Preserving the “Russian cause” in Manchuria: Emigrants and the CER

Abstract

The article examines the role of Russian emigration in Manchuria in the operation of the China-Eastern Railway (CER) in the 1920—1940s on the basis of unpublished archival materials. Manchuria was a specific region of the Russian Diaspora, where special laws of life and survival operated. Hundreds of different organizations were organized here, but none of them could unite the Russian emigration. Meanwhile CER was considered by the emigrants not only as a place of employment and source of funds, but also as a political tool, the structural basis of the Russian colony in Manchuria, a special “Russian wealth” that was spent by the Russian Treasury. The article focuses on the work of emigrants on the railway after the Soviet-Chinese agreements of 1924, during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and in the post-war period on the China-Changchun railway. Analyzing life strategies through the prism of biographies, one can conclude about the double loyalty of emigrants in Manchuria, who were forced to compromise with the Soviet, Chinese and Japanese authorities in order to preserve the CER as a “Russian heritage”.