The Expansion and Character of the Living Space of the Korean People: focused on the Agricultural Organizations of Soviet Koreans in Southern Russia in the 1920s-1930s

The Soviet government, led by Stalin, abandoned the New Economic Policy and implemented a policy of agricultural collectivization in the late 1920s. It was needed to develop industry for a steady influx of agricultural products. In 1930, a few Soviet Koreans migrated to the Don River basin in the North Caucasus Region, where they formed and operated agricultural communities called ‘Don-Ris’ Commune. In 1932-33, over 100 Koreans were invited from Central Asia to Slavyansk raion (Kuban region) to form the Dimitrov Artel. The chairman and party organizer of the Artel were all Koreans. While rice-farming kolkhoz organized by Russians existed in neighboring regions, the Dimitrov Artel, with its superior rice farming techniques, achieved the highest productivity. In 1935-36, Koreans expanded their livelihoods through agricultural artel activities.<br/> However, in the late 1930s, Stalin's political repression began. The Korean chairman and party organizers of the Dimitrov Artel were arrested, executed, or imprisoned in concentration camps, decimating the organization's human resources. With nearly all members of the artel arrested by the authorities, the livelihoods of Koreans were completely destroyed.<br/> Through this historical development, this study concludes that the Korean diaspora was already residing in southern Russia before the so called ‘1937 deportation’ and that they expanded their living space into Eurasia before being annihilated by political purge.