The Shanghai Agency of Ussuri Railway and Establishment of Direct Mixed Railway-Water Communication between Shanghai and Manchuria (1923–1926)

The article is devoted to the history of the Shanghai agency of Ussuri Railway and its role in the establishment of direct railway-water communication between Shanghai and Manchuria. After the end of the Civil War and the occupation of Vladivostok by the Red Army in late 1922, Soviet authorities began to rebuild the economy and trade in the Far East. As a counterbalance to Japan, it was planned to create an “eastern direction” of direct communication between Shanghai and Manchuria. In the “eastern direction” the transfer point between Shanghai and Manchuria was to be Vladivostok. It was planned to transport the goods arriving by water from Shanghai to Vladivostok by means of the Ussuri Railway to the border with China and further by the China Eastern Railway to Harbin. The Ussuri Railway was the main initiator of the creation of the “eastern direction”. For full-fledged work at the end of 1923–1924, first a branch and then the Commercial Agency of the Ussuri Railway in Shanghai was established, which became the main in the creation of the “eastern direction”. However, the plan to create a direct railway-water communication between Shanghai and Manchuria via Vladivostok, in the end, was not fully realized — the most important issue of issuing direct transportation receipts was not solved. Interdepartmental conflict was the most important reason for the failure of the “eastern direction”. “Departmental patriotism” was inherent in all levels of the soviet authorities from Shanghai to Moscow and ultimately caused the fact that for almost three years neither at the Shanghai nor at the Moscow level could solve the burning issue for Soviet trade interests in Shanghai of issuing direct transportation documents.