policy to the Soviet modet In September 1944, the constitution of Mongolia was revised,
and voting rights were granted to such categories of people as had been deprived of them
for political reasons, the members of the Buddhist hierarchy included. The head of the
Buddhist ecclesiastic organization in the M.P.R. then started to play a part hi official
propaganda similar to that of the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia in the Soviet
Union. Daring the 1945 plebiscite campaign, he was reported to have 'prayed for the
prosperity of the independent Mongolian People's Republic*. (Soviet Mordtvr, October
22o41945.)

136

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

ninth, was not summoned until two years later when order was more or
less restored in the country.

MONGOLIA AND JAPAN

In this new period which started in June 1932, all references to a
'socialist transformation* of Mongolia were dropped. 'All-round
strengthening of Mongol independence* became the chief slogan.
Reasons of foreign policy played a considerable part in this change of
tactics. In 1931, Japan had started the conquest of Manchuria, and from
year to year, even from month to month, the Japanese armies were
becoming more threatening in the Mongol-Manchurian border areas.
There were signs of Japan conducting an active Mongol policy. A
Mongol Office was attached to the Japanese puppet government of
Manchukuo. The Hsingan Province of Manchuria, bordering on both
Outer and Inner Mongolia, was transformed into an autonomous
Mongol territory where Mongol princes were in charge of the admin-
istration under Japanese supervision. In 1937, Japan further extended its
co-prosperity sphere by installing in Inner Mongolia a puppet govern-
ment under Prince Teh.

Moscow reacted to the Japanese challenge by strengthening the ties
between the M.P.R. and the Soviet Union. On March 12th, 1936, the
Soviet-Mongol Mutual Assistance Treaty was concluded. The most out-
standing feature of the treaty was that it no longer mentioned the formal
Chinese sovereignty over Outer Mongolia which the previous Russian-
Mongol Alliance Treaty had still recognized. Despite the existence of
the new treaty, the Soviet Government was still not satisfied with the
situation in the M.P.R., and continued to harbour a deep distrust of
most Mongol leaders. The Kremlin overrated most probably, the clever-
ness of the Japanese in handling the Mongol issue, and believed in the
possibility of the emergence of a 'Japanese Party' in Outer Mongolia . In
1932, it is true, there had been a pro- Japanese rising in the M.P.R.,
but since then the situation had changed thoroughly. While in occupation
of Manchukuo, the Japanese mismanaged the Mongol problem com-
pletely. They showed as little understanding of the mentality and the
point of view of the Mongols as the German Nazis had shown to the
peoples of the western borderlands of Soviet Russia when occupying
those borderlands during the Second World War. In the Mongol terri-
tories of Manchukuo there was a 'strong anti- Japanese mood' which led
to the execution of Mongol ministers, and other Mongol dignitaries by
88

137

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

THE MURDER OF MARSHAL DEMID AND THE
TRIUMPH OF MARSHAL CHOIBALSAN

Although the Japanese had forfeited such sympathies as they might
have had in the M.P.R., the Kremlin continued to fear that some of the
leaders of the Mongol Government and the Party, in a moment of crisis,
might prefer Asiatics to Russians as their supreme masters. This led
to a new decisive change of regime in Ulan Bator, during which
Choibalsan, the head of the Russian party, became the ruler of the
country. Choibalsan had shown his loyalty to Soviet Russia in many
instances, particularly in 1936 when he frustrated Japan's attempts *to
throw the door open into Outer Mongolia'. Making use of a number of
incidents on the Manchukuo border, the High Command of the
Kwantung Army then demanded the admission into the M.P.R. of
Japanese military observers and of a Manchukuo consul. Certain of
Russian support, Choibalsan braved the Japanese pressure. In his
capacity of Foreign Minister, he emphatically rejected the Japanese
demands. The War Minister, Marshal Demid, and the Prime Minister,
Gendun, until then the strong men of Outer Mongolia, remained on
that occasion in the background.

At the time when the purge in Soviet Russia reached its climax,
Demid, Gendun, and his successor, Amor, were 'liquidated' and later
referred to as 'enemies of the people*. The greatest sensation of all was
caused by the disappearance of Marshal Demid who had met with sud-
den death when travelling to Moscow by the Trans-Siberian express. A
statement issued by the official Soviet news agency said that Demid had
died from poisoned food on August 22nd, 1937, near the railway station
of Taiga, which is a few miles west of Tomsk. Together with Demid died
Dzhansankorlo, a divisional commander of the Mongolian Army. Three
other members of his entourage, a major and his wife and an official of
the Mongol Legation in Moscow, were also poisoned but were rescued
'thanks to efficient medical assistance*. The mortal remains of the
Marshal were not taken back to Mongolia which would have been the
noraaal thing. They travelled all the way through Western Siberia and
a large part of European Russia until they reached Moscow where they
wese cremated OB the day of arrival. The Soviet authorities marked the
occasion by organizing as impressive mourning ceremony in the Russian
capital Mongol and Soviet flags were lowered to half-mast, two cavalry
squadrons and one artillery battery of the Red Army stood to attention.
Prominent representatives of the Soviet People's Commissariats of
Foreign Affairs and National Defence delivered funeral speeches.

All this - the death of Demid, the arrival of the corpse and the funeral
speeches - was reported in one angle issue ofPravda (August 29th, 1937),

138

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

which also reassured the Mongols that the investigation into all circum-
stances connected with Demid's death would continue. But nothing
further was heard about the whole affair which must have aroused the
gravest suspicions throughout Mongolia, The tragic death of Marshal
Demid, whose pictures could be seen throughout Outer Mongolia, was
in all probability closely connected with the Tukhachevsky affair. All the
defence arrangements for Outer Mongolia had been planned in agree-
ment between Marshal Demid and Marshal Tukhachevsky. In view of
the dependence of the Mongol Army on the Red Army, Marshal Demid
could be nothing else than Tukhachevsky's local representative and had
to share his fate.

Demid was hardly a 'Japanese agent*, but he was certainly a staunch
Mongol nationalist, more attracted by the tradition of Genghis Khan
than by Marxism-Leninism. This is borne out by frequently-quoted
passages of a speech which the Marshal delivered in 1934 at the Ninth
Congress of the Revolutionary People's Party: 'The whole world knows
that at the time of Genghis Khan, the Mongol Army distinguished itself
by its impetuous attacks on the enemy. Today, when our country finds
itself on the way towards national rebirth, we are strengthening in our
army again this fine feature of Genghis Khan's forces, so that we can
give a worthy answer to the enemy if he tries to attack us.* 84

After the death of Demid, there were still other Mongols in leading
positions to whom Genghis Khan was a greater object of veneration
than Stalin. To get rid of these nationalists and romantics, Choibalsan
had to purge once more the intellectual elite of the M.P,R. including
the 'Academic Committee*,* which co-ordinated scientific research work
throughout the country. This happened in 1938. Little, if any, docu-
mentary evidence about this purge has penetrated into the outside
world, but a Russian writer, Mikhail Kolesnikov, dealt with the problem
of Mongolia's anti-Soviet intelligentsia in his revealing novel, The
Happy Oasis, The main theme of the book is a conspiracy of Mongol
nationalists who enjoy both Japanese and American support One of
the principal plotters is a learned Mongol, a graduate of Cambridge
University, with the name of 'Zhamtso%f whom the Government had
appointed to the post of President of the 'Academic Committee*. The
opening chapter of the novel includes a conversation between Marshal
Choibalsan and a Russian scholar whom Kolesnikov calls 'Audrey
Makarovkh Turanov% but who in reality is presumably A. Ya.
Tugarinov, a Soviet zoologist who worked for many years in Mongolia.
Here is a short extract from the dialogue which, with remarkable foaak-

* Tfee verbatim translation of the oa&aal Mongol title of this body is 'Committee of

Books and Letters*.

t His real name was Ztiamlsaraao, a Buryat by origin and former professor of Irkutsk

University.

139

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

ness, admits Russian interfer ence in the affairs of the 'Academic Com-
mittee*:

"Choibalsan asked unexpectedly -

'What do you think of the w ork of our Academic Committee and in
particular of the chairman of the Committee, Zhamtso?'

The question did not find Turanov unprepared. During a week's stay
in Mongolia he had succeeded in getting well-acquainted with the work
of the Academic Committee. Scientific work was conducted in an
unsatisfactory way. The chairman, Zhamtso, suppressed the valuable
initiative of young scholars. The funds assigned by the State were not
spent in accordance with the provisions of the budget. He was not
interested in the requirements of contemporary life.

4 It seems to me that the work of the Academic Committee is conducted
in a somewhat one-sided way' answered Turanov.

'What do you mean?*

'Well, my main contention is, of course, that the objects of the
scientific research work of the Academic Committee and the problems
which it solves have little connection with the practical interests of the
State.*

'But the Academic Committee has accomplished a great work, inter-
jected the Prime Minister, 'scientific research sections have been formed
for various branches of study; philology, history, geology. A network
of meteorological stations has come into being. A State library has been
established which has now 200,000 volumes. Has all this really no con-
nection with practical interests?*

*Oh yes, it has, but all this is not enougji. I am speaking from the
point of view of the programme of your party/

Choibalsan's face assumed a thoughtful expression.

*Yo are quite right, Audrey Makaro vich. It is not enough. Even worse
than that. The Academic Committee spends the tremendous funds that
are at its disposal in a completely unrational way. Not so long ago,
Zhamtso submitted a plan to the Government suggesting the restoration
of the ancient Mongol capital of Karakorum, the monastery of Erdeni
Tszu and other monuments of the former greatness of Mongolia.* 86 "

The ruins of Karakoran, which was the capital of Genghis Khan,
were discovered in 1889 by the Russian archaeologist, N. M. Yadrintsev.
Frota the Soviet point of view it would have been better if the ruins of
the Mongol cultural and political centre had never teen found at all.
Their existence has served as an inspiration to Mongol nationalism and
to pan-Mongol ideas, and, according to Kolesnikov's novel, they have
also diverted the attention of certain Mongol intellectuals from practical
economic tasks. Neither Choibalsan nor his Russian advisers could

140

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

reconcile themselves to such an outlook and Kolesnikov's novel
terminates, therefore, quite logically with the reorganization and purge
of the 'Academic Committee'.

CHOIBALSAN'S 'FOREIGN POLICY*

Under Choibalsan's rule, the ties between Russia and the M.P.R. were
greatly strengthened. The Mongol National Revolutionary Army and
the Red Army virtually became one. The Japanese, who between May
and August 1939, provoked a number of major border incidents in the
area of the Khalkin-Gol River, had to learn by experience that the
Soviet-Mongol alliance was something very real. Official Soviet reports
on the incidents indiscriminately used such terms as 'Mongol-Soviet
forces', 'Soviet-Mongol artillery' and 'Mongol-Soviet air force'. There is,
indeed, no doubt that the Japanese attacks were warded off by both
Mongol and Soviet troops and that the former lost 1,131 men in the
operations. According to an official Soviet version, 25,000 Japanese
were killed in the battles on the Khalkin-Gol River. 86

When hostilities broke out between Germany and the U.S.S.R., the
M.P.R. did not join the war officially, nor did it send any troops to the
front, but it helped the Soviet Union in every other way. The Mongols
had to work hard in order to supply the Red Army with everything that
their country had to offer. Here is a short list of what the Mongols sent
to tie front: 60,000 horses, 47,000 sheepskin coats, 51,000 fur jackets,
60,OCO pairs of felt boots, *and many other valuable things'. 37

In addition, the Mongols sent 28,000 so-called 'individual presents' to
Soviet soldiers and officers. Throughout the war the M.P.R. also had
the patronage of a tank brigade, 'Revolutionary Mongolia', and of an
air squadron, 'The Mongol Arat'.* It is not quite clear what the word
'patronage' entailed in these two cases, but it is a safe assumption that
it was a rather costly affair, and that both the brigade and the squadron
were financed and supplied out of Mongol State funds.

It does not seem that these material sacrifices were gladly
accepted by the Mongols, particularly not in the earfy part of the
war when the Soviet armies suffered defeat The initial victories of
Germany are likely to have provoked some doubts in Mongolia about
the wisdom of Choibalsan's policy of Mongol-Soviet co-operation.
Opposition re-emerged within the Party. In the years 1942 and 1943 It
was again purged from *alien and unsuitable elements*. 38 Later in the
war when the military situation was reversed Cholbalsan recovered bis
prestige and 10,000 new members joined the Party ranks. The popularity

* The original meaning of the term *arai' (new Mongol spelling *anf) is nomadic toiling
cattle-breeder. It is now applied to the entire working population of Mongolia and in its
widest sense it simply means the wfaok Mongol peopie,

141

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

of the regime was further enhanced by the so-called Soviet-Japanese
War of August 1945 in which the Mongol army, then 80,000 men
strong, played an active part. The M.P.R. proclaimed a 'Holy War'
against Japan, and the Mongolian army suffered 675 casualties in the
campaign. However small this contribution might have been, Mongolia
got ample credit for it. Stalin's Order of the Day of August 23rd, 1945,
announcing the capitulation of the Kwantung army mentioned the
'Mongolian army under Marshal Choibalsan' twice, and stated expressly
that the 24 artillery salvoes from 324 guns which were fired in Moscow
in honour of the victory saluted both the Soviet and the Mongol troops.

The next event in Mongolia's history was a farce, namely, a plebiscite
about the independence of the M.P.R. The plebiscite was carried out on
October 21st, 1945, in compliance with an agreement which the Soviet
Government had concluded with the Chiang Kai-shek regime on August
1 4th, of the same year. The plebiscite was arranged for purely formal
reasons; it was to end, from the point of view of international law,
Mongolia's theoretical inclusion in the Chinese Republic. On the basis
of Mongol constitutional law, Mongolia had been independent ever
since the adoption of the constitution of June 30th, 1940, which had
proclaimed Mongolia an 'independent state'. There was nobody in
Mongolia who would have dared to oppose the so-called independence
of the M.P.R. at the plebiscite, and not a single person voted against
it, not even one of the numerous Chinese working in Ulan Baton

The Mongol-Soviet relations of the post-war period were regulated
by two treaties which were concluded in February, 1946. They were not
very explicit in their wording, but they provided, in fact, for a total
co-operation between the two countries in the military, economic and
cultural spheres. One of the treaties referred to detailed agreements
which were to be entered into by the various economic and cultural
organizations directly. These special agreements have never been pub-
lished, but it may be taken for granted that all important Soviet State
institutions have by now established direct contact with the correspond-
ing institutions of the M.P.R.

THE HEW CONSTITUTION

As far as the internal development of the M.P.R. is concerned the
Choibalsan regime narrowed down the differences in the political
stracture between Mongolia and the Soviet Union, Choibalsan and his
associates gave the M.P.R. a new constitution which is largely identical
with the constitutions of the thirty-two Soviet Republics and Autono-
mous Soviet Republics of the U.S.S.R.

The constitutional reform was carried out in two stages. Most of the
provisions of the constitution now in force were adopted as early as 1940

142

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

by the Tenth Party Congress, but in February 1949 this original text
was redrafted and altered in a number of essential points. Under the
1940 constitution there existed two national assemblies, the 'Little
Khural*, which performed the ordinary legislative work, and the 'Grand
National KhuraF which was summoned only for the discussion of
fundamental problems of policy. The 1949 version of the constitution
abolished this dualism. It vested all legislative power in the Grand
National Khural, which now fully corresponds to the Supreme Councils
(Soviets) of the Republics forming the Soviet Union. Moreover, the 1940
constitution provided for indirect elections to the central legislature,
and to the provincial (aimak) and district (somon) councils. The revised
text of the constitution introduced direct elections on all levels, including
the election of judges of the lower courts, exactly as in the Soviet
constitution of 1936.

A minor change concerned Outer Mongolia's national flag. Article 93
of the 1940 constitution said that the flag of the Mongol People's
Republic should consist of a red cloth. Article 106 of the amended
constitution stipulated that the Mongol national colours should be red-
blue-red. Here, at least, Mongolia seems at first sight to depart from
the Soviet model, for, until 1949, all Soviet Republics had the plain red
flag as their 'national' symbol. But the Kremlin has decided that there
is no need for a uniformity of symbols as long as there is uniformity of
policy. Since 1949 one Soviet Republic after another has been allowed
to change the red banner for a red-blue one or a red-green one, with the
red colour always comprising two-thirds of the whole flag. Thus, what
appeared at first as a special concession to Mongolia has also been
granted to the official member States of the Soviet Union.

Apart from small variations of terminology there is only one funda-
mental difference between the Mongol and the Soviet constitutions. The
constitutions of the Soviet Republics properareconstitutions of countries
where, in the official view, socialism is a reality, while the Mongol
constitution is one of a country which is moving on a non-capitalist
road, but where socialism is still an aim for the future. Soviet sociologists
and experts on the Far East have been unable to agree so far as to whether
Mongolia has really marched on the way to socialism since the adoption
of the 1940 constitution. One school of thought considers that the anti-
feudal programme of the Mongol Revolution was exhausted by 1940,
and that since then Mongol socialism has been developing. The prota-
gonists of this concept have shown, with the help of statistics* that the
socialist sector already plays an important part in many broaches of
Mongol economy,

The other, and more authoritative, group of sociologists and experts
believes that tie 'struggle against remnants of feudalism in the economy
and the minds of the people 9 is still not terminated. This view is held,

143

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

by among others, academician E. M. Zhukov, who, in November 1951,
stressed at a conference in the Oriental Institute of the All-Union
Academy of Sciences that the existing level of industrial development
was not capable of ensuring the transition of the bulk of Mongol live-
stock breeders to a collective economy. 39

The following comparison between ten characteristic articles which
are contained in both the Mongol and Buryat-Mongol constitutions,
shows to what extent Choibalsan copied the Soviet original.

CONSTITUTION OF THE MONGOL
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC.

Article 3.

All power in the Mongol People's
Republic belongs to the working
people of town and khudon as
represented by the Khurals* of
Working People's Deputies.

Article 5.

All the land and its natural resources,
forests, waters and all the wealth
contained therein, factories, mills,
mines, gold production, rail, auto-
mobile, water and air transport,
means of communication, banks,
Hay-Cutting Stations* and State
farms are State property, that is,
belong to the people as a whole.
Private ownership of the above is
forbidden.

Article 34

The Council of Ministers of the
M.P.R. is for its activity responsible
and accountable to the Grand
National Khural* and in the inter-
vals between sessions to foe Presidium
of the Grand National Khural*

Article 67.

Judges are independent and subject
only to the law.

CONSTITUTION OF THE
BURYAT-MONGOL A.S.S.R.

Article 3

All power in the Buryat-Mongol
A.S.S.R. belongs to the working
people of town, ulus and village as
represented by the Soviets* of Work-
ing People's Deputies.

Article 6.

The land, its natural resources,
waters, forests, mills factories, rail,
water and air transport, banks, means
of communication, large State organ-
ized agricultural enterprises (State
farms, Machine Tractor Stations* and
the like) as well as municipal enter-
prises and the bulk of the dwelling
houses in the cities and industrial
localities* are State property, that is,
belong to the people as a whole.

Article 39.

The Council of Ministers of the
Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R. is respons-
ible and accountable to the Supreme
Soviet* of the B.M.A.S.S.R. and in
the intervals between sessions to the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of
the BM.A.S.S.R*

Article 80.

Judges are independent and subject
only to the law.

144

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

Article 71.

Local Public Prosecutors exercise
their functions independently of any
local organs whatsoever, being subor-
dinate solely to the Public Prosecutor
of the Republic.

Article 86.

Candidates for elections are nomin-
ated by electoral constituencies. The
right to nominate candidates is
secured to public organizations and
societies of the working people: the
organizations of the Revolutionary
People's Party* co-operatives, trade
unions, youth organizations, Arat
unions and cultural societies.

Article 95.

In conformity with the interests of
the working people, and in order to
develop the organizational initiative
and political activity of the toiling
masses, the citizens of the M.P.R.
are ensured the right to unite in
public organizations: trade unions,
co-operative organizations, youth
organizations, sport and defence
organizations, cultural, technical and
scientific societies; and the most
active and politically-conscious citi-
zens in the ranks of the workers,
toiling arats and intellectuals, are
united in the Mongol Revolutionary
People's Party,* which is the van-
guard of the working people in their
struggle to strengthen and develop
the country along non-capitalistic
lines,* into a party which is the lead-
ing core of all organizations of the
working people, both public and
State.

* Tbc italics are the author's.

Article 85.

The organs of the Public Prosecutor's
Office exercise their functions inde-
pendently of any local organs whatso-
ever, being subordinate solely to the
Prosecutor-General of the U.S.S.R.
and the Public Prosecutor of the
R.S.F.S.R.

Article 109.

Candidates for elections are nomin-
ated by electoral constituencies. The
right to nominate candidates is
secured to public organizations and
societies of the working people: the
organizations of the Communist
Party,* trade unions, co-operative
societies, youth organizations, and
cultural societies.

Article 93.

In conformity with the interests of
the working people, and in order
to develop the organizational initia-
tive and political activity of the
toiling masses, the citizens of the
B.M.A.S.S.R. are ensured the right
to unite in public organizations, trade
unions, co-operative organizations,
youth organizations, sport and
defence organizations, cultural, tech-
nical and scientific societies; and the
most active and politkally-conscious
citizens in the ranks of the working
class and other sections of the work-
ing people unite in the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union,* which is
the vanguard of the working people
in their straggle to strengthen and
develop the socialist system** and is
the leading core of all organizations
of the working people, both public
and State,

145

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

Article 101.

The M.P.R. affords the right of
asylum to foreign citizens persecuted
for defending the interests of the
working people, or for their struggle
for national liberation.

Article 103.

Compulsory military service is law.
Military service in the Mongol
People's Revolutionary Army is an
honourable duty for the citizens of
the M.P.R.

Article 104.

The defence of the motherland is the
sacred duty of every citizen of the
M.P.R. Treason against the mother-
land - violation of the oath, desertion
to the enemy, impairing the military
power of the state and espionage -
is punishable as the most heinous of
crimes*

Article 96.

The B.M.A.S.S.R. affords the right
of asylum to foreign citizens per-
secuted for defending the interests
of the working people, or for
scientific activities or for struggling
for national liberation.

Article 99.

Compulsory military service is law.
Military service in the Armed Forces
of the U.S.S.R. is an honourable
duty for the citizens of the
B.M.A.S.S.R.

Article 100.

To defend the motherland is the
sacred duty of every citizen of the
B.M.A.S.S.R. Treason against the
motherland - violation of the oath,
desertion to the enemy, impairing the
military power of the state and
espionage - is punishable as the most
heinous of crimes. 40

The statute of the Revolutionary People's Party which its Tenth
Congress adopted in 1940, copied that of the Soviet Communist Party
as closely as the Mongol constitution imitated the Soviet constitution.
The Tenth Mongol Congress walked in the footsteps of the Eighteenth
Congress of the Soviet communists of March 1939. Like its great
example, it was a landmark in the Party's history and was followed by an
organizational strengthening of the Party ranks. Between the Tenth and
the Eleventh Congress in 1947, the Party increased its membership from
14,000 to 28,000.* The Soviet Communist Party also doubled its
membership during this period.

CHOXBALSAN'S ECONOMIC POLICY

The most important task of the Eleventh Party Congress was the intro-
duction of the new Mongol Five-Year Plan. The plan came into force

* Daring the period between the wars, the membership figure of the Mongol Revolutionary
People's Party had developed like a fever carve. From 3,000 members in 1923, it went up
to 15,000 in 1923, and reached its peak in the first half of 1932, when there were as maay as
44,000 menibers. Of this record number, only 8,000 were left after a tbowm^i purge
foBowiag fee change of policy carried out in June 1932*

146

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

on January 1st, 1948, twenty years after the introduction of long term
economic planning in the Soviet Union. The Five- Year Plan running
from 1948 to 1952 was officially described as the 'first', although in fact,
the first Mongol Five- Year Plan had been introduced and abandoned
as a failure in the early 'thirties*.

The purpose of the plan was to increase the general well-being of the
country and to put the Mongol People's Republic firmly *on the way
towards socialism'. In the field of cattle-breeding, this was to be done by
strengthening collectivized cattle-farms, the so-called 'Arat Unions*.
Their number has increased every year. There were 34 of such Arat
Unions in 1938, 121 in 1949, and 139 in 1951. It is obvious that the
Mongol Government is anxious not to enforce collectivization too
hastily, in view of the negative experiment of the early 'thirties 5 .

Together with the *Arat Unions', so-called Hay-Cutting Stations have
been set up all over the country. Their number grew from 10 in 1937 to
55 in 1951. The Hay-Cutting Stations have very much in common with
the Machine Tractor Stations (M.T.S.) in the Soviet Union. In the same
way as Soviet collective farms depend on the M.T.S. for the supply of
agricultural machinery, the Arat Unions rely on the Hay-Cutting
Stations for the supply of feeding-stuff for their cattle. In addition to
*Arat Unions' and Hay-Cutting Stations, the Mongol Government
tried to promote State farms. The latter have been the pioneers of agri-
culture in Mongolia, though on a small scale; but in future they are
supposed to devote themselves primarily to quality stockbreeding.

The industrial targets of the Five- Year Plan were modest, but not
unimportant. Apart from raising Mongolia's coal production to over
half a million tons, it provided for the extension of the food and light
industries of the country. The most important industrial plants of
Mongolia are the 'Choibalsan Kombinaf, in Ulan Bator, which supplies
shoes, underwear and clothing of European style to the urban population,
and the highly mechanized meat factory which is called after Stalin.
Output increase of these two plants was an important item of the Five-
Year Plan. The Mongol workers staffing these and other enterprises, far
from constituting the political basis of the regime, which they ought to
be doing according to Leninist theory, are a backward element that
causes considerable uneasiness to the Revolutionary People's Party.
Many of tihte so-called industrial workers of Mongolia have only just
abandoned their nomadic way of life. In 1947, of all industrial workers,
35 per cent had less than ose year of factory work to thsdr credit la
these circumstances one can well imagine that labour discipline is still
very low.

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

THE DEATH OF CHOIBALSAN

The M.P.R. is copying the Soviet Union not only in fundamental
institutions, such as the constitution and the Five- Year Plan, but also in
matters of detail. Choibalsan, for instance, imitated Stalin in every res-
pect. When, in 1939, the Soviet Government introduced Stalin Prizes
for literature, art and inventions, the Mongol Government very soon
afterwards created 'Choibalsan Prizes'. The Mongol constitution is
officially referred to as the 'Choibalsan Constitution', despite being, as
we have seen, only a free translation of the 'Stalin Constitution' of the
U.S.S.R. At elections to the Mongol Parliament, Choibalsan appeared
as the candidate of the 'Choibalsan constituency of Ulan Bator', in the
same way as Stalin usually stood as candidate for the Stalin constituency
of Moscow.

There is no evidence that Choibalsan himself started this cult out of
personal ambition. It is more likely that the initiative for it lay with the
Mongol Revolutionary People's Party, or even with the Soviet Govern-
ment. Both may have wanted to consolidate the pro-Russian trends in
Mongolia by creating a mystique around a 'Fuehrer', But the moment
came when Moscow and the Russian Party in Ulan Bator probably
regretted the almost complete identification that had existed since 1938
between Choibalsan and fee Mongolian regime. This was when Marshal
Choibalsan died in Moscow on January 26th, 1952. His death seems to
have thrown the country into considerable confusion. It certainly took
four months before a successor was appointed, in the person of the
Secretary-General of the Party and first deputy premier, Tsedenbal.
Before the problem of Choibalsan's succession was settled, the Mongol-
ian Revolutionary People's Party organized a big propaganda campaign
popularising the Soviet Union with the help of lectures, exhibitions,
cinema shows, and the opening of Russian language courses. Also, the
Grand National Khural, was summoned to send a letter of allegiance
to Stalin. The entire campaign was to convey to the people that
Choibalsan, although an object of great veneration during his lifetime,
was only a gifted pupil of the Soviet generalissimo. This was also more
or less the tenor of the speech which Tsedenbal delivered at Choibalsan's
funeral, a speech which was very largely inspired by the one which
Stalin had made in 1924 at Lenin's funeraL

The real historical importance of Choibalsan for Mongolia is difficult
to assess, but it is fairly certain that, rightly or wrongly, some of the
most remarkable reforms which took place in his country will be for
ever associated with his name.

148

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Between 1940 and 1950 it was not only the economic and political
structure of the M.P.R, that underwent many changes; the health services
and the cultural life of the country were also 'revolutionized'. During
this period the number of hospitals in the country increased from 17 to
50, that of medical and first aid posts from 157 to 421, that of chemist* s
shops from 6 to 63. In 1940 there was only one maternity home in the
country, whereas in 1950 there were over 100 of them. 41

As far as education was concerned, Mongolia boasted 412 schools in
1949 with 60,000 pupils and 3,000 teachers (against 417 teachers in 1940).
The country had in 1949, furthermore, 14 technical schools and 345
libraries and reading rooms. Since 1942 the M.P.R. has possessed a
State university; it has a musical and dramatic theatre, and a new theatre
was opened in 1950. 42

The number of newspapers increased from ten in 1940 to twenty-
seven in 1950, and that of journals from eight to sixteen.*

The increase in the number of schools and newspapers was the natural
consequence of the growth of literacy in the M.P.R. At the time of the
Mongol National Revolution, only 6,000 people in the country were
able to read and write. This was less than 1 per cent of the total popula-
tion. In 1947, 42 per cent of the adult inhabitants of the country were
literate and in 1951, 87 per cent

A decisive turning point in the literacy campaign was the introduction
of the Russian alphabet decreed by the Central Committee of the Mongol
Revolutionary People's Party and the Mongol Government on March
25th, 1941. Until then the Mongol language had been written in the
vertical ancient Mongol script, or, since 1931, also in Latin characters.
The decree of March 1941 was inspired by a similar decree which had
been issued IB Buryat-Mongolia two years earlier, as well as by identical
measures taken in other Asiatic Republics of the Soviet Uaion.f As the
M.P.R. is formally outside the Soviet Union, its Government had to be
more explicit in justifying the new cultural revolution than the Soviet

* The Mongol press is organized completely on the Soviet pattern, and even the titles
of the Moscow newspapers are imitated. The three principal newspapers published in
Ulan Bator are the organ of the Mongol Revolutionary People's Party, Unen (meaning
Truth" just as Pravda means Truth 1 ), Zaluchttdun Unen or Truth of the RevsonjoT ,
which corresponds to the Komsomolskaya Pravda in Moscow, and the organ of the
Mongol army, Ulan Odo, the exact translation of the title of the newspaper of tike Red
Army>Kra$nayaZvezda CRed Star*). As in Moscow, the Party m Ulan Bator publishes a
periodical, Propagandist, and the leading Mongol literary journal Is named in the same
way as is the Moscow JSostrated Ognoyok (**-&&* Fire 1 ).

t In Uzbekistan, the Cyriffic alphabet came mto force mMa^

Sn. TTTTM- rtF &>* cair^y^r In gfrgtMTJgfam aHMJ fcTarai-hsfrin, It Wfl* mfawJBflftd fo tJMfidirttftla

in September, 1941.

149 II

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

Republics of Central Asia needed to be. The Mongol decree stated
first of all that the Latin alphabet lacked certain signs essential for the
transcription of the Mongol language, and was thus unsuitable. There
were, of course, other considerations which were more important in
prompting the 'reform 1 , particularly the necessity of a further Mongol-
Russian rapprochement. The decree made this point very clearly. It said
that most of the skilled personnel employed in various branches of
Mongol economy had received their training in Russia. It mentioned that
the revolutionary literature, essential to the Mongol people, was written
in the Russian language, and it emphasized very frankly that the further
cultural development of Mongolia was possible only through the absorp-
tion of Russian culture. 43

This was an open admission that the growth of literacy was to be used
for the superimposition of a Soviet Russian culture, and not for the
development of an authentic and original Mongol cultural life. No
immediate action followed the publication of the decree on the Cyril-
Uzation of the Mongol script. The new Mongol orthography was not
ready until 1946. 44

MONGOL LITERATURE

After the introduction of the new alphabet, State control over Mongol
literature was tightened, but a severe censorship had already been in
existence for a long period. In the early years of the M.P.R. there had
been quite a few Mongol writers who had tried to take an independent
line, and who had defended the cause of a Mongol literature standing
outside party politics. These writers were very soon denounced as
representing the interests of feudal circles, the trading bourgeoisie, and
foreign intelligence services. They were also charged with stirring up
disagreements between the nationalities living in the M.P.R., and with
attempting to sever the ties between the latter and the Soviet Union. 46
Tbis group of anti-Soviet writers (Buyan-Nekhe, Shi-Ayushi, Idam-
Surun and Radia-Bazar) was ultimately liquidated after a prolonged and
sharp ideological struggle between the protagonists of so-called 'oriental
symbolism*, and the representatives of 'revolutionary realism', the
counterpart of socialist realism in the Soviet Union. It was easier to
destroy the 'reactionary* trends in Mongol prose and poetry than to
build up a new 'realistic' Mongol literature* This can be gathered from
the statements by Soviet Russian critics who are as outspoken in
denouncing the alleged mistakes of Mongol writers as they are in expos-
ing the 'shortcomings* of Buryat and Yakut literary works. Soviet
criticism of Mongol literature is primarily concentrated on the neglect
by Mongol authors of contemporary themes. The Soviet journal Zvezda
complained, for instance, that certain Mongol poets depicted life

ISO

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

as if the revolution of 1921 had never taken place, and as if the
people had not changed since then. 46 Another Soviet literary journal,
Oktyabr, expressed regret at the absence of Mongol works about the
'new (Mongol) man, and Mongolia's fight for peace'. 47

Greater uneasiness has, however, been shown in Moscow about
certain nationalist tendencies in Mongol literature. The latter have been
fairly strong in the post-war years, and the Mongol Government has
had to take several measures to suppress them. To achieve a greater
measure of streamlining, the Government organized a 'Union of Mongol
Writers* on the pattern of the 'Union of Soviet Writers*. Its first congress
in spring, 1948, adopted a statute which made it the duty of every
writer to 'participate in the ideological transformation and education of
the toiling masses in the spirit of the great ideas of the Mongol Revolu-
tionary People's Party, and in the spirit of socialism'. Mongol writers
continued to commit ideological offences even after the foundation of
the new body. The Central Committee of the Party therefore considered
it necessary to issue its decree of December 31st, 1949, which initiated a
large-scale campaign against heretics. The decree admitted that 'nation-
alist ideas hostile to Marxism-Leninism, and the programme of the
Party' were still reflected in literature and art as well as in the teaching in
schools and educational institutes. The decree stated in particular that
there was too much bias in favour of Mongol feudalism to which the
school curricula for history and literature devoted an almost exclusive
attention. The decree constituted a further attempt to 'debunk* various
outstanding figures of Mongol history, and dealt once again with the
problem of Genghis Khan, which had already played a considerable
part in the purge of 1937-38. Some writers had glorified the military
marches of the great Mongol khan, and the decree had to remind them
sharply that these marches had led to nothing but robbery, and that
Genghis Khan himself was an 'oppressor and strangler of the Mongol
people'. 48 This argument must have been unconvincing to Mongol intel-
lectuals who could see the cult of Ivan the Terrible, surely an oppressor
and strangler of the Russian people, encouraged in Soviet Russia.

Another Mongol national hero, Tsoktu Taidzhi, was dethroned by
the same decree. This political leader and poet of the seventeenth
century, who is / much venerated in Mongolia, led the Mongols in a war
against Manchuria. For a long time the Mongol Government not only
tolerated the cult of Tsoktu Taidzhi, but even actively contributed to it
by arranging the production of a film dealing with his life and deeds.
The film had its pnemidre in the autumn of 1945, and was at first con-
sidered to be one of the most outstanding artistic achievements of
Mongolia. The December deose of 1949, liowever, condemned the
film because it implied that there were good,aswdlasbad,feiidallod&.

As historical themes are becoming increasingly taboo* and as HOQ-

151

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

political literary works are undesirable, Mongol poets and writers have
to devote themselves to those topics in which the Mongol Revolutionary
People's Party and its Soviet protectors are interested, for instance,
the 'great friendship between the Soviet and Mongol peoples*. Works
falling under this heading include novels and poems extolling the
Soviet-Mongol comradeship in arms in the fight against Japan, partic-
ularly in the battle on the Khalkin-Gol river; and expressions of admira-
tion for Russia's fight against Hitler. Another theme of Mongol
literature is the glorification of the 'great leaders', Lenin, Stalin,
Sukhe Bator and Choibalsan. During Stalin's lifetime the cult of his
person was as effusive in Mongolia as in the Soviet Union. One poet,
Lubsan Kurch, described Stalin as 'the wisest man', another, Puntsuk,
called him 'the symbol of happiness of the people', and Damdin-Surin,
the most official of all the official Mongol poets, referred to him as
'our father'. 40

Finally, literature is taking shape in the M.P.R., which is more or less
identical with the Tive-Year Plan literature" of the Soviet Union. It
pays tribute to outstanding cattle-breeders, and to the shock-workers of
Mongolia's new industrial enterprises.

More important than the still rather small original Mongol literature
are the translations from other languages. The selection of books for
translation into Mongol is a highly responsible task. How should it be
solved, and how has it been solved? The great Russian writer, Maxim
Gorky, thought a great deal about this problem and the result of his
reflections were contained in a letter which he wrote to Mongol writers
in 1925- This is what Gorky told them:

The propagation of the principle of activity would be for your people
the most useful thing of all. Active relationship to life is at the bottom
of all the marvellous things which Europe possesses and which are
worthy of being adopted by all races. Buddha taught that desire is the
source of suffering. Europe is ahead of other peoples of the world in
the field of science, arts and technical progress just because she was
never afraid of suffering and always desired to improve on what she
already had. Europe was able to stir in the masses of her people, the
longing for justice and freedom, and for that alone we must forgive
her a great number of sins and crimes. I think, in acquainting the
Mongolian people with the European spirit and the aspirations of
European massies in our times, you should translate those European
books expressing more clearly than others the principle of action.*

Gorky wasted revolutionary European spirit, but none the less
European spirit, propagated in Mongolia, What Ae Soviet regime
brought to the Mongols was less europeanization than spiritual
and russification. Between 1925 and 1948, 227 litecary

152

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

works were translated into Mongol, including 104 works by Soviet
authors, 80 by pre-revolutionary Russian writers and poets, and 43 by
authors of all other nations, including, apparently, a number of com-
munists and near-communists. 60

The works of Soviet authors translated into Mongol included amongst
others the following: Vsevolod Ivanov, Armoured Train 14-69 (a play
about the Civil War in the Far East); Nikolay Ostrovsky, How Steel was
Tempered (a novel about Soviet youth during the first few years of
communist rule); Aleksandr Fadeev, Young Guard (the story of a
Komsomol underground organization in the rear of the Nazi army),
Aleksandr Korneichuk, Platon Krechet (a play about the new Soviet
intelligentsia); Konstantin Simonov, Russian People (a play about the
Russian resistance against the Nazi invaders); Dmitry Furmanov,
Chapaev (a novel about the famous hero of the Russian Civil War).

The other works which had the privilege of translation into Mongol
dealt with similar themes and were of similar ideological content, but
some are of less literary value than the ones mentioned. The translated
works also include the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels,
Stalin's Problems oj 'Leninism, and the Short History of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union.

THE MONGOL THEATRE

Russian influence has also dominated the Mongol theatre, at least since
the beginning of that more active Soviet interference in the affairs of
the M.P.R., which started in 1928. Until then, Chinese plays in Mongol
translation were still performed. After the Seventh Party Congress of
1928, the Mongol Government disbanded the 'reactionary right wing*
drama circle of Ulan. Bator, and founded a new one which described
itself pompously as 'Central Drama Circle bearing the name of the
Central Committee of the Revolutionary People's Party and of the
Revolutionary Youth League', At the same time it was decreed that all
plays had to pass through Government censorship, and that in future no
play could be performed which was devoid of 'revolutionary ideas*. The
Mongol Theatre thus became, first and foremost, a propaganda instru-
ment, putting across the party line of the moment 51

The situation changed to some extent in the late 'thirties', when a
number of plays, which were based on Mongol folklore were performed
and enjoyed great popularity. A case in point was the play The Three
Sharctigol Khans* which showed the fight of the Mongol national hero,
Geser, against the forces of darkness personified by the three khans.
The play, which was first performed on the occasion of the twentieth
anniversary of Mongolians independence in 1941, dominated the Mongol
stage for three years but wa$ then suddenly rewritten. The main theme

133

THE SOVIET RfOIME AND THE MONGOLS

the fight of light against darkness, was eliminated and the action of the
play was almost entirely confined to battle scenes. 52 The play in its
second version was produced by a Russian Jewish producer, Rabinovich,
in co-operation with the Mongol Oyun. The music was composed by a
Russian, another Russian was in charge of decor, the choreographer,
too, was Russian. No wonder that there was little genuine Mongol
atmosphere in the would-be folklore play. Even the official organ of the
Mongol Revolutionary People's Party, Unen, stated that the specific
features of Mongol national customs had been neglected in the play,
and that the producers in the Mongol Theatre should study them more
carefully. 68

MINORITIES IN THE M.P.R.

The M.RR. is ethnographically as little homogenous as any Asiatic
Soviet Republic. Although the Khalka Mongols form the large majority,
there are quite a number of minority groups in the country. About the
relative strength of the dominating nationality and the minorities,
Soviet specialists on Mongolia have produced slightly conflicting state-
ments. There is not even full agreement between the authors of two
monographs which were published in the same year, in 1948. Mirzaev,
whose work was published by the Institute of Geography of the All-
Union Academy of Sciences, stated that the Khalka Mongols formed
70 per cent of the 850,000 inhabitants of the M.P.R. The other author,
Tsapkin, believes that they account for 80 per cent. Mirzaev gives the
strength of Outer Mongolia's minorities as follows: Dyurbets and other
Western Mongols - 7 per cent; Dariganga (Eastern Mongols) - 2 per
cent; Kazakhs - 3 per cent; Tuvinians - 3 per cent; Buryats - 3 per cent.
Tsapkin lists the same minorities, and gives them slightly different
percentages: Kazakhs - 3 5 per cent; Dyurbets - 3 1 per cent; Buryats -
3- 1 per cent; Dariganga - 2-2 per cent; Tuvinians -2-1 per cent; and
'Others* - 6 per cent 54

Neither of the two Soviet authors gives the relative strength of the
two minorities which are politically the most important ones, the Chinese
and the Russians. On the eve of the foundation of the M.P.R., the
Chinese constituted a fairly strong element, even from the merely numeri-
cal point of view. A Bolshevik expert on Mongolia, Ivan Maisky, who
later became a distinguished diplomat, estimated in 1919-20 that out
of a total population of 647,000 there were then as many as 100,000
Chinese. The Chinese formed the majority of the urban population of
Outer Mongolia which Maisky estimated at l^OOO. 55 A few years later,
in 1930, the Chinese numbered 50,000 according to authoritative Soviet
sources, and accounted for roughly 6 per cent of the total population of
the MJPJL"

154

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

It seems that the Chinese are still forming a not unimportant com-
munity in the M.P.R. and that a substantial section of the young work-
ing class is recruited from them. The Chinese working class element is
at least numerous enough to warrant the formation of a Chinese
section within the Mongol trade union organization, and the publication
of a Chinese newspaper, the title of which has been translated as
Workers' Path. Chinese are also engaged in petty trading and horticul-
ture. 57 %

As to the Russian ethnical group in the M.P.R,, this consists not
only of people who work as experts and advisers in the capital and
other urban centres, but also of agriculturalists in the northern districts
of the Republic. In 1921, there were 5,000 Russians in Mongolia and in
1930 about 30,000. Today the Russian element is still in all likelihood,
smaller than the Chinese. The aggregate strength of the 'peoples of the
Soviet Union* in Outer Mongolia is, however, very nearly 10 per cent of
its total population. The most important of them are the Kazakhs who
have a special national Kazakh aimak or, as it is officially called, the
Bayan-Ulegei Aimak where the Kazakh language is used in administra-
tion and education. The Bayan-Ulegei Aimak is situated in the western-
most part of the M.P.R., and is 18,000 square miles in size. Tuvinians
and Buryats live in the northern aimaks of the M.P.R., in the neighbour-
hood of the Tuvinian Autonomous Province and the Buryat-Mongol
A.S.S.R. respectively. In addition, there is a small Uzbek minority
in the town of Kobdo, which is situated in the western part of the
Republic.

In the past, the Soviet Union intervened on several occasions in
favour of the minorities. In 1931, in particular, the Government circles
were accused of *Kbalka chauvinism', not so much in their relations
towards the 'peoples of the Soviet Union', but because of their attitude
towards such Mongol groups as the Dyurbets, 58

In future, the Chinese People's Republic may also take an interest in
the minorities of the M.P.R. Just as the Buryats or Tuvinians in the
northern aimaks are naturally gravitating towards their kinsmen, in the
Soviet Union, there are groups in the south, such as the Dariganga,
who maintained in the past the closest contact with Inner Mongolia and
even China proper. 59 TThese contacts had to be broken off in the period
between the wars but the emergence of a communist Qhiaa has created
a strong case for their resumption.

RUSSIA, CHINA AND MONGOLIA

The change of regime in China, the replacement of a decaying State
fay a vigorous and potentially expansionist system of government, has
put the problem of Mongolia into a D^wli^tSo\^ Russia has c^taMy

155

THE SOVIET REGIME AND THE MONGOLS

won the first rounds in the battle for Mongolia. The Soviet regime has
come very near to making the aim of the Mongol nationalists - the
unification of all Mongol territories in one independent national state -
a Utopian impossibility. Both by their political and economic integration
into the U.S.S.R., and by their spiritual russification, the Mongols of
Outer Mongolia have been cut off from the Mongols of Inner Mongolia
and JehoL Even from the point of view of communications, Outer
Mongolia is now connected with Russian Siberia, instead of being linked
with the Mongols of the Chinese Republic. The first Mongol-Soviet
railway line was constructed in 1938, and the second, the Stalin Railway
Line which runs from Ulan Bator to the Soviet border, was opened in
1 949, Thus, everything has been done to make a change in the orientation
of Outer Mongolia as difficult as possible, Nevertheless, the Russian
protectorate is not the only future which can be visualized for the
M.P.R. for the presence of a communist China on the borders of Outer
Mongolia means achalienge to that protectorate. The political monopoly
which Soviet Russia has tried to create for herself in Mongolia during
many years was threatened for the first time in 1950 when a Chinese
Embassy was opened in Ulan Bator. This event was followed up by the
visit of a Mongol Government delegation to Peking in 1952, the con-
clusion in that year of a Sino-Mongol Agreement on economic and
cultural co-operation and trips to Mongolia of various groups of
Chinese communists, particularly representatives of arts and literature.
All this could not fail to make a considerable impression on the Mongols
who, for such a long time, had been completely cut off from any contact
with the non-Russian world. If China goes a step further and manifests a
more active interest in Outer Mongolia, she is sure to meet with a certain
response. Indeed, as has been mentioned, the original programme of the
Mongol People's Party provided for union with a revolutionary China,
and according even to official Soviet sources there was a major pro-
Chinese uprising in the M.P.R., as late as 193Q. e *

Tfae Chinese communists have even obtained the promise that the
Mongol question will not be solved without their participation. At the
congress of the revolutionary organizations of the Far East, which took
place in Moscow in 1922, ZSnoviev said, on behalf of the Comintern
aod the Russian Bolshevik Party: *I consider that the final settlement of
the Mongol problem will only be possible at the moment when the
Chinese tbemselves have liberated themselves from the yoke of their
oppressors, when they have driven out of their country the imperialist
soldiers of foreign nations, when revolution has been victorious. Only
then, will the Chinese people be in a position to say that its fate is in
its own hands. Only then wiB it be possible to put the Mongol question
on a new basis whereby it is a matter of course that its final settlement
will depend on the liberation movement in Mongolia itseC* 61

156

THE MONGOL PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

The fact that Zinoviev was later expelled from the Bolshevik Party
and executed has, of course, no bearing on the matter. What he said
about the right of a revolutionary China to participate in the solution
of the Mongol problem was a true expression of Russian Bolshevik
policy at that time, and it could still be considered as a binding promise.
In point of fact, the Soviet Government did not abide by the pledge
which Zinoviev had given. It settled the Mongol question, from its own
point of view finally, at a time when the Chinese had not yet liberated
themselves from *foreign oppressors', to use the Soviet jargon. It might
even be said that the U.S.S.R. has shown a peculiar haste in concluding
the agreement of 1945 with the weak bourgeois Chinese State of the
Kuomintang, in order to put an accomplished fact before a new revolu-
tionary and more vigorous China.

However weighty the economic and political reasons which might be
advanced in favour of a continuation of the Russian protectorate over
Outer Mongolia, there are other, perhaps even more convincing, argu-
ments which the new China could put forward against it, arguments of
a racial and geographical nature. One day the Chinese may ask whether
it is logical that the Asiatic Mongols should be ruled from European
Moscow, rather than from the much nearer Asiatic Peking.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER V

1. Revolyutsionny Vostok, 1931, Nr 11-12, p. 238.

2. International Press Correspondence^ February 25th, 1927.

3. Revolyutsionny Vostok, 1932, Nr 13-14, p. 250.

4. Antireligiozwk, 1930, Nr 7, p. 22.

5. Antireligioznik, 1930, Nr 8-9, pp. 55-56.

6. OUESHCHUK, Borba Tserkvi prottv Naroda - Hie' Fight of the Churdi
against the People* Moscow 1939, p. 104.

7. These plans of the 'Buryat counter-revolution* are aptly and dramatically
described in a novel by the Buryat writer, ZHAMSO TUMUNOV, Step
prosmdas - The Awakening of the Steppe, Moscow 1950, pp. 367-70.

8. M. L POMUS, Buryat-Mongolskaya AJSS.R* - The Buryat-Mongol
A.S.S.R., Moscow 1937, p, vii,

9. XV let B.MJi.SJS.lL* Ulan U<te Burgiz 1938, p. 19.

10. Pravda, September 7th, 1937.

11. Fmvdo, September 26th, 1937.

12. PravdOr April 17tfa, 1950,

13. Poe&ya Sovetskoy Buryat-Mongol^ Moscow 1950, pp. 460-6Z

157

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER V

14. Large Soviet Encyclopedia, second edition, Moscow 1951, vol. 6, p. 350.

15. Izvestlya, June 6th, 1948.

16. Siblrskaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopedlya, Moscow 1932, voL 3, pp. 223-24.

17. LJteraturnaya Entsikhpediya, vol. 1, p. 225, Moscow 1929.

18. Za Industrialisatsiyu Sovetskogo Vostoka, Moscow 1933, Nr 3, pp. 210-19.

19. Pravda, December 22nd, 1950.

20. Pravda, January 17th, 1952.

21. Izvestiya, December 17th, 1947-

22. Literatuntaya Gazeta, March 26th, 1949.

23. Pravda, July 4th, 1948.

24. Istorichesky Zhurwl, 1944, Nr 10-11, pp. 84-86.

25. International Press Correspondence, November 6th, 1930, p. 1037.

26. Izwstiya Akademii Nauks SSR - Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences
of the U.S.S.R., History and Philosophy Series, Nr 1, January-February
1952, pp. 80-87.

27. DOUGLAS CARUTHERS, Unknown Mongolia, London 1913, vol. 1,
pp. 306-16.

28. Krasny Arkhiv, 1939, vol. 37, pp. 58-60.

29. Severnaya Aziya, 1928, Nr 2, pp. 80-84.

30. Revolyutsionny Vostok, 1927, Nr 2, p. 73.

31. Sevemaya Azxya, 1928, Nr 2, p. 90.

32. Ism DORDJI, Kulturelle Aufbauarbeit In der Mongolei, Osteuropa, March
1929, vol. iv, Nr 6.

33. DIETRICH SCHAEFER, Kommunistische Propaganda in der Mongolei,
Zeitsckrifi fuer Geopolitik, Januaiy 1939, Nr 1, p. 166.

34. Bolshevik, May 1st, 1936, Nr 7, p. 74.

35. MSCHAJL KOUESNKOV, Shchastlivy Oazis - The Happy Oasis, Dalny
Vastok 1952, Nr 1, pp. 7-8.

36. Sonet Monitor, October 10th, 1946, quoting an official note of the Mongol
Govemiaa&t to the U.S.S.R., U^I.A., France, U.K. and China. The note
enumerated Mongol losses in the fight against Japan, and demanded the
iadusioa rfa M<igd representative in the Far Eastern Commission.

37. Izvestiya, February 28th, 1946.

38. MASLEN!KOV, M0*$dfc^

The Moctgol People's Republic on the Way to Socialism, Moscow 1951.
p. 61.

39. Izvestfya Akademii Nauk SS#- Proceedings of the Academy of Scieijces
of the UJS.S.R., History and Philosophy Series, Nr 1, January-February
1952, pp, 80-87.

13S

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER V

40. The constitutions of the M.P.R. and the B.M.A.S.S.R. were published in
Russia by the State Publishing House for Juridical Literature in Moscow.
(Konstitutsiya Mongalskoy Narodnoy Respubliky -The Constitution of the
Mongol People's Republic, Moscow 1952. For the Buryat-Mongol con-
stitution see Konstitutsiya RSFSR, Konstitutsii Avtonomnykh Sovetskikh
Sotsiahsticheskikh Respublik - Hie Constitution of the R.S.F.S.R. and
the Constitutions of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, Moscow
1952, pp. 115-37.)

41. MASLENNIKOV, op. cit., p. 143.

42. Problemy Ekonomiki, May 1951, Nr 5, pp. 89-92.

43. MASLENNIKOV, op. cit., p. 146.

44. V. Kh. TODAYEVA, Grammatika Sovremeimogo Mongobkogo Yazyka -*
Grammar of the Contemporary Mongol Language, Moscow 1951, p. H.

45. B. KAMESHKOV, L/teratara Narodnoy Mongolii -The Literature of People's
Mongolia, Zvezda 1951, Nr 9, p. 149.

46. KAMESHKOV, op. cit., p. 153.

47. Oktyabr, Nr 6, June 1952, p. 166.

48. Oktyabr, Nr 6, June 1952, p. 168.

49. Literaturnaya Gazeta, July 13th, 1946.

50. KAMESHKOV, op. cit., p. 152.

51. UVAROVA, op. cit., pp. 45-46.

52. UVAROVA, op. cit., p. 104.

53. UNEN, May 9th, 1944, quoted by UVAROVA, op. cit., pp. 177-78.

54. E. M. MIRZAEV, Mongobkaya Narodnaya Respublika, Moscow 1948,
pp. 23-25; N. V. TSAPKIN, Mongolskaya Narodnaya Respublika, Moscow
1948, pp. 23-24.

55. 1. MAISKY, Mongoliya, Novy Vostok, Moscow 1922, Nr 1, pp. 163-64.

56. Sibirskaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, Moscow 1932, voL 3, p. 513.

57. Soviet Monitor, October 25th, 1945.

58. Revolyutsiomy Vostok, 1931, Nr 11-12, p. 35,

59. GERARD M. FRTTERS, Outer Mongolia and its International Position,
London 1951, p. 43.

60. Rewlyutsiowiy Vostok> 1931, Nr 11-12, p. 35.

61. Novy Vostok, November 1924, Nr 8-9, pp, 218-19.

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5. THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

160

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS
I. THE REPUBLIC OF TUVA

Tannu Tuva, or more simply, Tuva, would be a state of medium size if
situated in Europe, but in the vast space of Asia it is a mere speck.
Tuva, known under its Mongol name of Uriankhai until 1922, deserves
more attention than its 100,000 inhabitants* may seem to justify, not
only because of its economic potentialities, but also as a classic example
of Russian and Soviet methods of expansion.

Being an almost complete terra incognita, Tannu Tuva offers an
interesting field for studies in history, geography and popular customs.
From a political point of view, Tuva deserves interest for the fact that
Russia annexed the territory twice within thirty years, without the out-
side world paying the slightest attention. In both cases Russia made use
of a European war to settle the Tuva problem to her own advantage,
the first time in 1914 by proclaiming her protectorate over Tuva, the
second time in 1944 by discreetly transforming the People's Republic
of Tuva into an administrative unit of the U.S.S.R.

Tuva, whose size various geographers have estimated at between
50,000 and over 75,000 square miles, is by no means an artificial creation.
On the contrary, Tuva is a natural fortress, a kind of Asiatic Switzerland,
bordered by two powerful mountain chains - the Sayan in the north,
and the Tannu Ola in the south - separating the country, which forms
the headwater region of the Yenisei, from both Siberia and Mongolia,

THE FIRST RUSSIAN ANNEXATION

Uriankhai became a political issue when Russians and Chinese signed
the Treaty of Peking in 1 860. By this treaty, Russia acquired commercial
rights for Russian merchants, which excluded, however, the building
of permanent Russian settlements. The first penetration of Russian
merchants into Urianfchai, carried out on the basis of the Peking Treaty,
led to such incidents as the burning down of Russian stores by the
Chinese,

* According to Russian sources tbe population of Tova was 64,000 in 1913, 701,000 in
19% 86,000 in 1939 and 95,000 in 1941.

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

A mixed Russian-Chinese commission investigated the situation on
the spot in 1869, and, as a result, the Chinese had to pay an indemnity,
while the Russians reiterated the pledge that Siberian colonists would not
settle in Uriankhai. Russian traders, when in Uriankhai on business,
were forced to live in tents and boats to demonstrate the temporary
character of their presence in Chinese territory. These limitations were
brushed aside by a new treaty concluded in 188 L China then allowed the
Russians to establish permanent settlements not exceeding 200 people
in one place. The Russians were even permitted to build churches and
cemeteries, and to sell arms and spirits, which until then had been
excluded from trading.

Subsequent developments confirmed the original Chinese fears that
the progress of Russian colonization would ultimately endanger Chinese
sovereignty over Uriankhai* Indeed, Russian colonists pouring into the
area in the 'nineties' of the nineteenth century, and in the first years of the
twentieth century, were preparing the ground for the Russian civilian
authorities. These colonists consisted of greedy traders trying to rob the
natives, and of hard-working Russian peasants, including the god-
fearing *Old Believers', members of a religious sect which promoted the
success of Russian colonization in many parts of the Czarist Empire. The
Russian colonists immediately acquired fishing and grazing rights which
neither the Chinese nor the Tuvinian natives, who had completely
ignored fisheries until the arrival of the Russians, could effectively
challenge. Caruthers indicated that a de facto Russian protectorate
existed over the whole country before the annexation was made formal.
Russian authorities living in tie Siberian frontier village of Ussinskoye
carried out official duties among the colonists of Uriankhai before the
First World War, exactly as if the area belonged to the Russian Empire. 1

The Government of Imperial Russia, much more hesitant in questions
concerning Russia's territorial aggrandisement than Stalin's Russia, was
full of doubts as to Uriankhai. As late as 191 1, the Russian Council of
Ministers rejected the annexation of the territory, and only in 1913,
after the establishment of the Russian protectorate over Outer Mongolia
was Russia's political penetration into Uriankhai officially decided.

The first formal incorporation of Uriankhai into Russia in 1914
resulted in increased Russian colonization. 3,500 new colonists arrived
in Tuva between 1914 and 1917, and the beginning of a new Russian era
in the history of the little country was marked by the foundation of a
township, Byelotsarsk - the Town of the White Czar'.

The Stalinist conception of Russian history refuses to consider
Czarist Russia's annexation of Uriankhai as a logical outcome of
economic infiltration and colonization. The official Soviet thesis is that
the Tuvinian people have linked their fate to that of the Russian people,
and that progressive Tuvinians *always relied upon the help of the

162

THE REPUBLIC OF TUVA

Russian nation in the struggle for a better future*. This is how the
Secretary of the Communist Party of Tuva, Salchak K. Toka, described
in 1946 the first annexation by Russia: '. . . the most far-sighted political
leaders of the Uriankhai area, reflecting the mood of the arats,
approached Russia with the request that she would take Tuva under
her protection. In 1914 Tuva was taken under the protection of Russia.
This was the most favourable solution of the problem'. 2

The true history was somewhat different from Toka's statement. The
Tuvinians feared all strangers and disliked the Russian newcomers
as much as they disliked their former Chinese masters. They spoke
of the Chinese only as 'yellow devils', and their attitude to the Euro-
pean colonists can be characterized by the Tuvinian saying, 'The
Russian is not a man'. 3 In the early period of colonization, the Tuvinians
carried out numerous raids on Russian factories, for which they were
heavily punished by the Chinese officials. Later the Russian authorities
themselves dealt with such cases of banditry, and took the culprits to
the prison at Minusinsk, the nearest Russian town. There may have been
a few Tuvinians who actually favoured Russian annexation, but the
young Soviet State did not recognize them as spokesmen of the true
aspirations of the Tuvinian people. In the view of the Soviet People's
Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Chicherin, the idea of Tuva's annexation
by Russia was fostered only by 'cunning Czarist officials'. Accordingly,
in a statement of September 23rd, 1921, Chicherin declared the annexa-
tion of Tuva illegal, and proclaimed that the Workers' and Peasants*
Government of Russia had no designs of any kind on the territory,

TUVINIAN PAN-MONGOLISM

Chicherin's statement was a solemn denunciation of all Russian terri-
torial claims on Tuva, but it was not the birth certificate of the Tuvinian
People's Republic (T.P.R.). Although in later years Tuva dated its
independence back to 1921, Russia failed to acknowledge its independ-
ence until the autumn of 1925. The Soviet Government hesitated to
commit itself with regard to Tuva out of consideration for the Mongols,
who had hoped that the Tuvinians would eventually join the Mongol
People's Republic. As Mongolia was in a permanent state of internal
chaos, the Soviet Government ultimately thought it safer that Tuva
should link its fate with the U.S.S.R., rather than with the M.P.R., the
more so since the number of Russians in the country was considerably
larger than the Mongol minority. From 1925 onwards, the Soviet envoy
in Tuva discouraged pro-Mongol tendencies, but these continued to
exist in both the Government and the Tuvinian Revolutionary People's
Party. In fact, there was every conceivable reason for the Tuvinian elite
to look to Mongolia for cultural and political guidance. A Tuvmian

163

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

national culture and literary language did not exist. Mongol, on the
other hand, was the language of the few educated people of the country,
and of the holy Buddhist books. Mongol was also the official language
of the Tuvinian Government and of the Revolutionary People's Party.
The minutes of its first congresses were taken down in Mongol, and the
only newspaper of the country, Unen, was written in that language.

The first political leader of 'independent Tuva', the Prime Minister
Donduk, was an ardent pan-Mongolist. He felt that the so-called
political independence of the country would benefit only the Russians,
and that geographical and political commonsense demanded the amal-
gamation of Tuva with the Mongolian People's Republic. *The Tuvinian
people', said Donduk, 'is small, poor and backward in the cultural
respect. That is why it must be united with Mongolia.' 4 The ambitious
plan of a Mongol-Tuvinian union could not be carried out but Donduk,
in 1926, at least signed a Treaty of Friendship with the M.P.R.

Donduk and his principal associates were not only pan-Mongolists
but also devout Buddhists, and they insisted on a religious education for
the Tuvinian youth. In 1928, they even passed a law limiting anti-
religious propaganda and proclaiming Buddhism as the State religion of
Tuva. This was more than the Soviet Government could tolerate. The
ideological cleavage between the Tuvinian leaders and the Kremlin
became such that a conflict between the two was bound to break out.
The Soviet envoy in Tuva, Starkov, was instructed to bring about the
downfall of the Tuvinian regime. This was no easy task, for the Buddhist
and pro-Mongol leadership enjoyed the confidence of the population,
and could be removed from office only by a coup d'etat. Moscow
engineered the latter by making use of the differences between the old
and the young generations in Tuva. The pro-Russian and pro-Bolshevik
elements in the country first succeeded in getting control over the
Tuvinian Revolutionary Youth League, the 'RevsomoP, and with its
help the right-wing chiefs were then ousted from the party itself in the
summer of 1929. Otto Manchen-Helfen, a German social-democrat, who
as far as is known, was the only foreigner ever to have visited the T.P.R.,
asserted that the purge of 1929 was mainly carried out by five Tuvinian
students. The Soviet Government had dispatched them to Tuva to
assist the Russian envoy in restoring order. These five, who were
graduates of the 'Communist University of the Toilers of the East 9 in
Moscow, toured the Republic as commissars extraordinary, and expelled
two-thirds of the party membership. 5

THE CREATION OF A *TUVINIAN CULTURE*

It was not enough to change the leading personnel of the T.P.R. The
pro-Mongol tendencies in Tuva could be eliminated only by the creation

164

THE REPUBLIC OF TUVA

of a Tuvinian national culture. The birthday of this Tuvinian culture
was June 28th, 1930, when the Government published a decree on the
introduction of the Tuvinian Latin alphabet, which had been compiled
by a commission of Russian scholars. The introduction of the alphabet
was the beginning of a cultural revolution. It meant not only the end of
the Tibetan-Mongol script in Tuva, but also the end of the Mongol
language. The State Publishing House of Tuva ceased publishing
Mongol literature, and turned out Tuvinian pamphlets instead. The
Mongol newspaper, Unen, was bi-lingual MongoI-Tuvinian for nine
months, and then switched over to Tuvinian altogether. The campaign
for the new alphabet was carried out with great enthusiasm. In the
capital of Tuva, Kyzyl (formerly Byelotsarsk), alone, twelve literacy
courses were opened, and all Government offices were transformed into
class-rooms after working hours. The Tuvinian alphabet, the 'State
script* as it was officially called, was not well received by everybody.
The conservative, theocratical opposition tried to sabotage it by spread-
ing all kinds of rumours. It was even asserted that the literacy classes
were haunted by bad spirits, and, moreover, that the new alphabet was
bad for pregnant women. The opposition was, not however, entirely
unconstructive, for the opponents of the new alphabet tried to organize
rival literacy classes, in which the Mongol script was taught. There was
one other group in Tuva, which was not against the Tuvinian alphabet
on principle, but which resented the fact that it was imposed by the
Russians. In fact, a learned lama, Lobsan Dshigmid, had compiled a
Tuvinian Latin alphabet in 1928, and a number of Tuvinians had started
learning it. The Russian advisers of the Tuvinian Government rejected
it, however, for philological reasons. This caused a great deal of bad
blood among a section of the Tuvinian intellectuals, who asserted that
the Russians had spoiled the spelling of their language. 6

The Tuvinian literary language, which was made official on the
insistence of the Soviet Government and its local plenipotentiaries, was
not identical with the Tuvinian language as spoken by the people. It
contained a fairly large number of Russian words which became even
more numerous later on, particularly after the replacement of the Latin
by the Russian alphabet The Russian words taken into the Tuvinian
language included such political terms as: 'Soviet'; 'Bolshevik'; 'Party';
'kolkhoz'; as well as the equivalents for 'bread*; 'garden*; 'school', and
many others. The director of the Tuvinian Scientific Research Institute
for Language, Literature and Art, pointed out that Tuvinian had bor-
rowed not only from the Russian vocabulary, but also from Russian
grammar. 7

The man who, apart from Russian scholars, was primarily responsible
for the emergence of the so-called Tuvinian national language, was the
Party Secretary, Toka. No person in Tuva had done so much for the con-

165 12

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

solidation of Russian influence. Toka was trained in Moscow, married
a Russian girl, and in 1929 played a prominent part in the liquidation
of the Buddhist and Mongol trends in the country. He was Minister
of Education during the crucial months in which the language reform
was carried out. Finally, it was only natural that Toka became the
founder of a Tuvinian literature. One of his first works was a play with
the not very exciting title, Three Years as a Cell Secretary. It depicted
the class struggle in Tuva, and *the beastly hatred of the enemies of
Tuva's revolutionary society'. 8 * Most of the Tuvinian' literature con-
sisted not of any original contributions but of translations of Gorky,
Pushkin, Tolstoy, Mayakovsky, Lenin and Stalin.

It was not only Russian cultural influence that increased in Tuva. The
Russian colonists acquired an ever increasing influence over the destinies
of the small country. As early as 1927 they numbered 12,000 or almost
one sixth of the entire population of the T.P.R. Until the end of the
'twenties' the Russians of Tuva had not been allowed to interfere with
internal Tuvinian politics. They had had the status of privileged
foreigners enjoying exterritorial rights and formed an organization
which called itself "Self-governing Colony of Russian Toilers* ('Russkaya
Samoupravlayushcheisya Trudovaya Koloniya 9 - R.S.T.K.). A treaty
concluded between this Soviet Russian colony and the Tuvinian Govern-
ment protected the economic interests of the local Russians. Following
the coup d'etat of 1929, the situation changed. The Russians were given
full citizens' rights. They became entitled to representation not only in
the Grand Khural, the Tuvinian National Assembly, but also in the
Little Khural, the principal legislating body. This does not mean that
all Russians in Tuva sympathized with the Soviet and left-wing Tuvinian
regimes. The land confiscation measures introduced in 1930 even led to
an uprising of a section of the Russian peasant colonists. It broke out
almost simultaneously with a revolt of the Tuvinian cattle-breeders.
Both risings were suppressed but they forced the Tuvinian Government
and its Soviet advisers to take up a more moderate attitude with regard
to the ownership of land and cattle. A number of Russian peasants
living in Tuva were able to keep individual farms until the end of the
Second World War.

THE SECOND ANNEXATION

On August 17th, 1944, the *Little Khural', which comprised only
thirty people who were more or less identical with the members of the

* Toka was the first Tuvinian to be awarded a Stalin Prize for literature. The Pnze was
awarded in 1951 for the autobiographical novel Slovo Arata - *The Word of the Arat*.
A tether great honour was bestowed on him at the Nineteenth Congress of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union. He was made an alternate member of the Central Committee,
from which representatives of the smaller nationalities are usually excluded.

166

THE REPUBLIC OF TUVA

Central Committee of the Tuvinian Revolutionary People's Party, took
the 'historic decision' to ask for Tuva's admission into the U.S.S.R.
Two months later, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S S.R.
granted this request The T.P.R. became the Tuvinian Autonomous
Province of the R.S.F.S.R.

The incorporation of Tuva into the U.S.S.R. put an end to such
formal attributes of sovereignty as the country had possessed, its special
criminal code, its constitution of 61 articles, its postage stamps, national
flag and coat of arms. The Tuvinian Government which had as many
as seven ministers, including one for foreign affairs and one for war,
was disbanded and so was the 'People's Revolutionary Army'. The
Mongol Legation in Kyzyl was closed down. The Russian rouble
replaced the Tuvinian currency, the 'Aksha*. There was no need to
abolish the Tuvinian Latin alphabet for it had already been abandoned
for the Russian script in July 194L

As a logical consequence of the annexation, the Revolutionary
People's Party was transformed into a provincial organization of the
Soviet Communist Party. This was more than a formality. The Revolu-
tionary People's Party, however much an instrument of Soviet policy,
had been exclusively Tuvinian in its composition, and the Russian
communists in Tuva had had a separate organization of their own. After
the annexation the two organizations were merged into a single body
which had over 4,500 members, a higher proportion of the population
than in the rest of the U.S.S.R. Many of the Russian members of the
amalgamated party were given important posts as party officials and
administrators.

A list of leading personalities, published in 1949 on the occasion of
the fifth anniversary of the Tuvinian Autonomous Province, showed that
the following Party and State dignitaries were Russians or Ukrainians:
the heads of the local branches of the Ministry of the Interior (M. V.D.),
and of the Ministry of State Security (M.G.B.), the head of the Propa-
ganda and Agitation Department of the Communist Party, the second
secretary of the Tuvinian Party organization, the head of the education
department of the Province, the public prosecutor and the two officials
in supreme charge of agriculture. On the other hand, all the figureheads
were Tuvinians, such as the chairman of the Executive Committee of
the Provincial Council, the first secretary of the Communist Youth
League, the first Party secretary and the president of the Provincial
Court of Justice. 10

The reasons prompting the second Russian annexation of Tuva may
be summarized as follows:

First, Tuva was very rich in cattle. This made it desirable for tie
Soviet authorities to bring the country within the reach of Soviet
planned economy. The cattle of Tuva were of particular importance

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THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

for Russia in time of war, in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, in the
Civil War, and in the 'Great Patriotic War' of 1941-45. In the last-
mentioned war alone, Tuva supplied 40,000 of her best horses, and
600,000 head of cattle.

Secondly, Tuva forms a national fortress guarding the approaches to
the Kuzbass (Kuznetsk Basin), one of the main coal and steel producing
centres of the Soviet Union. It was preferable to have this fortress inside
the Soviet Union than to grant it even a sham sovereignty.

Thirdly, and perhaps the most important point, Tuva has large deposits
of metals and minerals, including gold (exploited by the trust,
Tuvzoloto*), platinum, and even uranium. It may or may not be a
coincidence that Tuva, with its uranium deposits, was annexed to the
Soviet Union at a time when atomic research in the western hemisphere
was heading towards its climax.

Fourthly, the Tuvinians are closely related to some small Turkic
peoples living in Soviet Russia proper, to the west and north of the
former Tuvinian-Soviet border. The peoples in question are the Oirots,
Shorians and Khakassians.* Certain groups of the Oirots even refer to
themselves as 'Tuba* or *Tuva\ From the point of view of Oirot nation-
alists in particular, there was no reason why these peoples should belong
to the Russian Empire instead of uniting with the Tuvinians into an
independent State. As long as there was an independent Tuva, there
was always the possibility that Oirots and Khakassians might gravitate
towards that country. Also, for this reason, it was safer to have Tuva
inside the U.S.S.R. Although the Oirots and Khakassians themselves
were discouraged from stressing their racial connections with the
Tuvinians, the Tuvinian communists made great play of these links,
when propagating the union with Russia.

The territories occupied by the Shorians, Oirots and Khakassians
experienced a remarkable economic and cultural development under
the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, their fate could hardly have been an
incentive for the Tuvinians to join the U.S.S.R., for the recent history
of the three nationalities offers a particularly striking example of the

* Another small Turkic people to whom the Tuvinians are closely related are the Karagasy,
now called Tofalary or amply Tofy. They live on the north-eastern border of Tuva, near
the frontiers of the Buryat-Mongol A-S.S.R, Although the Tofy are not more than 438
in number, according to the last available statistics, their history under the Soviet regime
is interesting. In 1930, collectivization and denomadization measures were imposed on
wfeat was then the Tof National District.' All native households had to join one of three
newly founded collective farms. Their managers were Russians who had unlimited powers
and no knowledge of native economy. The local party and administrative organs, in a
clumsy attempt to make collectivization more attractive, introduced strange 'premiums'
for collective farms in tbe form of alcoholic spirits with the result that quite a number of
natives died from alcohol poisoning. When this happened the higher administrative
aB-t&orities at last intervened. They dismissed the incompetent party leaders of the Tof
district and pot them on triat An official representative and later a whole working party
despatched to the Tof people. These emissaries, it is officially claimed, restored
ic prosperity. (Sovetaky Sever, No. 2, 1934, pp. 95-6.)

THE SHORIAN NATIONAL DISTRICT

doom which small Asiatic peoples have to expect under the Soviet
regime, as a result of ruthless industrialization and European
colonization.

II. THE SHORIAN NATIONAL DISTRICT

All three Turkic nationalities who live in the south of Central Siberia,
near the Tuvinian border, enjoyed national autonomy during the inter-
war period. Today this autonomy has become meaningless, both for
Oirots and Khakassians, who are completely swamped by Russian
immigrants, while the autonomy of the Shorians has come to an end
even nominally.

The Shorian National District was founded in 1929. It then comprised
an area as big as Belgium, and the Shorians, numbering 16,000 people,
seem to have been in the majority in the territory which bore their name.
In 1931, the Shorians formed only 38.8 per cent of the population in
the District; in 1938, only 13 per cent, and since then they have shrunk
to an even more insignificant percentage. It was only logical for the
Soviet Government to disband the Shorian National District altogether,
and to make it, in 1939, a part of the Kemerovo Province, which provides
the administrative framework for the 'Kuzbass'. The Shorians were
outnumbered in their homeland chiefly by Russian and Ukrainian
miners, whose arrival in Shoria was an economic necessity. Shoria, or
High Shoria, as it is also called, supplies the iron-ore for the blast-
furnaces of the 'Kuznetsk-Metallurgical Combine*. By the end of 1950,
Shoria produced 2,000,000 tons of iron-ore a year, and it may be taken
for granted that Shorian iron-ore has now supplanted the iron-ore which
the Kuzbass previously received from the Urals. An attempt was made
to associate the Shorians with this magnificent development of the
mining industry of their homeland. Quite a number of them did become
miners, and they exercise this new trade either in Shoria itself, or in
other parts of the Kuzbass.

It seems, at least according to official Soviet sources, that the indus-
trial development of Shoria was facilitated by a number of Shorian
hunters, who informed the Soviet authorities of the location of iron-ore
deposits. Indeed, one of the richest ore mines of the area has been
named after a Shorian who first discovered it 12 The real story behind
the discovery of the Shorian iron-ore mines is more involved. It has
never been told in a straightforward way, but the well-known Soviet
writer, Fyodor Panfyorov, has written a play which indicates that the
Shorians were for a long time not very co-operative in their attitude
towards the communist regime. Panfyorov's play, When we are beautiful,
does not mention the Shorians by name; he refers only to an anonymous

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THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

'small nationality'. However, there can be no doubt as to the identity
of the latter, for the action of the play takes place in Temir Tau, a
mining town in Shoria. One of the main themes of the play is the search
for iron-ore, the *red stone', as the Shorian hunters call it. The ore is
badly needed by the local metallurgical plant. Geological expeditions
are sent into the mountains, but they fail in their task. No sufficient
iron-ore deposits can be found in the more easily accessible areas. The
reason for this failure is the obstruction by the local population, des-
cribed by the Party Secretary of Temir Tau as 'not a nation, only a hand-
ful of people*. He adds: 'We are convinced that they know where the
ore is situated, but they don't tell us, they don't show these places to us.
Somehow they are on their guard. . . They have no confidence in us.
They fear us.' 13

To state so bluntly that a small people has no confidence in the Soviet
regime was an amazing and daring admission for a Soviet writer. No
wonder that Panfyorov had great hesitation in publishing his heretical
play. He started writing it in 1939, but its final version did not appear
in print until thirteen years later. To make the play acceptable to the
communist censors, Panfyorov had to invent a 'happy ending'. The
spokesman of the mountain people suddenly drops his cautious attitude
towards the local Soviet authorities, and, in the last scene of the play,
tells the Party Secretary where the 'iron heart' of the mountains is to be
found. This sudden voile-face sounded unconvincing. It did not save
the author from bitter attacks by official Soviet quarters who reproached
him with having distorted the 'friendship of the peoples' of the U.S.S.R.
The Russian heroes of Panfyorov's play did, in fact, express some
doubts about the meaning of this Soviet dichl, 'friendship of the
peoples', in a case where it applies to the relations between the huge
Russian nation and a small mountain tribe. As must be agreed, 'friend-
ship* is hardly the right word to describe a process by which a small
nation is absorbed by a large one, as in the case of the Shorians.

Today the Shorian nationality exists no longer, either politically or
culturally. In addition to the suppression of Shorian territorial autonomy,
attempts at building up something like a Shorian literary language have
been virtually abandoned. All Shorians have become bi-lingual, and
talk Russian everywhere except in their narrow family circle. But before
the Shorians arrived at the present stage of lost national identity, they
had to pass through all the various experiments which the communist
regime has imposed on the culture of all Soviet nationalities. At first,
they were encouraged to work out an alphabet for their language,
taking the Russian alphabet as a basis. The first Shorian book in Russian
characters was printed in 1927. Then, in 1930, the Soviet Government
ordered the fertilization of the Shorian script A few years later, the
Russian alphabet was again introduced. A number of works by Pushkin

170

THE AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE OF THE HIGH ALTAI

and Gorky have been translated into Shorian, as have some pam-
phlets on political and agricultural problems. This does not mean that
a Shorian literary language is actually in existence. A Russian ethno-
grapher, Potapov, said that the translators of Russian works into
Shorian had to borrow all abstract terms from the Russian language.
The literature thus created could not, therefore, be considered either
Shorian or Russian. 14

///. THE AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE OF THE
HIGH ALTAI

Oirotia, the second Turkic territory on Tuva's borders, is even richer in
minerals than Shoria. It contains manganese ore, iron-ore, silver, lead
and wolfram. The exploitation of all these riches, as well as the develop-
ment of the local timber resources, demanded a great deal of manpower,
and resulted in the usual influx of Russian elements. During the first
Five- Year Plan period, the percentage of Oirots in the Autonomous
Province dropped from 41 8 to 36 -4. During the second Five- Year Plan
period and after, many thousands of Russians entered the country and
changed the ethnographical balance still further to the detriment of the
local people.

As the Oirots are more numerous than the Shorians - they numbered
47,700 in 1939 - they are still granted the privilege of living in an
*Autonomous Province*, where special provisions are made for the use
of the Oirot language. But this Autonomous Province is no longer
associated with the name of the Oirots. Early in 1948, the Soviet Govern-
ment passed a decree that the 'Oirot Autonomous Province* was to be
known in future as 'Autonomous Province of the High Altai*, in
deference to the wishes of the local Russian workers. On the same
occasion, the capital of the Province, 'Oirot-Tura', previously 'Uala',
had to give up its Oirot name. This was changed into 'Gornoaltaisk*,
or Town in the High Altai*. Even the name of the people was altered,
although not by decree, but only in point of fact. Suddenly all Soviet
reference books and text books dropped the word 'Oirots*, and spoke
of * Altaitsy * instead. This was the very name which the Czarist authorities
had given to the Altai people, and it had an imperialistic and chauvinistic
flavour. All these changes of terminology were not only connected with
the immigration of Russians into Oirotia, but were also aimed at inflict-
ing a blow on a people which, despite its small numbers, had caused
considerable difficulties to the Soviet regime. The ideological independ-
ence which the Oirots have shown vis & vis the communist State was fed
by the memories of a heroic past. At one time, the Oirots were the terror
of Central Asia. la the first half of the eighteenth century, they left

171

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

their Western Chinese homeland, Dzungaria, invaded the Kazakh nomad
states and other areas, captured Tashkent, and went almost as far as
the Urals. In 1758, China practically wiped out the Oirots and abolished
their State. Only a few thousand Oirots survived in the Altai mountains.
Those who lived in the High Altai were subjects of both Russia and
China until 1 866, when Russian sovereignty over that area was finally
established.

'BURKHANISM'-THE OIROT RELIGION

The more powerless and impoverished the Oirot people became under
Czarist rule, the more did they cling to their ancient legends and tradi-
tions. So strong was the spiritual resistance against the colonizers that
it led ultimately to the foundation of a new religion which was called
'Burkhanism' or 'White Faith'. This Oirot religion is very similar in
character to the new religions which emerge from time to time in various
parts of tropical Africa, such as the Kibangism and Kitawala, messianic
creeds whose prophets forecast the end of European rule.

In the centre of the Oirot religion stood the legendary figure of Oirot
Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan, whom the Oirots considered their
last great ruler. Oirot Khan was the Messiah who was supposed to free
the Oirots from their plight under alien rule, and to lead them to a better
life. Oirot Khan appeared on a white horse to the Oirot shepherd Chot
Chelpanov in 1904, and gave him a very detailed message to the Oirot
people, containing an entire code of behaviour, which was anti-Christian
and anti-foreign. Oirot Khan demanded that his people must not main-
tain ties of friendship with Russians, that they must not eat from the
same pot with Christians, and that they must call the Russians not
*Orus*, but 'thin-legged people*. The alleged appearance of Oirot Khan,
who predicted that Russian rule would soon end, caused a great deal
of unrest among the Oirots. The Czarist authorities intervened, des-
patched punitive expeditions against them, and arrested the main protag-
onists of 'Burkhanism', including the initiator of the trouble, Chot
Chelpanov.

On the whole, the Czarist authorities handled the problem of 'Burk-
hanism* in a liberal way. The trial of Chelpanov was conducted with
great fairness. A progressive ethnographer, D. A. Klements, whipped
up a great deal of public sympathy for the 'Burkhanists*, and even
induced several outstanding lawyers of St Petersburg to take over the
defence of the accused. This defence was conducted so convincingly
and so skilfully that the proceedings ended with a verdict of not guilty
for all defendants. In giving it, the court overlooked the political
implications of 'Burkhanism', and considered the case entirely from a
idBgious angle. This attitude, which is in striking contrast to the conduct

172

THE AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE OF THE HIGH ALTAI

of Soviet courts in similar cases, was the more remarkable since the
Oirot Khan cult had acquired a very pronounced pro-Japanese bias in
connection with the defeat of the Czarist regime in the Russo-Japanese
War. Popular imagination identified Oirot Khan with 'Yepon Khan 5 ,
the Japanese Emperor.

'Burkhanism* has confronted the Bolshevik specialists on nationalities
policy with a difficult problem. Originally they hesitated to condemn
the Oirot religion as 'reactionary'. 'Burkhanism' was, after all, a
national liberation movement directed against 'colonial robbery,
Christendom, and the Altai Church Mission'. As it was persecuted by
the Czarist authorities, it was, ipso facto, entitled to a certain considera-
tion on the part of the Soviet regime. 15

Soviet indulgence towards c Burkhanism' came to an end in 1933,
when it was denounced as a creation of Chinese merchant capitalism,
and of Mongol-Lamaist theocracy. 16 But at least 'Burkhanism* was
challenged from a purely class and ideological point of view. After the
Second World War, Soviet criticism of 'Burkhanism* assumed a more
outspoken national Russian character. The 'Burkhanists' were then
charged with attempting to sever cultural and economic ties with the
Russians, and to exchange them for a Japanese protectorate. 17

THE DREAM OF 'GREATER OIROTIA*

Oirot nationalism took forms other than the messianic 'Burk-
hanism'. After the Russian February Revolution of 1917, it appeared on
the scene in a more modern attire, as one of the many movements for
national autonomy and self-determination that sprang up all over the
Russian Empire. The aims of this secular Oirot nationalism were formu-
lated by the Oirot nationalist, B. I. Anuchin, at the 'Constituent Congress
of the High Altai', which took place in February 1918 in the village of
Uala. Anuchin demanded the creation of an Oirot Republic, including,
apart from the Oirots proper, the Khakassians and Tuvinians. Accord-
ing to him, these peoples were one by origin, language and customs. If
united, said Anuchin, they would form a 'great Asiatic republic*,
several times larger than Germany and France put together, The hundred
or so delegates who attended the Constituent Congress of the High Altai
were greatly impressed by the ambitious nationalistic programme which
was submitted to them. They fully endorsed the plan for an Oirot
republic, and decided that it should be formally proclaimed by a
'Kumltay*,* which was to meet in a place on the Mongol-Russian
border in June 1918. Until the summoning of the *Kurultay% negotia-
tions were to be conducted with Russia, China and Mongolia. Each
of these countries was supposed to give up certain territories to the

* An ancient Turkic term for National Assembly.

173

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

Oirot republic. China was to part with Dztmgaria, the northern part
of the Sinkiang province, Mongolia was expected to abandon the
'Mongol Altai', with all the territories inhabited by the Tuvinians, and
Russia was to lose a considerable portion of her Altai region. Pending
the implementation of the Greater Oirotia scheme, the High Altai
was to be administered by the 'Karakorum Altai Administration*
(Karakorumskaya Altaiskaya Uprava). This name is characteristic
of the frame of mind of the Oirot nationalists. It reflects their romantic-
ism that they should have identified their movement with Karakorum,
the capital of Genghis Khan's Empire.

Considered retrospectively, the plan of Greater Oirotia might appear
a romantic Utopia, but in 1918, when Russia seemed to disintegrate
into a multitude of autonomous and independent states, the situation
was different. The unification of the Oirot peoples appeared then as a
possibility and, from the point of view of the Oirot nationalists, as a last
chance to prevent the final triumph of russification in the High Altai.
The Oirot nationalists had to realize, only too soon, that the gigantic
struggle of Red versus White left no room for an independent Oirot
policy. Therefore, they linked their fortunes with those of Admiral
Kolchak, and put a whole 'Native Division' at his disposal. In December
1919, the coalition between 'Kolchakovtsy' and 'Karakorumtsy' was
defeated. Soviet power was established in the High Altai, and in February
1920 the first Communist Party and Komsomol organizations were set
up in Uala.

In the following months, some of the most prominent people among
the Oirots went over into the Soviet camp. The Soviet Government,
consequently, proclaimed an amnesty in favour of the 'citizen-natives'
of the High Altai, who had originally sided with the counter-revolution,
but who had since then repented of their attitude. 18

SOVIET POWER AND OIROT NATIONALISM

This change of heart by some leading Oirot nationalists was determined
by their expectation that the Greater Oirotia State would be ultimately
established with Soviet help, Indeed, during a short period, it seemed
that the Soviet Government had decided to create a large Turkic
autonomous territory in the south of Siberia. In December 1921, the
official organ of the People's Commissariat for Nationalities stated out-
right that the question of the * Autonomous Oirot-Khakassian Province*
was to receive a positive solution. 19 According to the Oirot nationalist
leader, Sary-Sen Kanzychakov, the Province was to be 75,300 square
miles in size, with 208,000 inhabitants, including 135,000 belonging to
various Turkic nationalities. Between December 1921 and May 1922,
the Soviet Government changed its mind about 'Greater Oirotia*. On

174

THE AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE OF THE HIGH ALTAI

June 1st, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a
decree about the foundation of an 'Oirot ('Oirat' in the original spelling)
Autonomous Province', which covered less than half the territory
which was originally earmarked for the Oirot-Khakassian Province.
Nevertheless, the Soviet Government made two important concessions
to the Oirot nationalists. The first was that some of the more prominent
nationalist representatives should be associated with the administration
of the new autonomous unit. These included the above-mentioned Sary-
Sen Kanzychakov, who became vice-president of the provincial admin-
istration. The other concession was the granting of official recognition
to the terms, 'Oirots' and 'Oirotia'.

As everywhere else in the Soviet Union, the co-operation between
communists and nationalists in Oirotia was only temporary. The Oirot
nationalists seemed to have made various attempts to satisfy their
aspirations towards national unity with other Turkic peoples, both
inside and outside the Soviet Union. The concept of Greater Oirotia was
still alive in the middle of the 'thirties'. Official Soviet sources asserted
then that Oirot nationalists had exploited the situation of Oirotia as a
border territory for their aims. This meant that they had been in contact
with 'counter-revolutionary elements' of the Chinese Province of
Sinkiang. At the same time, it was alleged that a 'counter-revolutionary
nationalist group 1 had penetrated deep into the provincial administra-
tive machinery, and also into the village councils. In connection with
the liquidation of the 'counter-revolutionary conspiracy', the entire
leadership of the Communist Party of Oirotia was dismissed for 'lack of
vigilance', and for not fighting 'local nationalism'. 20 It is a fair assump-
tion that Oirot nationalism with all its peculiarities, like the cult of
Oirot Khan, survived not only the purges, but even the Second World
War. Otherwise, the Soviet Government would hardly have taken the
trouble to ban the 'provocative' term 'Oirot' in 1948.

THE 'HOUSE OF THE ALTAIWOMAN*

Soviet nationalities policy in Oirotia, whilst preventing the national
liberation of the Oirots in the political sense, has done a great deal to
raise their cultural level. On the whole, the development in the Oirot
Autonomous Province has proceeded on the same pattern as in other
autonomous territories of the U.S.S.R., but there is one institution
which seems to be peculiar to Oirotia. This is the 'House of the
Altaiwoman*.

These 'Houses' were founded only after the Second World War,
presumably in 1950, There are six of them in various parts of the
'Autonomous Province'. In these 'Houses', wives and daughters of the
native collective farmers of the High Altai are taught how to exchange

175

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

native for Russian habits. A fairly good picture of the atmosphere at
these Houses, and of the curriculum of the courses, is available from
descriptions by Russian reporters who have visited them. In the 'House
of the Altaiwoman' in Shebalino, the native women learn cooking in the
Russian way, knitting and sewing. Child welfare, vegetable-growing,
and poultry-breeding are also part of the course. Some women also
learn to read and write. In addition, the 'House of the Altaiwoman' is
the scene of intense political indoctrination. There are lectures on the
'fight of women for peace', and on the hydro-electric giants on the
Volga, Don and Dnieper. There are also anti-religious lectures in which
the native women are told 'the truth about the Shamans'. 21

The training in the Shebalino 'House' lasts two months. In the
Elikmonar House it takes only six weeks. The pupils for the latter are
picked from among the most efficient women workers of the local
collective farms. Since this is done on a compulsory basis, the villagers
regard the 'Houses' with some scepticism. A Soviet reporter, who
described the departure of a milkmaid to the 'House' in Elikmonar,
could not help noticing the mixed feelings with which the Oirots looked
at the innovation. He said it was not certain whether the other women
envied the girl who went away, or whether they felt that the girl in
question should envy those who stayed at home. 22 This is not to be
wondered at. Every progressive measure in any colony encounters the
resistance of the more backward groups of native society. British
policy, for instance, faces the same difficulties in Africa with some of its
mass education schemes. There is, however, one great difference. The
British ultimately carry out these schemes with the help of the local
nationalists; whereas the Soviet Government implements them by
annihilating the latter.

IV. THE KHAKASSIAN AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE

The Khakassians have so far been more lucky than the Shorians or
Oirots. Their Autonomous Province has not been abolished, nor has its
name been changed to please the local Russian colonists. Nevertheless,
the position of the 52,000 Khakassians, who live in a territory as big
as Belgium and Holland combined, is precarious.

A Soviet propaganda article on the Khakassians said that they were
doomed to extinction under the Czarist regime, but were saved by the
Soviet Government 23 In fact, Soviet critics were rigjit in denouncing
Czarist colonization for having relegated the Khakass people, or
'Minusinsk Tatars* as they used to be called, to areas where the soil and
climatic conditions were unfavourable. Russian colonization in
Khakassia under the Czarist regime reached its peak between 1840 and

176

THE KHAKASSIAN AUTONOMOUS PROVINCE

1850, when the population of the country increased by 25 or 30 per
cent. Under the Soviet regime, Russian colonization assumed a much
more powerful impetus. Within seven years - from 1926 to 1932 - the
population of Khakassia increased by almost 100 per cent from 88,800
to 173,300. In 1944 the population was given as 270,000 and considering
the small number of Khakassians, this meant that their share in the
total population of the Province had dropped to below twenty per cent.
The newcomers flocked primarily into the capital, Abakan, and into
three workers' settlements - Chernogorsk, Kommunar and Saral. By
the outbreak of the Second World War, these four places had more
inhabitants than the country's entire population in 1926. This growth
was in the first place due to the large coal deposits in Khakassia, believed
to amount to between 17 and 20 billion tons. The country also produces
gold and various rare metals.

The growing Russian influence in Khakassia met with protests even
on the part of the native communists. In their meetings they used the
slogan, 'Khakassia could do without Russians*, which, however, was
soon denounced as a manifestation of bourgeois nationalism. Some
leading Khakassians went beyond mere verbal protests in their attempt
to check the increase of the Russian elements. In the same way as the
Oirot nationalists, they thought that the various Turkic peoples of
Siberia would be in a better position to resist Russian pressure by joining
hands and forming a single autonomous unit within the Russian Soviet
Federation. Without consulting Moscow, some Khakassian Soviet
officials started to negotiate with their opposite numbers in Oirotia and
Kazakhstan for a unification of the Turkic peoples. Kazakhstan, as the
largest country involved in these secret talks, was probably expected to
assume a kind of protectorate over Khakassians and Oirots. The Moscow
Communist Party leaders were informed in time of the counter-
revolutionary pan-Turkic project. The nationalist promoters of the plan,
who included representatives of the new Khakass Soviet intelligentsia,
members of the Khakass Students* Club in Moscow, and graduates
of the Khakass Teachers' training college, were purged in the middle
of the 'thirties'. 24

In the post-war period, there has been no evidence of any open trouble
on the 'national front' in Khakassia but difficulties have arisen from the
inferior constitutional status of the Khakass Autonomous Province.
Like all other Autonomous Provinces of the R.S.F.S.R., with the sole
exception of Tuva, Khakassia is not directly under the Council of
Ministers of the Russian Federation, but under a territorial (*kray*)
administration. The territory to which it belongs has its centre in
Krasnoyarsk. This administrative set-up has enabled the Krasnoyarsk
territorial Executive Committee and the territorial Party Committee to
practise a policy of petty interference in the local affairs of Khakassia.

177

THE TUVINIANS AND THEIR COUSINS

Dissatisfaction at the arbitrary attitude of the territorial authorities
came into the open at a provincial party conference held in Abakan in
September 1952. There it was stated bluntly that the Kranoyarsk party
and administration chiefs had the habit of drawing up economic and
cultural plans for Khakassia without consulting the local organs about
them. 25 In other words, Khakass autonomy exists only on paper.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TO CHAPTER VI

1. DOUGLAS CARUTHERS, Unknown Mongolia, London 1913, vol. i, p. 166.

2. S. TOKA, Prazdnik Tuvinskogo Naroda - The Festival of the Tuvinian
People, Pravda, August 17th, 1946.

3. Severnaya Aziya, 1926, Nr 4, p. 20.

4. S. A. SHOIKHELOV, Tuvinskaya Narodnaya Respublika - The Tuvinian
People's Republic, Moscow 1930, p. 87.

5. OTTO MANCHEN-HELFEN, Reise ins Asiatische Tuva, Berlin 1931, pp. 162-3.

6. Revolyutsionny Vostok, 1935, Nr 30, pp. 169-70.

7. Literaturnaya Gazeta, April 28th, 1951.

8. Novy Mir, April 1941, Nr 4, p. 17.

9. Small Soviet Encyclopedia, first edition, vol. 8, Moscow 1930, p. 869.

10. Pravda, October llth, 1949.

11. Large Soviet Encyclopedia 9 second edition, Moscow 1950, vol. 2.

12. Sovetskaya Etnografiya, 1950, Nr 3, p. 129.

13. Oktyabr, June 1952, Nr 6, pp. 107-8.

14. Sovetskaya Etnografiya, 1950, Nr 3, p. 133.

15. Revolyutsionny Vostok, Nr 7, 1929, p. 223. Various books on Oirotia
published in the early thirties included a positive appraisal of 'Burkhanism*,
among them being MANET'S Oirotia* Moscow 1930; and POTAPOV'S Ocherk
Istorii Oirotii - Outline of the History of Oirotia, Novosibirsk, 193 L

16. Revolyutsiya i Natsionalnosti, June 1933, Nr 3, pp. 121-4.

17. POTAPOV, Ocherki po istorii Altaitsev - Essays on the History of the
Altaitsy, Novosibirsk 1948, pp. 41-42.

18. Zhizn Natsionalnostei, February 25th, 1922, Nr 1.

19. Zhizn Natswnalnostei 9 December 14th, 1921, Nr 29.

20. Revolyutsiya i Natsionalnosti, October 1936, Nr 80, pp. 15-17.

21. Ogonyok, March 1952, Nr 11, pp. 4-5.

22. GENNADY GOR, Po Gornomu Altayu - Through the High Altai, Zvesyfa
April 1951, Nr 4, pp. 117-18.

23. Soviet War News, June 28th, 1944.

24. Itevolyutsionny Vostok* 1935, Nr 32, p. 19L
25.

THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN PERSPECTIVE

Communism as a materialistic teaching cannot aim at the preservation
of national groups and minorities. Their right to an existence as separate
political and cultural individualities depends on their contribution to
the communist cause. If they fulfil a useful and 'progressive' task, from
a communist point of view, they are able to enjoy the very considerable
material blessings which communism has in store for backward areas.
On the other hand, if they are an obstacle to communism they may be
exterminated.

The extermination of ethnic groups can take many forms both in
communist and non-communist societies. Open violent genocide has
been practised only in a few exceptional cases, for instance, by Imperial
Germany which wiped out entire tribes in South-West Africa, by
Hitlerite Germany which destroyed the bulk of the Jewish population
of Eastern and Central Europe or by Soviet Russia which suppressed
such nationalities as the Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tartars, Balkars
and others. But genocide does not always culminate in one single
dramatic event, it may be spread out over many years. A large number
of political, economic and cultural measures may be put into effect to
bring about the ultimate extermination or at least disintegration of an
ethnic group. Let us recapitulate shortly the principal measures leading
to national oppression which we have seen at work in various parts of
the Soviet Far East and Eastern Siberia:

1. Industrialisation and de-tribalisation which is linked with migration
of natives to big urban centres.

2. Destruction of the native economy through state interference such as
the fostering of class struggle and the confiscation of cattle.

3. Mass colonization of 'national territories' by Europeans.

4. 'Liquidation* of the native upper class and of the intellectual elite.

5. Persecution of religious beliefs peculiar to minority nationalities.

6. Prohibition of cultural and political integration of kindred tribes
and nationalities.

7. Imposition of an alien ideology, of a foreign language and culture.

179

THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN PERSPECTIVE

8. Suppression of historical and cultural traditions which are essential
to the survival of the national consciousness of a given ethnic group.

It may be argued that none of these eight measures is the exclusive
weapon of communist nationalities policy. Their application may be
traced not only in Russia but also in areas which are notorious as
'dark spots' of Western colonial policy. Ruthless industrialization and
de-tribalization, for instance, may be seen in operation in a city like
Johannesburg or in the mining areas of the Belgian Congo. The
liquidation of the intellectual ilite does seem to be the result of the
policy pursued in Madagascar. Mass colonization by Europeans has
jeopardised the interests of the native peoples of Kenya and the
Rhodesias. Attempts at establishing unity have been frustrated in the
case of the Ewe people in West Africa and in the case of the Somali
in East Africa. But in comparing conditions in Siberia to those in
the more problematic parts of the African continent one important
reservation must be made. The numerical strength of the African
people is such that ultimately they will triumph over the limitations which
result from European colonial rule. Ultimately Africa will belong to the
Africans. In Siberia things are different. There the peoples can have no
hope of an end of European rule. They are too small in numbers to with-
stand the communist offensive which combines the implementation of
economic development schemes with social experiments and attacks on
tribal institutions and customs.

Another important factor which makes national oppression in the
Soviet Union even more intolerable than in most other colonial Empires
is the lack of freedom of expression in Russia's metropolitan territories.
Protests about injustices committed in colonial territories often reach
the public in Britain and France, they are discussed in the press and in
Parliament. The interest which British public opinion takes in colonial
affairs in particular, is a very important factor in the discovery and
remedy of local inequities, and the local political leaders in the colonies
know that there are always British members of parliament, British news-
papers and British missionary societies ready to take up a 'cause'. In
Soviet Russia it is unthinkable that a Moscow newspaper should defend
the cause of a local nationality against the Central Government or against
the Central Committee of the Communist Party. It is equally unthinkable
that a Yakut or Buryat delegation should give a Press conference in
Moscow to a sympathetic Russian audience challenging certain measures
or plans pursued by the Kremlin in Eastern Siberia or that a member of
the Soviet Parliament should expose the execution of nationalist leaders,
say, in the Tuvinian Autonomous Province.

The reason for the absence of such Russian criticism of Soviet
colonial policy is not that all Russians are in agreement with the policy

180

THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN PERSPECTIVE

pursued in the Soviet East but that they themselves are an oppressed
people. To remember this fact is of cardinal importance for the appraisal
of Soviet reality although it might easily be overlooked in view of the
forcible imposition of Russian culture and the encouragement of Russian
colonization by the communist regime. Naturally, the Russians are not
oppressed in the same way as the other peoples of the Soviet Union. In
view of their large numbers and their geographical distribution all over
the U.S.S.R. they are bound to occupy a place in communist strategy
that is different from that of the minority nationalities. The regime uses
the Russian language and it uses a diluted and falsified form of Russian
culture for the strengthening of communist centralism. Russian culture
as a free Russian intelligentsia would understand this term and the
'Russian culture' propagated by the Soviet regime are by no means
identical. In the first place, a number of Russian philosophers, particu-
larly Russian religious thinkers, have remained on the Soviet 'index' and
without them Russian culture will remain incomplete. As long as
Russian culture is without its Christian elements it will be as crippled as
British civilization would be without the Bible. In addition, the Soviet
regime has given Russian culture and Russian history an aggressive and
one-sided interpretation which the best elements of the Russian intelli-
gentsia would never accept if they had a real opportunity to express
their views.

The Soviet nationalities policy as pursued in the Russian Far East
helps to solve the question of whether the Soviet Union is predominantly
a European or an Asian power. This question is of more than academic
interest since on its answer depends the future shape of relations
between Russia and the nations of Asia. The methods by which Russian
culture and language are encouraged in Soviet North-East Asia, Russian
nationalist leanings are fostered among colonists, Buryats and Yakuts
are treated and Mongolia is ruled through 'remote control* show that
the Soviet Union is behaving as a European colonial power in the
worst old-fashioned sense of that term.

When determining whether Russia is *Europe' or 'Asia* other factors
too must be taken into account. If we look at the problem geographically
and historically, then it must be recognized that Russia is a combination
of Europe and Asia. But the vastness of the Soviet Far East and Soviet
Asia in general can only too easily lead to an over-rating of the Asian
aspect of the U.S.S.R. while in fact the political and ideological centre
of gravity of the Soviet State is dearly in Europe and more so now,
since the Second World War, than ever before. The Europeaa character

THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN PERSPECTIVE

of Soviet Russia has been strengthened by the territorial annexations
which she carried out in the years 1939-45. The Western territories which
the Kremlin added to the Soviet Empire have as many inhabitants as all
five Central Asian Soviet Republics. A small slice of the new 'Soviet
Far West*, the Baltic States alone have a larger population than the
entire gigantic Soviet Far East which covers one-seventh of the surface
of the Soviet Union. Nor are they superior in numbers only, they are
also more advanced culturally. The Russian territories east of Lake
Baikal have not a single cultural centre which could rival a Vilnius, a
Riga or a Tartu (Dorpat).

The emergence of half a dozen satellite countries in Central and
Eastern Europe has further consolidated the specific weight of Europe
within the Soviet Empire. The satellite countries, it is true, have caused
considerable worries and difficulties to the Kremlin but from a long-
term Russian communist point of view the advantages outweigh the
disadvantages. Seen from the angle of the internal security of the
Soviet State the satellites are considerable assets. The existence of
'loyal* governments in Poland and Eastern Germany means safety for
Russian colonization in the Baltic States and the Kaliningrad (Koenigs-
berg) Province. The communist regimes of Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary and Rumania isolate Ukrainian nationalism and reduce the
danger which it constitutes to Soviet centralism. A Bulgarian 'People's
Republic' at the gates of Istanbul is an additional safeguard against
that city becoming a rallying point of pan-Turkism, an idea which still
has its attractions for the Turkic peoples of the U.S.S.R.

The communist sphere, it is true, has expanded further in East Asia
than in Eastern Europe but there it has a quite different meaning. The
establishment of the so-called European 'People's Republics* or
'People's Democracies* is an obvious gain both from an international
communist and from a Russian viewpoint. These countries are not
only Russia's political satellites, they are also part of the Russian cultural
sphere. For instance, the Russian language is being persistently and to
some extent even forcibly imposed on them as the 'language of socialism',
With regard to the Chinese People's Republic things are different. Its
existence is certainly a gain for world communism, but whether it is in
the long run a gain for Russia is doubtful.

It is difficult to imagine a situation in which Russia could 'swallow up'
a communist China culturally and politically. On the other hand, the
victory of Chinese communism may have, from the Soviet Russian
standpoint, adverse effects on the destinies of the European population
of the Soviet Far East, on tke Mongols of the M.P.R. and even on the
Bmyats and other nationalities of Siberia. Could not a new vigorous
China try to draw these nationalities into its orbit in the same way as a
strong Japan did in the past?

182

THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN PERSPECTIVE

If communist China decides to take up the problem of Asiatic
immigration into the Soviet Far East and the problem of the unification
of all Mongol territories this will have not only considerable political
but also great ideological significance. In taking up these issues China
will force the Soviet Union to decide whether it wants to adopt towards
the Far East a Russian nationalist or an internationalist communist
approach.

But whichever way Soviet Russia decides will ultimately make little
difference. If she continues to uphold the nationalist Russian 'mystique*
and the policy of the White Soviet Far East with all that this implies she
must necessarily encounter the open hostility of China and possibly of a
new strong Japan, even if we assume for the sake of argument that it
might be a 'Japanese People's Republic'. The position of the Russian Far
East will then become untenable. If, on the other hand, the Soviet
regime decides to drop its European bias, then it must throw its frontiers
wide open to Eastern immigrants, both Chinese fanners and Japanese
fishermen. In such a case there would no longer be any sense in an
artificially fostered European immigration into the Pacific coastal areas.
Nor would there be any sense in Russia keeping such outposts as
Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands. In other words, if Soviet Russia
remains nationalistically Russian, then she is bound to be involved in a
conflict with the Far Eastern nations as a result of which she might lose
her Far Eastern possessions. If she adopts an internationalist communist
attitude she must honour this change of heart by a voluntary retreat
Naturally, in a world situation where Russia and China are bound
together by the common fear and hatred of the West, questions like
those of Chinese immigration into the Soviet Far East and the future of
Mongolia are of secondary importance but these problems do exist and
will require a solution one day.

The peoples of the Soviet Far East would gain little if Russian
communist rule were replaced by Chinese communist rule. There could
only be a change for the better if a regime were established which would
guarantee the freedom of the person and the freedom of conscience. One
of the most important consequences of the restoration of freedom would
be the liquidation of the forced labour system which is a more important
institution in the Russian Far East than in most other parts of the
U.S.S.R. The disbandment of the forced labour camps would lead at
least temporarily to a weakening of Russian colonization and to the
virtual depopulation of certain less accessible parts of the Russian Far
East. It would also result in the abandonment of various development
schemes which are economically wasteful and can be kept going only
with the work of convicts.

1S3

THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN PERSPECTIVE

As soon as the Russian people are freed from the fetters of communist
materialism and police rule the Russian attitude towards the small
peoples of Siberia and the Far East will have a chance to be inspired by
a new and genuinely democratic ethical nationalities policy. The aim
of such a policy can only be the preservation of the life of ethnic groups,
even of the smallest, instead of their submission to the requirements of
a political apparatus and a rigid economic plan. 'Preservation of life*
does not mean non-interference, does not mean leaving undeveloped
areas to themselves but means guaranteeing them material well-being
without destroying their souls. To combine the two is a problem which
confronts every society including the Russia of the future. *

For the non-Russian nationalities of the present Soviet Far East and
Siberia the restoration of freedom in Russia will be the beginning of a
new spiritual revolution* Various philosophies and creeds will enter into
competition to heal the moral wounds and confusion which the brusque
transition from Shamanism to Communism must have inflicted. Christian
missions will be one of the factors in this new situation arising in Siberia.
The missionaries in the lands of the Far Eastern and Far Northern
tribes will require a profound psychological understanding of the local
nationalities, an infinite amount of tact, and a thorough knowledge of
history, languages and tribal customs. This tremendous task can prob-
ably not be shouldered by the Russian Church alone, it may have to be
shared by the entire Christian world.

However, it is not likely that Christianity will have a spiritual
monopoly in the Russia of the future. There will be other alternatives
to communist materialism in various parts of the Russian Empire -
Islam, Buddhism and other beliefs, as well as various brands of nation-
alism without pronounced religious attachments. All these forces are at
present kept in check by the communist police state but on the purely
spiritual plane they have not been vanquished yet. Even after many years

* Nobody has defended the 'preservation of hfe* of the small ethnic groups in more
brilliant terms than the Indian philosopher Radhaknshnan when he wrote:
The trail of man is dotted with the graves of countless communities which reached an
untimely end. But is there any justification for this violation of human life? Have we any
idea of what the world loses when one racial culture is extinguished? It is true that the Red
Indians have not made, to all appearance, any contribution to the world progress, but
have we any clear understanding of their undeveloped possibilities which, in God's time,
might have come to fruition? Do we know so much of ourselves and the world and God's
purpose as to believe that our civilization, our institutions and our customs are so
immeasurably superior to those of others, not only what others actually possess but what
exists in them potentially? We cannot measure beforehand the possibilities of a race.
Civilizations are not made in a day and had the fates been kindlier and we less arrogant
in our ignorance the world, I dare say, would have been richer for the contributions of the
Red Iadiao$,* (& Radhakrishnan, The Hindu Vtew ofLtfe* London 1927, pp. 94-5).

134

THE SOVIET FAR EAST IN PERSPECTIVE

of purges and persecution religious and nationalist trends are alive
in the Soviet Empire. This survival of religion and of nationalism is not
only characteristic of conditions in the U.S.S.R. itself, but also gives a
clue to the future development of the Asiatic territories outside the
Soviet Union. If complete ideological uniformity could not be Imposed
on even such small peoples as Buryat-Mongols and Yakuts how can we
expect communism to succeed in the larger Asian countries with their
great and ancient civilizations? To become a victorious ideology in
addition to a victorious political system communism would have to
change its character and increase its spiritual striking power. It would
have to rise to the same heights as the religious teachings of the Asian
continent. Up to a certain point the Kremlin itself has been aware of
this problem. It has deliberately encouraged certain aspects of com-
munism which would lend themselves to expansion into component parts
of a new pseudo-religious mysticism - for instance the cult of Stalin
and the cult of Moscow which comes very near the myth that surrounds
the 'sacred city' of any religion. Both these cults are propagated on a
worldwide scale but nowhere did they find such exaggerated expression
as in the Eastern Republics of the Soviet Union. However persistently
propagated, they could not make communism a serious competitor of
the recognized creeds and philosophic teachings of the East, least of all
the Stalin cult which may turn out to be short-lived. It has already
given way to the colourless cult of the Party which is far less attractive
to the Eastern mind. Other attempts have been made too, to put
communism on a higher level by restating as communist principles
what are Christian principles or general moral principles common to aU
religious creeds. This is the purpose of the teaching on so-called
'communist morality' in Soviet schools as well as of the new statute
which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union adopted in October
1952 and which put stronger emphasis on honesty and truthfulness to
secure a smoother running of the Party apparatus. But in the works of
Lenin and Stalin which contain the principal message of Soviet com-
munism we find little more than precepts for political strategy and
tactics and in the best case explanations of certain sociological phenom-
ena. Neither Lenin nor Stalin nor any of their disciples have attempted
to create an all-embracing code of moral behaviour and to give a defini-
tion of permanent values that could rival any of the sacred books which
originated in Asia, the Old and New Testaments, the Hindu Scriptures,
the Avesta or the Koran. Consequently, through communism Asia
would lose more in the spiritual field than it might gain in the material.
Herein lies the chief weakness of tl*e whole political and ideological
communist system and of its nationalities policy.

1S5

Some of the types and personalities
mentioned in the text

186

1 The Yakut historian Georgy Basharin whose views on Yakut literature Pravda
denounced as 'anti-Marxist*.

2 The Khakassian student R S. Tenashev, of the teachers* training college of
Abakan.

3 A Buryat - Mongol peasant, Bula-Tsyren Tugutov, who was awarded the title
*Hero of Socialist Toil*.

4 An actor of the former Chinese theatre of Vladivostok.

5 Valentina Khetagurova-Zarubina, a Russian, wife of a Red Army officer serving
hi the Far East. She appealed to Russia's girls to live and work in the Soviet
Far Eastern territories.

6 Kim Penkhva, chairman of the Korean collective farm 'Polar Star* of the
Tashkent Province (Uzbekistan), previously in the Soviet Far East

7 A Nanai woman, Samar, accountant of a collective farm.

8 The Shorian miner Dmitry Pyzhlakov (Tashtagol iron-ore mines, Kemerovo
Province).

9 Otke,aChukcha,C&ainnanoftheExec^

Area and a deputy to the Soviet of Nationalities in Moscow.

10 Sad Belbekov, an Oirot shepherd of the 'Paris Commune' collective farm
(Autonomous Province of the High Altai).

11 Marshal Choibalsan (1895-1952), Premier and Commander-in-Coief of the
Mongol People's Republic.

12 Dzhansi Kunonko (1905-1949), an Udege writer, hunter and village council
chairman*

13 Mavra Mironova, a Tunguz student of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute
reading the History of the Soviet Communist Party.

187

INDEX

Abakan, 177

Abdulgasimov, Nazhim, 14

Aborigines, 65-99

Academy of Sciences, 46, 51, 87, 109,

111, 112, 126

Africa, British colonies, 78, 176, 180
Africa, South-West, 179
Afnca, West, juju, 78; Ewe people, 180
Aginsk Buryat-Mongolian National

Okrug, 123
Agricultural colonization: see

Colonization

Agricultural Exhibition, Ail-Union, 21
Agriculture: see Collectivization
Ainu, 65, 81, 87-8
Alaska, 24-7, 90, 92, 96
Aldan region, 105, 106
Aleutian National District, 85, 86
Aleuts, 25, 26, 65, 81, 85, 86
Alexandrovsk, 53
Alitet, 94
Alphabets:

Buryats, 119, 123

Chinese, 46-7

Cyrillic, 149n

Eskimo, 96n

Latmization, 46-7, 72-3, 119, 149,
150, 165, 170

Mongol, 149-50

Russian, 123, 149, 170

Shonan, 170-1

Tuvmian, 165

Unified Northern Alphabet, 72-3
Altaitsy: see Oirots
Anadyr District, 91
Anuchin, B.I., 173
Armenians, 14
Army, Red, colonization by discharged

soldiers, 15
Arsenev, V K., 42
Atka, 15

Australia, colonization, 13, 26, immigra-
tion policy, 32 and n
Avtorkhanov, A., 120
Azhaev, V.N., 78

Badigin, Konstantin, 57-8

Baidukov, G.F., 84

Baidukov Island (formerly Langr Island),

Balkars, 179
Baltic States, 182

Baltic-White Sea Canal, 108

Banzarov, Dorzhi, 127-8

Baradun, 125

Baranov, Aleksandr Andreyevich, 24, 25,

Basharm, Georgy Prokopovich, 109-10
Bashkirs, 108
Bayan-Ulegei Aimak, 155
Beck, K, 50

Belgian Congo, 112, 180
Belinsky, V.G., 109
Belyakov, A.V., 84
Belyakov Island (formerly Kevost

Island), 84
Berg, L S., 27
Bering, Vitus, 22, 85
Bering Island, 85, 86
Bering Strait, 22, 24, 90
Berzin, E., 69
Birobidzhan, 19n, 34n
Birobidzhan City, 20
Blagoslovennoye, 33-4
Blagoveshchensk, 1, 10
Blyukher, Vasily Konstantinovich, vi,

6-9,29

Bodo, 131-2, 133
Bodo-gegen, 134
Bogoraz-Tan, Vladimir Gennanovich,

65, 66, 99

Bolshevik Party, see Communist Party
Boshnyakovo (formerly Tonnai), 55
British colonies, 78, 176, 180
Buddhism*

Buryot-Mongolia, 115-8

Mongolia, 130, 135, 136n

Neo-Buddhism, 118

Tuvmians, 164

Budyonny, Semen Mikhailovich, 7
Bukharin, N.I, 6, 132
Burkhanism, 172-3
Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R., 115-28, 155
Buyan-Nekhe, 150
Byelorussians, 13 and n, 119
Byelotsarsfc, 162

Canada, Japanese in, 60-1; claim to
Wrangel Island, 68n; Indians in, 97n
Caruthers, Douglas, 130
Catherine the Second, 103
Chardorzhab, 131-2, 133
Chechens, 179
Chekhov, Anton, 55, 70

189

INDEX

Chelpanov, Chot, 172
Cheraogorsk, 177
Chernyshevsky, N.G., 109
Chichenn, G.V., 163
China:

Jehol, 156

Manchuria, Japanese conquest of,
137

Mongolia, Inner, 137, 156

Mongolia, Outer, relations with,
130, 156-7

Peking Treaty with Russia (1860),
42-3, 161

Soviet-Chinese relations, 46-7, 182-4

Ulan Bator Embassy, 156
Chinese, 34n, 42-50, 81, 102, 154, 156
Chinese Eastern Railway: see under

Railways

Chinese theatre, 49
Chita, 3, 4
Qikalov, Vafcry, 84
ChkalovIsland(formerlyUddIsland), 84
Choibalsan, Khorlogiin, 131-2, 133, 138,

140, 141, 142, 148
Choibalsan Prizes, 148
Christian missionaries: see Missionaries
Chukcha-Eskimo National District, 96n
Chukcha National Area, 68, 89, 96n
Chukchi, 65, 68, 71, 73, 76n, 81, 88,

89-98, 102, 103
Chukotka, 69, 89-99
Civil War, 34, 35, 52, 53, 59, 119
Ojalmiriing, 49, 53, 177
Collectivization :

Chukotka, 93-4

Koreans, discrimination against, 36-7

Mongolia, failure in, 136; strengthen-
ing, 147

Red Army and Red Fleet farms, 15

Shamans' obstruction, 76
Colonization, under Czarist regime,

12-13; by convicts, 13, 52, 70; military

colonization, 15; by Komsomol, 16;

by Jews, 19n; by agricultural workers,

19-21 ; Alaska, 24-6; European policy,

32; Buryatia, 123; Mongolia, 129;

Uriankhai (Tuva), 161-2, 166;

Khakassia, 176-7; British policy

compared with Soviet, 180
Cdumbus, Russian see: Shelikhov,

Grigory Ivanovich
Commander Islands, 85, 86
Qwnrmmist Party:

Far Eastern Republic membership, 3

Fifteenth Congress (1927), 4

Sixteenth Congress (1930), 4

Eigifateentli Congress (1938), 8, 20-1

Korean sections, 35
Communist Youth League: see

Komsomol

Constitutions:

Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R., 144-6
Far Eastern Republic, 2, 116-7
Mongolia, 136n, 142-6
Stalin, new (1936), 48, 77, 136n
Yakutia, 106

Convicts: see Forced labour

Cooper, Femmore, 83

Copper Island: see Medny

Cotton-growing, 41

Crimean Tartars, 179

'Cultural Stations': see 'Kultbazy'

'Dalselmash', 48

'Dalstroy', 14-5, 69-70

*Dalzayod', 48

Dampilon, 120

Danbinov, Pyotr Nikiforovich, 124, 125

Dan zan (Mongolian Prime Minister),

131-2, 133
Dariganga, 154, 155
Demid, Marshal, 138-9
Derzhavin, G.R., 24
Dezhnev, Semen, 22, 30
Diomede Islands, 89, 96n
Donduk (Tuvinian Prime Minister), 164
Dordji, Ishi, 134, 135
Dordshiev, Agvan, 118, 132
Dshigmid, Lobsan, 165
Dyurbets, 154, 155
Dzhansankorlo, 138
Dzungaria, 172, 174

Eastern Sakhalin National District, 84
Education:

Aborigines, 72-6

Alaska, 26

Chukchi, 97 and n

Commander Islands, 86

Dalstroy schools, 69

Eskimos, 90

Far Eastern University, 49

Illiteracy, campaign against, 72, 73

Irkutsk University, 123n

Karafuto, 54

Khabarovsk, Pedagogical Institute of,
74

Khabarovsk Territory, 73

Koreans, 34, 37

Leningrad Pedagogical Institute, 74

Mongolia, 149

Nikolayevsk college, 73

Shamans* obstruction, 76

Yakutia, HOn
Eskimos, 26, 65, 68 and n, 72, 76n, 81,

89, 93, 96 and n, 97
Esutora: see Uglegorsk
European satellite countries, 182
Evem, 65, 70, 76n, 78-9, 88, 102
Even! National Area, 88

190

INDEX

Evenki, 65, 102

Evenko-Nanai National District, 82

Fadeev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 83

and n, 153

Far Eastern Railway: see under Railways
Far Eastern Republic, 2-3
Far Eastern University: see under

Education

Farms, collective: see Collectivization
February Revolution, 34, 173
Feoktisov, 57
Finnie, Richard, 72
Fishing industry, 56, 59-60, 84, 162
Hags, 2, 143
Fleet, Red: see Navy
Forced labour and convicts, 13, 52,

69-70, 108, 183
'Fort Ross', 25

Fur hunting and trading, 93-4, 95
Funnanov, D.A., 153

Gamarnik, Yan Bonsovich, 6-7

Genghis Khan, 119, 126, 139, 140, 151

Georgians, 14

Germany, Eastern, 182

Geser, 126, 127, 153

Glavsevmorput, 67, 105, 106

Godin, W., 50

Goldmining industry, 44, 105, 106, 177

Goldy: see Nanai

Gondatti, NX., 91

Gorky, Maxim, 152, 166, 171

Hawaii: see under United States
Heller, Otto, 45-6

High Altai, Autonomous Province of
the: see Oirot Autonomous Province
Honto: see Nevelsk
Hudson Bay Company, 93n

Idam-Surun, 150

Ignatev, Semen Denisovich, 120 and n

Ingush, 179

Inner Mongolia: see China

Innokentii, Metropolitan of Moscow, 26

Irkutsk, 24, 117, 122

Irkutsk University: see under Education

Iron-ore mines, 169-70

Itelmeny: see Kamchadals

Ivan the Terrible, 151

Ivanov, Vsevolod, 153

Izhevsk, 124n

Japan:

Coal and oil concessions, 53
Czarist regime, treaties with, 52
Espionage allegations, 5-6, 38 and n,
39 and n, 49, 50, 120, 121, 122
Far Eastern Republic, occupation of, 3

Fishing Convention (1907), 59-60
Khalkin-Gol River border incidents,

141

Manchuria, conquest of, 137
Neutrality Pact (Soviet, 1941), 53
Peking Treaty (1924), 53
Rice cultivation, 41
Russian policy towards, 51, 59-61, 81
Russo-Japanese War, 13, 28, 50, 119
Secret treaty with Russia (1907), 130
Soviet-Japanese War (1945) 142

Japanese, 45, 50-7, 59-61

Jehol: see China: Jehol

Jeterofu Shima, 57, 58

Jewish Autonomous Province, 34 and n

Jews, 14, 19n, 34n, 45, 179

Johannesburg, 180

Kalashnikov, Alexey, 96n

Kaliningrad, 182

Kalmucks, 115n

Kamchadals, 65, 85, 88

Kamchatka, 2n, 59-60, 85

Ranzychakov, Sary-Sen, 174, 175

Karafuto, 51, 52, 54, 87, 88

Karagasy: see Tofy

Karakorum, 140, 174

Katayama, Sen, 50

Kazakhs, 154, 155

Kazakhstan, 42, 177

Kazan, 124n

Kemerovo Province, 169

Kenya, 180

Kevost Island: see Belyakov Island

Khabarovsk, 1, 4, 10, 20, 21, 22, 43

Khakassian Autonomous Province,

176-8

Khakassians, 168, 169, 173, 176-8
Khalka Mongols, 154, 155
Khalkin-Gol River battles, 141
Khasan Lake incident, 8
Khetagurova-Zarubina, Valentina, 16,

18,20

Khorezm Province, 41-2
Kibangism, 172
Kimonko, Dzhansi, 76, 83
Kitawala, 172
Klements, DA., 172
Klimovich, Lutsyan K,, 109
Kobdp, 155

Koenigsberg: see Kaliningrad
Kolbin, N., 29

Kokhak, Adm. A.V., 121, 174
Koksnikov, Mikhail, 139, 140, 141
Kommunar, 177
Komsomol (Communist Youth League),

16, 94 and n

Komsomolsk-on-ABQSir, 16-17, 20, 79, 82
Kondratenko, Gen., 28
Konotovicii, Gen., 70

191

INDEX

Korean National District, 36, 37, 62

Korean State Theatre, 42

Koreans, 32-42, 44, 45, 49, 102

Korneichuk, Aleksandr, 153

Korsakov (formerly Otomari), 55

Koryak National Area, 71, 88-9

Koryaks, 65, 71, 73, 76n, 88

Kratt, Ivan, 25

Krutov, 5, 15, 48

Kulachikov-EUyay, 1 10

Kulakovsky, A., 107, 109

'Kultbazy', 76 and n

Kunashin, 57, 58

Kurile Islands, 21, 51, 57-8, 87

'Kurilsk', 58

Kuskov, Ivan, 25-6, 30

Kuzbass, 168, 169

Kuznetsk Basin: see Kuzbass

Labour, forced: see Forced labour

Lamuts: see Eveni

Langr Island: see Baidukov Island

Ainu literary language, 88

Aleutian, 26, 86

Alphabets: see Alphabets

Buryats, 123, 125-6

English in Chukotka, 90-1

Eskimo, 96n

Kazakh, 155

Mongol, 149-50, 164

Political vocabulary, 93, 124-5, 165

Shorian, 170-1

Tuvimans, 163-5

Yakut, 109-11
Latvians, 45
Lavrentev, L., 5
Lazo, Sergey, 29-30

League of Militant Godless, 77, 84, 118
'Lengospar', 106
Lenin, V.I., 28, 132, 166, 185
Lenin-Stalin cult, 79-80
'Lerizolotoflof, 106
Liquidation of minorities and national

territories:

Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R. outlying
districts, 122

Chinese, 47, 49

Eveni, National Area of, 88

Japanese, 55

Kalmucks, 11 5n

Korean National District, 38-40

Koreans, 39^42

Shorian National District, 169
Usiansky Island, 27
Literature:

Boryats, 123, 125-8

Epics, national, 126, 127

Folklore, 110

Folksongs, 110

Folktales, 79-80
Mongol, 131, 149-54
Shorian, 170-1
Tuvinian, 165-6
Udege, 83
Yakut, 109-11
Lyushkov, G.S., 39

Madagascar, 180

Magadan, 79, 14-15, 20

Maisky, Ivan, 154

Makarov, Adm., 28-9

Maksarzhab, 133 and n

Malevsky-Malevich, 131

Manchen-Helfen, Otto, 164

Manchuria: see under China

Marshall Islands, 27

Matsuoka, Yosuke, 53

Mayakovsky, V.V., 166

Medny Island, 85, 86

Mekhhs, Lev Zakharovich, 8

Miklukho-Maklay, N N., 27

Mikoyan, Anastas, 56

Minusinsk Tatars: see Khakassians

Mirzaev, E.M., 154

Missionaries, 26, 78-9, 86, 184

Molotov, V.M , 20-1, 119

Mongol People's Republic, 115, 116,

128-57, 164
Mongol-Soviet railway line: see under

Railways

Mongolia, Inner, see under China
Moslems, 14
M.V.D. (formerly N.KVD.), 7 and n,

10, 11, 13-14, 39, 70, 120

Namzhilon, 125

Nanai, 65, 73, 78, 80, 81-2, 103

Nanai National District, 82

Naukan, 93

Navy, Red, 7n, 15

Neustroev, Nikolay Diomsovich, 109

Nevelsk (formerly Honto), 55

Nevelskoy, Gennady Ivanovich, 28, 30,

55, 87

New Guinea, 27
Newspapers:

Behnng Island, 86

Chinese, 45, 49

Eskimo, 96n

Japanese, 45

Korean, 37

Mongol, 149 and n

Tuvinian, 164

Yakut, 103, 107, 108, 111
Nikolayevsk Amursky, 2, 28
Nikolsk Ussurhsky, 43
Nivkhi, 65, 73, 81, 84, 87, 103
Nivkhi, National District of, 84
Nizhne-Korymsk, 106

192

INDEX

N.K.V.D.: see M.V.D.
Nome, 91

Northern Sea Route, Chief Administra-
tion of: see Glavsevmorput
'Noyony', 125n

Oil, production, 5n; concessions to

Japan, 53

Oirot Autonomous Province, 171-6
Oirots, 168, 169, 171-6
OKDVA, 7, 8 and n, 36
Okhotsko-Evensky National Area, 88
Olchi: see Ulchi
Old Believers, 162
Oleshchuk, F.N , 77
Orlovo (formerly Ushiro), 55
Orthodox Church, 79, 86
Ostrovsky, N.A., 153
Otke, 97
Otoman: see Korsakov

Panfyorov, Fyodor, 169-70

Pan-Mongolism, 115, 119, 125, 164

Pan-Turkism, 107

Papuans, 27

Paramushiri, 57, 58

Paumoto Archipelago, 27

Pavlenko, Peter, 18, 50

Pepelayev, Gen., 104

Perepechko, 4

Permskoe: see Komsomolsk-on-Amur

Peter the Great, 127

Petri, Prof. P.E., 75

Poles, 45

Polish Theatre, 49n

Port Arthur, 28-9, 130

Portsmouth, Treaty of (1905), 52

Potsdam agreement, 51

Profintern, 46

Przhevalsky, N M., 33, 43

Purges: see Trials and purges
Pushkin, A.S., 166, 170

Radhaknshnan, S., 184n

Radia-Bazar, 150

Ragozmsky, Count, 127

Railways, purge of railwaymen, 5-6;
Red Army men accepted into service,
15; transplantation of Koreans, 39
Chinese Eastern Railway, 47
Chinese labour under Czarist regime,

Far Eastern Railway, 39
Mongol-Soviet Line, 156
Stalin Railway Line, 156
Trans-Siberian Railway, 1, 12

Reindeer breeding, 71-2, 89, 94, 95

Reindeer Trust, 69

Rhodesia, 180

Rice cultivation, 40-1

Rimsky-Korsakov, Capt, 55

Rinchmo, D. R., 132

'Russian America', 24-7

'Russian American Company*, 25, 26

'Russian Columbus': see Shelikhov,

Gngory Ivanovich
Russkoye Ustye, 106
Russo-Japanese War, 13, 28, 50, 119
Rykov, A. L, 134

St Petersburg, Treaty of (1875), 52

'Sakha Omuk*, 107, 108

Sakhalin, 2n, 10, 18, 21, 22, 28, 51, 52-7,
70, 84, 86-7, 130

Samer, Akim, 82

Saral, 177

Saryn, Altan, 107

Satellite countries, European, 182

Sciences, Academy of: see Academy of
Sciences

Scientific and Political knowledge, All-
Union Society for the Dissemination
of, 24

Semenchuk, S. P., 68

Semyonov, Ataman, 119

Sergeev, M. A., 88

Shamanism, 75-9, 84, 94, 107

Shashkov, 26

Shelikhov, Grigory Ivanovich, 24, 25,
26,30

Shi-Ayushi, 150

Shimodo, Treaty of (1855), 52

Shimoshuto, 57

Shirutoru: see Makarov

Shoria, 169-71

Shorians, 168-71

Shtern, Gngory Mikhailovich, 8

Shundik, Nikolay, 94 and n-6

Simonov, Konstantin, 153

Smeral, Bohumil, 128

Sofronov, A., 107, 109

Somali, 180

Sreten, 4

Stalin, L V., 117, 119, 127, 132, 166, 185

Stalin-Lenin cult: see Lenin-Stalin cult

Stalin Railway Line: see under Railways

Starkov (Soviet envoy in Tuva), 164

Startsev, K. D., 68

Stepanov, A., 28

Strakhov, 46

Sukhe Bator, D., 131-2, 133 and n

Surkov, Alexey, 109

Suvorov Island, 27

Svobodny, 6

Syomushkin, Tikhon, 75, 92, 94

Tadzfciks, 108
Tannu Tuva: see Tuva
Tashkent, 41, 172

193

INDEX

Tchan-Tso-Lin, Gen., 133
Teh, Prince, 137
Territorial annexations, 51, 182
Theatres:

Chinese Theatre, 48, 49 and n

Jewish Theatre, 49n

Korean State Theatre, 42

Mongol Theatre, 149, 153-4

Polish Theatre, 49n

Vladivostok Russian Theatres, 49
Umber, Chinese workers, 49
Timoshenko, Marshal, 7
Tofalary: see Tofy
Tofy, 168n

Toka, Salchak K., 163, 165-6 and n
Tolstoy, Leo, 166
Tonnai: see Boshnyakovo
Torma,25

Toyohara: see Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
Trans-Siberian Railway: see under

Railways
Trials and purges:

Buryatia, 122, 125

Chinese, 48, 50

Koreans, 35

Mongolia, 134, 139-41

1937, 5-9

Oirots, 172

Railwayman, 5-6

Tuva, 164

Wrangel Island, 68

Yakuts, 107-8
Tfrotsky, Leon, 5
Tsapkin, N. V., 154
Tsoktu, Taidzhi, 151
Tugarinov, A. Ya., 139
Tukhachevsky, M. N., 6, 7, 9, 139
Tunguz, 65, 87 and n
Turkic peoples, 168 and n, 169, 177
Tuva, 161-8
Tuvinian Autonomous Province, 155,

167

Tuvinians, 154, 155, 161-8, 173, 174
Tuya, Solbone: see Danbinov, Pyotr

Nikiforovich

Uborevkb, L P., 6

Udd Island: see Chkalov Island

Udege, 65, 81, 82r4

Ueieii,93

UFe,124a

Ugtegorsk (formerly Esutoru), 55

Ukraine, 119

Ukrainian National Districts, 13n

Ukrainians, 13 and n, 14, 34n, 35, 45,

167, 169

Ulan Bator (formerly Urga), 129 and n
Ulan Ude, 124 and n

Gen., 119, 132, 133

United States of America:

Bacteriological warfare experiments

on Eskimos, alleged, 74

Eskimos, 74, 92

Exploitation of Russian coastal
waters, 90

Hawaii, Japanese in, 60

'Imperialism', 74

Japanese in, 60-1

Russian policy towards, 81

Vladivostok consulate, 11
Urga see Ulan Bator
Uriankhai: see Tuva
Ushiro: see Orlovo
Ussuri Province, 42-3
Ussuri region, 33

Ust Ordynsk Buryat-Mongolian Nat-
ional Okrug, 123
Ust Yansk, 106

Uzbekistan, Korean colonists, 41
Uzbeks, 108, 155

Vareikis, I M., 6

Veniaminov, Ivan, see Innokentii

Viktorov, M. V , 7n

Vladivostok, 1, 2, 4, 10, 11, 20, 43-9

Vocabulary, political: see Languages:

Political vocabulary
Voroshilov, K. E., 119
Vyshinsky, A. Ya., 68

Wallace, Henry, v
Western Mongols, 154
Western Sakhalin National District, 84
Whaling, 90

White Faith: see Burkhanism
Women, proportion in population,
17-18; House of Altaiwoman, 175-6
Wrangel Island, 68 and n

Yadrintsev, N. M., 140

Yakagirs, 102

Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist

Republic, 102, 104
Yakutia, 102-12
Yakuts, 70, 102-12
Yakutsk, 105, 124n
'Yakutzoloto', 105
Yalta, Treaty of, 51
Yerbanov, Mikhei Nikolayovich, 117,

119-20, 121, 122, 125
Youth League, Communist: see

Komsomol
Yuzhnekurilsk, 58
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (formerly

Toyohara), 55

Zadornov, N. P., 87
Zernov, N. M., 26
Zhamtsarano, Ts. Zk, 118, 139n
Zhukov, E. M., 129
Zinoviev, G. E^ 156, 157

IN GREAT BRITAIN BY GEORGE SJHI1.IF AHJ> SOX

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