The Chinese Population of Transbaikalia under the Conditions of the Stalinist System in the 1930s

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of the Chinese population in the East Siberian border region with China, Transbaikal, in the 1930s. The particular position of this border region determined the specific formation of this Chinese population. The transfer of the Transbaikal region from the Far Eastern region back to the administrative unit of Siberia in the 1930s strengthened the Siberian regional features of the development of the Chinese community, and meant that the Far Eastern nationality policy was not applied to this community. The development of this community was influenced by the fact that in the 1930s, the state border with Manchuria was completely closed. The Manchukuo state, along with the Republic of China, had its official representatives in Chita. In the early 1930s the size of the Chinese population in Transbaikal reached a maximum, and in the Chita region its share in relation to the total population was equal to that in the Far Eastern regions. In the 1930s the working and living conditions of the majority of Chinese workers were difficult: they faced discrimination and were poorly adapted to the socio-political realities of Stalin's system. Initially the Bolsheviks carried out an active policy towards the Chinese that was aimed at their ideological and political re-education and the improving of their living and working conditions. In the second half of the 1930s, however, this policy changed, and political education and the development of a Soviet Chinese culture were no longer prominent. The Chinese began to be perceived as a national community disloyal to the Soviet regime, as real or potential agents of Japan and Kuomintang China. In 1936 began the exposure of Chinese spies, and in 1937-1939 the Soviet Chinese were fully subjected to the tyranny of the Soviet secret services and punitive agencies, and suffered greatly from political repression. By the late 1930s the number of Chinese in Transbaikal had decreased by almost a third; however, the situation was different from that in the border regions of the Far East in so far as there was no mass eviction of Chinese from the Transbaikal area.