The Sino-Soviet Conflict of 1929 and Russian Military Emigration

Abstract

This article analyses the nature and extent of the involvement of the Russian radical emigrants, whose core comprised former officers and soldiers of the White army, in the Sino-Soviet conflict in 1929. The author demonstrates that despite the opinion persisting in Russian historiography about the joint participation of the Chinese army and the White emigre military units in the conflict, the Chinese government did not involve the White emigre organisations in their struggle against the Soviet Union until the last phase of the conflict. The “Nikolaevsky” emigrant associations prevailing in China expressed a negative attitude to the conflict, especially at its initial stage, convinced that the conflict would only lead to a deterioration of the situation of emigrants. Likewise, none of the powers, including Japan, supported the radical emigrants, being more interested in preserving their status quo in China. Seeking to use the conflict to instigate an anti-Soviet movement, some radical organisations (the Brotherhood of Russian Truth, Russian Far East Volunteer Corps, and the Union of Cossacks in the Far East, etc.) attempted to deploy a guerrilla movement in the border areas, but were defeated. The White partisans were the most active on the border with Soviet Primorye and in the district of Trekhrechie, bordering the Trans-Baikal region. The restoration and even strengthening of the USSR’s positions in Manchuria after the defeat at Mukden and a number of other reasons stimulated the consolidation process of radical emigration in China begun in the second half of 1920s, and ensured the growth of anti-Soviet armed resistance in exile.