Battling for Equality: East Asians in Imperial and Soviet Russia and the Soviet Chinese Deportation of 1937–39

Abstract: This study covers the history of the Soviet Chinese and Koreans of the RFE from 1860 to 1939. It will demonstrate that the Russian Empire and the USSR continually viewed its East Asians as an excellent colonizing element, industrious, clever but as dubious citizenship material. One might ask, “How is this possible when the Soviet East Asians distinguished themselves to the Soviet state as NKVD agents, kolkhoz leaders, Soviet cadres, farmers who vociferously supported state collectivization of land, teachers, and informants?” This was because the USSR prioritized Russians (including Belorussians and Ukrainians) as their core people ( primus inter pares ) despite the avowals to build “real socialism” and a class-based society. In the 1930s, as the tension of war and political intrigue mounted, Stalin began a campaign through various Soviet media (radio, newspaper, and official pronouncements) that warned of Japanese spies infiltrating the RFE in all of the most common occupations held by RFE Chinese and Koreans. This is a short history of the tsarist and Soviet creation of the “yellow peril” leading to the deportation of the Soviet Chinese.