Year of resettlement of Soviet Koreans from the Far East. Koreans in Russia
And Balkhash and the Uzbek SSR ".
The deportation was motivated by the fact that on July 7, 1937, Japanese troops invaded China, and Korea was at that time part of the Japanese Empire. However, the Koreans of the DCK as a people were not charged with "aiding the enemy". Former citizens of the pro-Japanese state of Manchukuo and former employees of the Sino-Eastern Railway () were also subjected to repression.
According to data and population censuses for 1983, most Koreans (350 thousand people) on the territory of the USSR lived in Uzbekistan. After the collapse of the USSR, unlike Russia and Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan did not adopt an act on forcibly resettled peoples. Some Koreans living in Uzbekistan, as well as representatives of other non-indigenous peoples, began to emigrate from Uzbekistan to other countries, primarily to Russia and Kazakhstan.
The deportation of Soviet Koreans in the fall of 1937 was the first ethnic deportation in the USSR after the Russian Civil War.
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Why Soviet Koreans were not taken to the front of the Great Patriotic War
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Research
For a long time, the topic of deportation of Koreans from the Far East remained among the banned. The lack of access to archival sources did not allow to investigate it thoroughly enough. The published works relied mainly on memoirs. In recent years, historians and publicists have shown increasing attention to the problem.
Background
Since the late 1920s, the leadership of the USSR has been making plans to resettle Koreans from the border regions of Primorye to the remote territories of the Khabarovsk Territory. The highest bodies of the Bolshevik Party discussed such a possibility in 1927, 1930, 1932. In particular, on February 25, 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), chaired by Stalin, specially discussed the issue of resettlement of the Far Eastern Koreans. The decision was not made, probably due to the fact that the Seaside Koreans were pro-Soviet. [ ] In time Civil War approximately one in five Korean men in Primorye voluntarily fought for the Bolsheviks in the Red Army or in partisan detachments.
Since the spring of 1937, publications about Japanese subversive activities among the Koreans of Primorye and about Japanese Korean spies began to appear in the central press. But Soviet Koreans as a whole were not accused of aiding the enemy either before or after the decree on their eviction. [ ] The newspaper Pravda on March 23, 1937, in particular, wrote about the arrest of a Korean spy by a Korean collective farmer: “Koreans — Soviet citizens — have learned to recognize the enemy. The Soviet Korean patriot brought the enemy of his people where he should go. " The Izvestia newspaper of September 4, 1937, after the decree on the eviction, reported how, with the help of the chairman of the border Korean collective farm "Borba", Kim Iksen, the border guards detained a Korean spy transferred by the Japanese from Manchukuo.
Before the deportation, the NKVD authorities carried out large-scale repressions, which stood out even against the background of the surge of repressions in 1937: the leaders of the CPSU (b) who had been nominated in the post-revolutionary years, almost all the Koreans-Krascoms were almost completely destroyed, the entire Korean section of the Comintern was destroyed and most of the Koreans who had higher education were arrested. education . Already during the resettlement, the NKVD authorities arrested about 2.5 thousand Koreans from among those subject to deportation. Before the adoption of the decree on deportation, several waves of purges and repressions took place in the Far Eastern Territory, covering all strata of society and power structures, including the apparatus of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Red Army, the NKVD organs, the intelligentsia and ordinary citizens. The repressed Soviet functionaries who committed suicide and ousted from their posts were replaced by a new nomenklatura, which in its bulk had no experience of working together with Soviet Koreans. This new nomenclature was capable of brutally fulfilling the task set by the central government to evict Koreans from the Far Eastern Territory.
Deportation organization
The deportation was organized on the basis of several resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars, the most important of which was the joint resolution of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks No. 1428-326 "On the eviction of the Korean population from the border regions of the Far Eastern Territory" dated August 21, 1937.
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"Council of People's Commissars USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) decide: In order to prevent the penetration of Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Territory, the following measures should be taken: 1. Propose to the Far Eastern Regional VKP (b), the regional executive committee and the UNKVD of the Far Eastern Territory to evict the entire Korean population of the border regions of the Far Eastern Territory: Posyetsky, Molotovsky, Khankaysky, Khorolsky, Chernigov, Spassky, Shmakovsky, Postyshevsky, Bikinsky, Vyazemsky, Khafabarovsky, Kalininsky, Lazo, Svobodnensky, Blagoveshchensky, Tambov, Mikhailovsky, Arkharinsky, Stalinsky and Blucherovsky and resettled in the South Kazakhstan region, in the regions of the Aral Sea and Balkhash and the Uzbek SSR. The eviction should be started from Posyetsky district and the districts adjacent to Grodekovo. 2. To proceed with the eviction immediately and complete by January 1, 1938. 3. Koreans subject to resettlement should be allowed to take property, household equipment and livestock with them during resettlement. 4. Reimburse the resettled for the value of movable and immovable property and crops left by them. 5. Do not obstruct the resettled Koreans to leave, if desired, abroad, allowing a simplified procedure for crossing the border. ... 11. To increase the number of border troops by 3 thousand people to tighten the border protection in areas from which Koreans are resettled. 12. Permit the USSR People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs to place border guards in the vacated premises of the Koreans. - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. Molotov - Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) I. Stalin. " |
The resolution was concretized and supplemented by Yezhov's secret encryption code to Lyushkov, who directed the deportation:
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[Cipher program of the People's Commissar of the NKVD of the USSR N.I. Yezhov No. 535 to the head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far-Eastern Territory G.S. Lyushkov on the timing and procedure for the operation of resettlement of Koreans] No. 535 from 29 / 8-37 KHABAROVSK KRAYKOM, KRAYISPOLKOM LYUSHKOV First. The deadlines for the eviction of Koreans for the areas of Posyetsky and Grodekovsky directions by October 1 and the rest of the areas by October 15 are approved. Second. Koreans of the city of Voroshilov and others located in the eviction areas are also subject to simultaneous eviction. Communist Koreans, Komsomol members and the entire Korean intelligentsia of these regions are being evicted at the same time. Imagine the considerations of the possibility of transferring the Kazakh SSR and Uz SSR editorial offices and printing houses of Korean newspapers, publishing houses and educational institutions. Third. Korean Red Army soldiers of the rank and file and junior commanders of the OKDVA units and the border guard are subject to all dismissal. The Red Army soldiers, whose forces are being evicted, leave with their families. Fourth. Koreans - the beginning [altering] composition of the OKDVA and border guard units to transfer [to] the inner districts. Until their transfer, their families are not eligible for eviction. When transferring the beginning [roving] composition of Koreans, families should be allowed to leave with the commander or to the areas of settlement. Fifth. All Koreans serving in parts of the Red Army, border guards and militia should be immediately withdrawn from the border strip. Sixth. Pick up a group of strong workers of the Koreans of the GUGB, border guards and militia for the transfer of the Kazakh SSR and the Uz SSR. Number, surname, position telegraph to receive the appointment. Seventh. We expel through the border in a simplified manner. Take with you all personal non-socialized property. Allow the export of valuables. Passports and other official documents should be taken away when exported abroad. Eighth. Conscription from the NKVD reserve for 3 months in the order of retraining 400 people. allowed. Ninth. When boarding the train, take passports, have them at the commandants of the trains. New passports will be issued on the spot with reference to the SNK decree 861 paragraph 11. - NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF THE USSR, GENERAL COMMISSIONER OF STATE SECURITY EZHOV |
Simultaneously with the events in the Far East, in all cities of the central part of Russia, a campaign was also launched to identify, detain, arrest and deport Koreans who lived or studied there. In general, the preparation for deportation was organized [ ]. The property left behind was described and assessed, calls for its destruction by the most courageous and honest of the deportees did not receive support due to the promised compensation. Judging by the number of deportees, there were practically no people willing to return to their historical homeland occupied by the Japanese. [ ]
Deportation
Koreans were given a minimum period to collect things, and then loaded into prepared trains. The deportation was carried out by letter trains with a predetermined loading point and departure time. The train was led by the chief, to whom the elders of the carriages from among the verified Koreans were subordinate. The train consisted of an average of 50 human cars, one "cool" (passenger), one ambulance, one kitchen-car, 5-6 covered freight and 2 open platforms. "Human" cars were freight cars equipped with double-deck bunks and a stove-stove. One carriage carried 5-6 families (25-30 people). The travel time from Primorye to unloading stations in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan took 30-40 days. Passports were confiscated from people before loading. Each car was "provided by agents".
The number of deaths during transport, including victims of the accident of one echelon at the Verino station near Khabarovsk, is probably several hundred.
It is also worth noting that some of the Koreans, especially those who did not have documents with them that shed light on their appearance in the Soviet Union, were allowed to return to Korea.
Consequences of deportation
The deported Koreans were subjected to serious restrictions in their rights, although their position was much better than that of other deported peoples (Germans, Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars). Contrary to the assertions of some sources [ ] [ ] The Koreans received the status of special settlers only at the end of World War II - June 2, 1945, during the preparation of the USSR for the war with Japan. By order of the USSR People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria, the organization of supervisory commandant's offices was started, but after the surrender of Japan, these measures were curtailed.
The resettled Koreans had the status of administratively deported - they were restricted in movement outside Central Asia. Unlike representatives of other peoples subsequently deported, Koreans could occupy leadership positions and study in higher educational institutions... They worked in their own collective farms, on the land allocated to them, or joined the collective farms of the local population on a general basis.
Since the NKVD did not supervise the Koreans, the statistics of their numbers are absent in the archives of the GULAG and it is difficult to assess the human losses of the initial adaptation. During the first winter, many Koreans lived in temporary dugouts. A third of all babies are said to have died this winter, which could double the death rate if fertility is high. The availability of data on the demography of Koreans in Kazakhstan for two years (1938 and 1939) also allows an estimate. The birth rate among Koreans exceeded the average rate for Kazakhstan, which was in 1937-1938. 42.4 people for every thousand. The mortality rate of Koreans was almost 2 times higher than the average for the republic: in 1937, the mortality rate in Kazakhstan was 18.3 people per thousand of the population, and in 1938 - 16.3. These data show that even in the first year of resettlement, Koreans had an excess of fertility over mortality and are in good agreement with previous data on an "additional" 33% infant mortality. ... Thus, the adaptation losses in the first two years amount to several thousand and significantly exceed the transportation losses. (In some publications, a third of infant deaths have become a third of all Koreans, but this figure is not documented and does not agree with known facts.)
Documents show that local and central authorities have made significant efforts to settle the displaced people. In particular, Koreans were not only given compensation for property lost in Primorye, but at least in Uzbekistan they also received gratuitous aid in the amount of 3,000 rubles per household. The settlers were provided with building materials, loans and good land in a special order, which sometimes caused discontent on the part of the local population. For the first 2 years, Korean collective farms were exempted from mandatory state supplies. Initially, the main occupations of the Koreans were rice growing, vegetable growing and fishing. Already in the first year of settlement, a significant part of Koreans left Kazakhstan on their own for Uzbekistan, where conditions for traditional Korean agriculture were better.
After the resettlement, the Korean Pedagogical Institute was not rebuilt. National cultural institutions were limited to the theater and one official newspaper. Korean villages were scattered over a large area among Uzbek, Russian and Kazakh settlements. Some of the Korean children went to Russian schools right after the resettlement. As a result, in one or two generations, the resettled Koreans became Russian-speaking. This is how a new people appeared - Koryo-Saram (the self-name "Koryo" has not been used in Korea for a long time). The rapid transition to the dominant language is characteristic of the Korean diaspora around the world. (The Sakhalin Koreans, who ended up within the borders of the USSR in 1945, lived compactly and did not identify themselves with the Koryo-Saram, also became Russian-speaking). But unlike Koreans, in some other countries mixed marriages became characteristic of Goryeo-saram, which reached 40% by the end of the Soviet period. The total number of Russian-speaking Koreans to XXI century increased almost threefold and reached 500,000 people. Due to the large number of mixed marriages, it is difficult to accurately count the descendants of resettled Koreans.
The question of service in the Armed Forces of the USSR
The researchers pointed out that the deported Koreans could not serve in the Red Army. The army consisted mainly of those Koreans who did not undergo deportation, but there were very few of them - for example, those who at the time of deportation lived outside the Far East. Instead of serving in the army, the deportees were drafted into the Trudarmia. At the same time, in the work of D.V.Shin, B.D.Pak and V.V. Tsoi, it was written that on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War Koreans also fell out of the 170 thousand deported. The authors wrote that the Soviet Koreans were not taken to the front and they took part in the Great Patriotic War exclusively in the rear and on the labor front, and if they managed to get to the front, then these were exceptional cases, and there were only a few of them. To do this, they had to resort to various tricks: go to the front under an assumed name and change their nationality (for example, to Kazakh) or flee to the front from the Labor Army.
Rehabilitation
The actual rehabilitation of Koreans took place in 1953-1957, when all formal restrictions on rights were lifted. There was an unspoken ban on their career growth along the party line and in the army to the level of the secretary of the district committee and lieutenant colonel. However, among the Koreans, there were Heroes of the Soviet Union, in particular the KGB colonel, Kim Yevgeny Ivanovich or Min Alexander Pavlovich. However, in other areas, including public administration and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there was no noticeable discrimination. Already in the seventies, Koreans held the posts of republican ministers and union deputies. ministers, Koreans, academicians of the USSR Academy of Sciences appeared. Koreans began to leave en masse Agriculture and get higher education. In 1989, the proportion of people with higher education among Koreans was twice as high as the average for the USSR
Along with Russian and Ukrainian peasant settlers, immigration from China and Korea was noted in the Russian Far East. In the 1920s, there were 50-70 thousand Chinese here, living mainly in the south of Primorye. The Chinese diaspora was distinguished by high self-organization, showed high business activity, but mixed marriages were very rare.
By the mid-1930s, the number of immigrants from Korea ranged from 150 to 200 thousand, most of them were located in Primorye, where Koreans accounted for over 20% of the rural population, and 85% in the southern border territories. The culture of the economy of the original Korean population was fundamentally different from the Slavic peoples. Koreans, for whom East Asia is a place of development, were most adapted to the local natural and climatic conditions. Korean intensive agriculture coexisted with Russian extensive agriculture and was characterized by high yields of crops best suited to local conditions (rice, millet, beans, vegetables).
Before the Stalinist deportation of Koreans to Central Asia, they fully provided Vladivostok and other industrial centers of Primorye with vegetables and other agricultural products.
The Koreans lived especially compactly in the south of Primorye in the Posiet region at the junction of China, Korea, occupied by Japan, and Russia. Here, among the Russian Koreans at the beginning of the 20th century, there was an agitation about the creation of national autonomy. This trend was supported by Japan, which intended to take the local Korean population under its protectorate in the future. During the Russo-Japanese War, local Koreans were used as a "fifth column" in the fight against Russia. The created Japanese agents among the Koreans carried out reconnaissance and subversive work, which caused significant damage to the Russian army. This threat intensified after the formation of the puppet state of Manchukuo (1932). The Korean diaspora, vitally connected with its historical homeland, found itself split between pro-Soviet and pro-Japanese orientations.
In the multiethnic Russian Primorye, the Korean question could be played out under the flag of reuniting Koreans compactly living in the border regions with their historical homeland. To deprive the Japanese of these intentions, in 1937, 180 thousand local Koreans were deported to Central Asia under the pretext of "stopping the penetration of Japanese espionage into the Far East." Koreans were the first in the Soviet Union to undergo Stalin's deportation on a national basis. The direct initiator of the deportation was the head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far Eastern Territory, State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Genrikh Lyushkov, who on June 13, 1938, in the area of Lake Khasan, fled to the adjacent territory of Manchukuo with secret documents.
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Along with the territorial claims of China and Japan, South Korea also has views of the Russian Primorye, in the Museum of Korean Independence he visited a part of the exposition. In Seoul, local nationalists consider the former island of Noktundo (Deer) at the mouth of the Tumannaya (Tumangan) River to be Korean. This river divides Russia and North Korea... However, gradually, due to natural hydrographic processes due to the incessant deposition of sand, this island became part of the land on the Russian side. But in the Republic of Korea, they believe that "the traitors from Pyongyang gave the Russians the native Korean land." In addition, Korean historians argue that the population of the medieval kingdom of Bohai (7th - 10th centuries), which occupied the south of Primorye, was exclusively their ancestors. Koreans really lived in Bohai, but the backbone of the state was made up of the ancestors of the modern Tungus-Manchu peoples, who now live in the Russian Far East, as well as in Northeast China (Nanai, Manchus and Udege). In Primorye, Koreans migrated en masse in the 60s of the 19th century during a terrible famine.
There are more ambitious claims of South Koreans against China. In the lands of Manchuria, on the Liaodong Peninsula, at the beginning of our era, there was a powerful ancient Korean state of Goguryeo.
In South Korea, there are supporters demanding the restoration of historical justice and the return of Koreans from Central Asia to Primorye, whose ancestors were deported in 1937 at the direction of Joseph Stalin. In Primorye, Koreans must create a cultural autonomy, and then a national district. And then Seoul can play the Kosovo scenario, since a significant part of the Chinese citizens who settle in Primorye are ethnic Koreans.
South Korean companies are present in the Primorsky Territory, show an increased interest in mining, the forestry industry and create agricultural firms. Numerous Korean Protestant pastors preach to their compatriots the idea of their national superiority.
The South Korean newspaper Gyeonghyang Sinmun offers readers a map on which the territory of the future united Korea is marked in green, including the Russian Primorye, part of the northeastern Chinese provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang.
Today, according to estimates, a very influential Korean diaspora lives in the Russian Far East, numbering about 100 thousand people and maintaining extensive ties with the DPRK and the Republic of Korea.
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Koryo-saram- self-designation of ethnic Koreans in the post-Soviet space (more than 500 thousand people). These are the descendants of Koreans who originally lived or resettled in the 60s of the 19th century to the Russian Far East, mainly in Primorye. Sakhalin Koreans have a different story. Koreans were better adapted to the locals natural conditions and were congenital gardeners.
The Far Eastern Koreans deported to Uzbekistan in 1937 performed a labor feat. Established in a new location in the swampy floodplain of the Chirchik River, Korean collective farms have become the best not only in the republic, but throughout the former USSR. The phenomenon of Korean collective farms in Uzbekistan was explained not only by the dedication and hard work of the people, but by the psychology of the Korean diaspora. To survive and adapt in an alien environment, Korean settlers had to "work and study harder and better than others."
In 2005, during the state visit of the President of the Republic of Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, to Tashkent, Uzbek President Islam Karimov noted at a joint press conference that Joseph Stalin did only one good deed by resettling Koreans from Primorye to Uzbekistan. The Koreans made a significant contribution to the economic and cultural development of the republic, about 130 Uzbek Koreans were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. In terms of their income, level of development of social infrastructure, material well-being, Korean collective farms were among the best agricultural enterprises in the republic.
A whole galaxy of brilliant organizers of agricultural production has emerged among the Korean immigrants. In some Korean collective farms, more than twenty collective farmers have been awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. The history of Soviet agriculture did not know such a massive award of the honorary title.
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Chairman of the collective farm "Polar Star" Kim Pen Hwa(1905, Primorsky region — 1974, Tashkent) was twice awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1948, 1951), awarded four Orders of Lenin. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR of the 2-7th convocations. During the Civil War, he took part in the struggle against the Japanese interventionists in a partisan detachment. In 1927 he was drafted into the Red Army, in 1929 he took part in hostilities during the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway. In 1932 he graduated from the Lenin Moscow Military Infantry School. Further service he served as a company commander in the Red Army. After the deportation of Koreans from Primorye, Senior Lieutenant Hwa was arrested in 1938 as a "member of a nationalist Korean organization", but in 1939 the case was dropped for lack of corpus delicti. Hwa arrived in Uzbekistan, where his relatives were deported. In 1940 he was elected chairman of the collective farm "Polyarnaya Zvezda", headed the farm for over 34 years.
Chairman of the collective farm "Politotdel" Man Gym G. Khvan, (1919, Primorsky Territory —1997, Uzbekistan), Hero of Socialist Labor (1957), awarded three Orders of Lenin. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR of six convocations.In the conditions of a socialist planned economy, he created an economy oriented to the principles of market relations. Regular increases in wages motivated the collective farmers to work intensively and efficiently.The collective farm was visitedleaders of the Soviet state - First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N.S. Khrushchev (1961) and General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L.I. Brezhnev (1970).In 1985, Hwang was arrested in the cotton business and sentenced to imprisonment. After being acquitted, he was released in 1989.
Deportations became an integral part of the totalitarian state system of migration in the USSR. This is large-scale historical event by the beginning of the 50s, at least 6 million people were affected - about 2.5 million in the "kulak exile" and the contingents adjacent to it, as well as about 3.5 million deported in 1940-1952, mainly , representatives of "punished peoples". This measure affected 15 peoples of the USSR and more than 60 population groups belonging to different nationalities.
In 1935-1940. military considerations dictated the decisions to "cleanse" the border strip from the population living there, ethnically related to the peoples of neighboring countries. The repressions were directed against peoples with foreign ethnic roots, linked by cultural and historical ties with the bordering states. So, in 1937, the first Soviet total deportation of Koreans from the regions of the Far East took place.
The main purpose of such deportations is to prevent and prevent possible negative manifestations, the emergence of hotbeds of instability and social tension that posed a threat to state security.
The next big wave of deportations came during the war years. In total, ten peoples in the USSR were subjected to total eviction, seven of which lost their statehood.
Some deportations were due to foreign policy factors and were carried out as a preventive measure. The fundamental difference with the period of the First World War is that during the Second World War, its own citizens, whose nationality coincided with the titular nation of the enemy, were subjected to deportation.
Operations 1943-1944 were the product of internal political impulses of the authorities and were no longer of a preventive nature, but were, as it were, actions of "retribution" for acts that, in their meaning, were regarded as dangerous tendencies for the state.
At the same time, the opinion of B.V. Sokolov, based on the materials of the trial over Beria. He believes that the deportation of predominantly Turkic and Muslim peoples in 1944 from the territory of the Caucasus and Crimea was associated with the special role of these strategically important territories in the light of the coming confrontation with Turkey. After the victorious end of the Great Patriotic War, Stalin hoped to establish control over the Black Sea straits and take from Turkey parts of the territory of Armenia and Georgia, ceded to her in 1921. It can be assumed that the deportation of the North Caucasian peoples was due to the preparation of the future theater of military operations. Such an assumption requires identification additional sources, studying the complex relations between Turkey and the USSR during the war years and how they influenced the eviction of the peoples of the Caucasus and Crimea.
The deportation of peoples during the Second World War was a tool public policy not only in the USSR. Stalin's main "rival" in the deportation case was Hitler's National Socialist regime. Characteristically, the ethnic aspect also prevailed in Germany. "Ethnic crystallization" in Nazi Germany and the USSR manifested itself in different ways, but its direction was the same - to clear the territory of "unreliable population" in order to strengthen the positions of the ruling regime.
Comparison of deportation measures in the USA and the USSR shows that despite the difference in forms, a certain similarity is found. So, in order to prevent potential danger, the authorities of the USSR and the United States blamed entire peoples, and not just individual "unreliable elements." Here, the decisive factor was the ethnicity of the people, with the titular state of which the war was fought.
In Japan, the deportation policy, even against the background of the USSR and Germany, acquired an extremely ominous connotation. Its main ethnic target was Koreans. The deportation in this case pursued economic and military goals.
Forced migration, deportation are measures that are applied by the state in emergency conditions. The purpose of such resettlements is to reduce the level of conflict, the development of new lands, the solution of other economic problems at the expense of the migrants, without taking into account the human factor.
It is emphasized that the scientific assessment of the phenomenon of collaborationism should not be reduced to formal legal criteria based on the "guilty - innocent" principle. It is necessary to abandon the previous paradigm, where phenomena and facts are evaluated formally and legally and as a kind of indivisible whole, lead to a complex point of view. In fact, in each phenomenon, different components are distinguished, which should be evaluated in different ways.
One can agree with the point of view that among the collaborators were dominated by citizens who were forced to cooperate with the enemy. But there were also those who acted from the firm conviction of the need for a merciless struggle against the Stalinist regime. The main reason for this negative phenomenon should be sought in mistakes in the national policy in the North Caucasus in the pre-war years, in the political and socio-economic factors of their life under Soviet rule, in the repressions in the 1920s and 1930s.
As you know, one of the first to experience the blow of the repressive apparatus of the Stalinist totalitarian regime Koreans and Kurds.
On August 21, 1937, Resolution No. 1428-326 ss of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) "On the eviction of the Korean population from the border regions of the Far Eastern Territory" was adopted, signed by V. Molotov and I. Stalin. It provided for "in order to prevent the penetration of Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Territory" the eviction of the entire Korean population from 23 border regions of the DCK and their resettlement to the South Kazakhstan region, to the Aral Sea region, Balkhash and the Uzbek SSR. Eviction was ordered to begin immediately and complete by January 1, 1938. The decree allowed the resettled Koreans to take property, household equipment and livestock with them. It was envisaged to reimburse them for the value of the movable and immovable property and crops left behind. It said that the Koreans wishing to go abroad should not be hindered, allowing a simplified procedure for its transition. The internal affairs bodies were obliged to take measures against possible excesses and disturbances on the part of the deportees. The Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR were to immediately determine the areas and points of settling of the Koreans, outline measures to ensure their economic structure, and provide them with the necessary assistance. The border in the areas where Koreans were evicted was tightened with an additional 3,000 border troops. The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR was allowed to place border guards in premises vacated by the Koreans. The progress of the eviction was reported to Moscow in ten days by telegraph.
This is a decree that determined the fate of the Soviet community from the first to the last line. First, it provided for the eviction of Koreans only from the border regions of the DCK, while the entire Korean population of this region was evicted without exception. Secondly, Koreans who fled to Russia from Japanese colonialism became their spies en masse. Thirdly, they planned to resettle the Koreans to the South Kazakhstan region, to the regions of the Aral Sea and Balkhash, but they were resettled throughout the republic, with the exception of the border regions. Fourthly, the deadlines for resettlement were not met. Fifth, immigrants were allowed to take property, household equipment and livestock with them. The Koreans took with them only clothes, bedding and a minimum of food. Sixth, the value of movable, immovable property and crops left by the Koreans was never fully reimbursed. Seventh, it was prescribed, on the one hand, "not to obstruct the resettled Koreans to leave the country if they wish, allowing a simplified procedure for crossing the border", but, on the other hand, "to increase the number of border troops by 3 thousand people to tighten the border protection in areas from which Koreans move. " Eighth, the Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh SSR determined the permanent settlement points for Koreans only on March 3, 1938; the Council of People's Commissars of the KSSR obviously could not provide them with the necessary assistance in the economic development of new places, it simply did not have the funds for this. Ninth, the transportation of the Koreans was carried out in an unorganized manner, the border guards did not want to live in the premises vacated by the Koreans, since these were most often dilapidated dugouts and fanzas. But the measures of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR were carried out against possible excesses and unrest on the part of the Koreans in connection with the eviction, the updated lists of those to be evicted were dated the day the decree was issued.
This document gives a fairly clear answer to the question: "Why were the Koreans expelled from the Far East?" Officially, this was a preventive measure by the government of the USSR. Almost 200 thousand Koreans of the DCK were forcibly expelled en masse on the principle of collective responsibility for their ethnicity as possible supporters of a potential enemy. They were hostages of the USSR's Far Eastern policy. How it was motivated in the eyes of its own and foreign public and whether it had a basis, was noted in the previous paragraph.
Is it necessary to comment on the fact that the department of camps, labor settlements and places of detention of the NKVD Kaz. SSR. Literally three days after the publication of the decree on the resettlement of Koreans to Alma-Ata and Tashkent, Yezhov's cipher program was received, in which local NKVD workers were tasked with developing administrative measures to prevent the flight of Koreans to other areas and spray them on The Soviet Union, as well as strengthening the operational apparatus of the areas of resettlement, strengthening the agents, taking into account possible attempts by the Japanese to find ties with the Koreans in the new areas of their resettlement.
According to the plans of the NKVD of the USSR for the resettlement of Koreans, it was initially envisaged to place 6,000 families in Kazakhstan. Half of them were supposed to be engaged in fishing in the fields of the Aral Sea and Balkhash, and the other - in rice growing in the South Kazakhstan region. But these plans were constantly changing, the practice of deportation made significant adjustments to them throughout its entire course. So, at the beginning of the deportation, it turned out that only the rural areas of Kazakhstan had to be resettled 14,600 families of Koreans. It was decided to place them on the lands of liquidated, not profitable state farms in Alama-Ata, Karaganda, North Kazakhstan, Aktobe, Kustanai regions, lands of the subsidiary farm of the N-section of the NKVD near the city of Kazalinsk and add them to the existing collective farms in the areas of rice cultivation, beet growing cotton growing and grain collective farms. From the very beginning, a course was taken to separate the Korean intelligentsia from their main mass. In particular, a separate plan was drawn up for the resettlement of 685 families of Koreans - employees in twenty districts of the South Kazakhstan region, from six to one hundred families per district.
After the adoption of the fateful decree of August 21, 1937, a message about it was received on the ground. In all areas of the eviction were appointed "district resettlement", which included the secretary of the district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the chairman of the district executive committee and the chairman of the NKVD. By September 1, 1937, action plans had been developed by the district troops, which included an announcement to the population about resettlement; three days later the rise of the population for loading; two weeks were allotted for the concentration of migrants at collection points by automobile, horse-drawn and water transport.
Work on the eviction of the Korean population unfolded in the areas of the first stage on September 1, 1937. Thousands of vehicles and carts, "large ocean steamers" and the local fishing fleet were involved. According to the instructions of the regional projects, the heads of institutions and enterprises fired employees and workers of Koreans, made payments with them. Koreans serving in the Red Army, both private and command personnel, as well as students, also fired. Koreans were allowed to take clothes, bedding, food with them, based on the travel route of at least thirty days. Boiling water was provided for the displaced persons at the stations. A separate instruction was given on the procedure for transporting Korean schools, pedagogical schools, libraries and other cultural and educational institutions.
Koreans were loaded into trains, the "unreliable" were arrested, and an investigation was conducted. Analysis of the documents shows that during the period of deportation, hundreds of Koreans, mainly from among the intelligentsia, were arrested and repressed. They were arrested in the DCK, on the way in echelons, some of them were chased by cases to places of settlement. Direct physical reprisals against Koreans by the NKVD bodies continued in Kazakhstan as well. Koreans were repressed not only in the DCK, but also in other regions of the USSR, since the threads of their origin still led to the Far East. The first stage of resettlement along the Trans-Siberian Railway and Turksib from Vladivostok to Tashkent by rail and horse-drawn vehicles amounted to 9 thousand kilometers. And practically until the second stage of resettlement, that is, before settling within Kazakhstan for permanent residence, until the spring of 1938, Koreans ate and lived with what they brought with them.
There were echelons with Koreans of an unknown origin, no destination, no known composition, no echelon and serial numbers. The trains were accompanied by NKVD workers. The entire NKVD system from Vladivostok to Tashkent was involved.
At the end of September 1937, the first echelons with Koreans - immigrants began to arrive in Kazakhstan. This is how the history of Koreans in Kazakhstan began.
The fact that in those difficult years the forcibly resettled Korean people managed not only to survive, but also to preserve their potential was largely facilitated by the positive attitude of the Kazakh people, who fully experienced the full brunt of the totalitarian regime that turned them into a people with violently torn pages history, destroyed by the continuity of social experience, alienated in his own home.
The main place of unloading and temporary resettlement of Koreans in Kazakhstan was the South Kazakhstan region, that part of it, which is now the Kzyl-Orda region (according to the administrative - territorial division of that time, it was part of the South Kazakhstan region).
Kazakhstan itself has just suffered the greatest tragedy in its history of the famine of the 1930s, which claimed 2.2 million lives (out of 6 million Kazakhs). There was an acute issue of the organization of "Kazakh returnees" who returned to their homeland from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, the Middle Volga region, where they were forced to migrate, fleeing hunger.
It was against such a background that trains with thousands of exhausted migrants, in dire need of literally everything related to elementary survival, appeared here against their will. On the territory of Kazakhstan, 22 points of unloading of migrants were determined in all regions, with the exception of border ones, designed to receive 63 trains with 18.009 families of Koreans. Only through the station Alma-Ata from September 25 to October 24, 1937, 61 echelons with immigrants passed to the territory of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, of which 29 remained in Kazakhstan. Of these echelons, three initially followed no destination at all. 39 trains already on the way received a readdressing in Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Alma-Ata. Seven echelons changed their destinations twice along the route. The readdressing was carried out according to the instructions of the NKVD DVK, the chief of the border troops of the NKVD DVK, NKVD from Moscow, Alma-Ata and Tashkent. Some echelons, having arrived at their destination, were not unloaded, but received a new assignment. In Kazakhstan, they were preparing for a meeting of the migrants. Literally the day after the decree on the deportation of Koreans was published, i.e. On August 23, 1937, a meeting of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan was held in Alma-Ata, at which the first item on the agenda was the secretary of the Central Committee L. Mirzoyan acquainted those present with its contents and the first decision on Koreans in Kazakhstan was made. A special commission was created, which determined the areas and points of settling of Koreans, prepared measures for their arrangement. It was headed by the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh SSR U. Isaev.
On September 14, 1937, the Central Committee of the party was appointed an authorized SNK KSSR for the resettlement and organization of Koreans. He was the assistant to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Major of State Security Gilman. He was entrusted with all the work on the reception and temporary resettlement of immigrants. By order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, the necessary NKVD cadres were allocated to help him, and according to the instructions of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the KSSR, all orders of Gilman related to the resettlement of Koreans were mandatory for all the People's Commissariats and departments. Responsible workers were appointed at the points of unloading of displaced persons.
On September 29, 1937, at a meeting of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CP (b) K, it was decided to accommodate the arriving Koreans as follows: Guryev District - 1,500 families; Western region - 1000; North - 2000; Aktobe - 1500; South - 1500;
At this time, the issue of the placement of the bulk of Koreans in the south of Kazakhstan, in the rice-growing areas, was intensively studied, at the same time the leadership of the republic formed a belief in the optimality of that approach, although it did not coincide with the plans of the leadership of the USSR in the person of V. Chubar, who headed Union "Korean Commission". By this time, it had already been decided to locate the Korean Pedagogical Institute and the Pedagogical College, respectively, in Kyzyl-Orda and Kazalinsk. On the personal instruction of the secretary of the Central Committee L. Mirzoyan, the main task was set to "immediately find out all the possibilities for accommodating Koreans for the winter"; he removed from the agenda the question "On the points of permanent settlement of Koreans." The leadership of Kazakhstan perfectly understood all the complexities of the arrangement of almost 100 thousand migrants on the eve of winter.
Finally, on October 9, 1937, the Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh SSR adopted a resolution "On the resettlement and economic arrangement of Korean immigrants", which became the main document on the placement of Koreans in Kazakhstan at the first stage of their resettlement.
This resolution has already clearly manifested the approach of the leadership of Kazakhstan in the deployment of Koreans with their concentration in the south. In particular, this decree stated: “Resettlement of the migrants - Koreans arriving in the Kazakhstan SSR to carry out in the following districts: Alma - Ata region - 1800 families; North Kazakhstan - 2000; Karagandinskaya - 2,600 families; West Kazakhstan - 1800; Aktobe - 200; Kostanay - 200; South Kazakhstan - 7354. As you can see, it was planned to place 8154 families in the south of Kazakhstan, which is 1714 more families; than in all other areas.
A month later, on November 9, 1937, a resolution was adopted by the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Kazakhstan, according to which the authorized representative for the resettlement of Koreans, Gilman, was specifically instructed to concentrate all Koreans - rice workers in the Syr - Darya region during the winter, no later than February 1938, as well as by forces Koreans to develop the lands along the new Georgievsky Canal in the Kurdai region of the South Kazakhstan region, for which purpose the Korean collective farmers who have already arrived in the west and north of Kazakhstan. By order of Gilman, in these areas the Koreans-agrarians were removed from the passing trains.
According to the data of the registration and registration department, the department of camps, labor settlements and places of detention of the NKVD of the Kazakh SSR, on October 28, 1937, 70 echelons, 12,129 families, 58,427 people arrived in Kazakhstan in three lines; an additional 7,927 Korean families were on the way. In total, more than 90 echelons, 20,789 families, almost 100 thousand Koreans were transported to Kazakhstan instead of the planned 63 echelons, 18,009 families.
By the end of December 1937, the deportation was completed. On December 20, 1937, in Pravda, under the heading “In the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks),” it was reported “for exemplary and accurate fulfillment of the important task of the Government for the transportation of the SNK of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to announce gratitude to the head of the NKVD DVK Comrade. G.S. Lyushkov, the entire staff of the NKVD DVK and employees of the Far East Railway, who participated in this assignment. "
Further, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the People's Commissar of Railways undertook to present the most distinguished employees of their departments for awards on December 25, 1937, V. Chubar, who headed the "Korean Commission", ordered to report on the results of the resettlement of Koreans, on December 29 the reports were completed.
By the beginning of February 1938, 20,789 IDP families, consisting of 98,454 people, had arrived in Kazakhstan.
The resettlement of immigrants was initially planned in the rice-growing areas of the South Kazakhstan region and partially in the fishing areas of the Aral and Balkhash basins. With the arrival of the second and third stages of migrants, they were forced to settle in all regions of Kazakhstan.
The settlement of Koreans in Kazakhstan was as follows: Alma-Ata - 1616 families, 7851 people; South Kazakhstan - 8867 and 43181, respectively; Aktobe - 1744 and 7666; North Kazakhstan - 2299 and 9350; Karagandinskaya - 3073 and 14792; Kostanay - 720 and 3746; West Kazakhstan - 1950 and 9017.
Thus, the first stage of the resettlement ended, during which the Koreans were transported from the DCK and temporarily resettled at the unloading points. They overwintered the winter of 1937-1938. incredibly difficult, mostly in dugouts, clubs, warehouses, abandoned mosques, as well as in stables, pigsties, etc., eating (and dressing) mainly with what they brought with them. The spring of 1938 brought the second stage of resettlement, which took place inside Kazakhstan with new trains, loading and unloading, thousand-kilometer crossings, with new losses, worries, and expectations.
The beginning of the second stage of the resettlement of Koreans was laid by the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Kazakhstan No. 5 dated March 3, 1938 "On the resettlement and economic structure of the Korean migrants." Again there was a special commission for the resettlement and arrangement of 20,530 families of Koreans, headed by U. Isaev. Their next device was planned by regions; in the Alma-Ata region - 4,774 families; Kyzyl - Orda - 6476; West Kazakhstan - 500; Guryevskaya - 1322; Aktobe - 1285; Karaganda - 2255; North Kazakhstan - 1500; South Kazakhstan - 1698; Kostanay - 720.
The second stage was supposed to start from the day of the adoption of this resolution - immediately, and end by the end of March. In the second stage of resettlement, 5050 families were to be transported from 13 to 6 districts by rail at a distance of 128 km. (Aral-More - Kazalinsk) up to 3630 km. (Guryev - Karatal district). In addition, 7,085 families were transported within the districts in order to be relocated to existing collective farms; here transportations ranged from 20 to 50 km. So, at the second stage of the resettlement, it was planned to move 12135 families of Koreans out of 20269, or almost 60%.
Transportation of Koreans during the second stage, as well as in the first stage, faced a lot of problems. Her terms were disrupted.
The central authorities were informed about the progress of the second phase of resettlement every ten days. The terms of it were stretched, the arrangement of immigrants for permanent residence continued throughout the spring and summer.
The final settlement of Koreans dates back to the end of 1938. Thus, by January 1, 1939, 17870 families (73705 people) arrived in Kazakhstan.
This is how the second stage of resettlement of Koreans took place. But there was also a third stage - this is unauthorized, despite the prohibitions and restrictions, the resettlement of Koreans. They were not passive contemplators of their own destiny.
The unauthorized resettlement of Koreans became widespread in 1939 and 1940. In December 1939, the head of the resettlement department of the Council of People's Commissars of the KSSR Dontsov sent letters to the heads of the resettlement departments at the regional executive committees, which spoke about the facts of mass unauthorized departure of Koreans from the places of resettlement and set the tasks of their suppression. The unauthorized movement of Korean migrants in order to survive by the beginning of 1940 intensified, especially in the Kzyl-Orda region. This led to the fact that from February 3 to February 15, 1940, a brigade of the Central Committee of the CPC (b) worked on this issue in the region. She stated that since 1938, according to incomplete data, 33% of Koreans have left the region. Basically, they left for Uzbekistan, in the Upper, Middle and Lower Chirchik regions. The reasons for leaving were, first of all, associated with the ill-conceived settlement of the Koreans. A significant part of them were settled on lands unsuitable for agriculture due to the lack of water. Also, Korean collective farms were staffed without taking into account the professions of their members, they were simply issued with the arrival of echelons, including people far from agriculture. Finally, there is a lack of proper organization on the part of local authorities. In the spring of 1940, a similar survey was carried out by the resettlement department of the Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh SSR. The conclusions were the same, and the question of "administrative return and resettlement of the departed migrants - Koreans" was raised.
Unauthorized resettlement covered all areas of settlement of Koreans. They settled unauthorizedly, trying to survive, to save children, to unite with families and relatives scattered during the forced resettlement.
The same situation continued in 1941, until the beginning of the war.
The next people, the Kurds, were also one of the first to fall into the millstones of Stalin's repression, and paid a dear price, as did their compatriots in the countries of the Near and Middle East.
Now, according to estimates, up to 20 million Kurds live in this region, including 10 million in Turkey, 6 million in Iran, 3 million in Iraq, and 1 million in Syria. Although formally the Kurds have equal rights with representatives of the main nations, the governments of some of the listed states do not recognize them as an independent people, they are subjected to all kinds of oppression. On the territory of Russia, the Kurds appeared in early nineteenth centuries after the Russian-Persian wars. Thus, part of the lands inhabited by Kurds, according to the terms of the Gulistan Peace Treaty of 1813 and the Turkmanchay Treaty of 1828, went into the possession of Russia, and the Kurds ended up mainly in the territory of today's Azerbaijan.
On the most terrible page in the history of the Kurdish people is the Lausanne Conference and the treaty signed there on July 24, 1923, according to which the former Ottoman Kurdistan, instead of acquiring autonomy or full independence, was cut into pieces without any consultation with the Kurds, most of it was transferred to Turkey, the southern part - Iraq, and three regions - Syria. Taking into account Iranian Kurdistan, it turned out that the Kurdish land was divided into four parts. Contrary to their will, the Kurds ended up in other national states, although they were in their ethnic homeland. Only on the territory of Azerbaijan in 1923 the Kurds were able to form their autonomous republic of Kurdistan with the center in the city of Lachin, which included regions with a predominance of the Kurdish population.
The period from 1923-1936 developed well for the Kurds. A Kurdish Pedagogical College was opened in Shusha, national newspapers and books are being published. In those regions of Armenia, Georgia and Turkmenistan, where the Kurdish population lived compactly, Kurdish schools were also created, and in Yerevan - a national theater.
Now the publicity has become archival documents about these tragic pages of the Soviet Kurds. Several years after the liquidation of Red Kurdistan, undeclared repressions began against Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. Thousands of communists, Soviet and party workers, and intellectuals were repressed. Kurdish-language schools were closed, and national newspapers were no longer published. Kurdish children, left without their schools, went to Armenian, Georgian, Azerbaijani schools, but they did not study there for long - the lack of knowledge of languages affected, and therefore almost all the newcomers were expelled for academic failure. The number of illiterates became more and more, the culture that had just begun to revive was thrown back.
In Armenia, in Zangibazar (Masi), Veda (Ararat), Arashat regions, special zones of immigrants were created. Their property, houses, livestock were confiscated. The deportation began in December 1937. People were sent in boxcars under the strict control of special service units and the commandant's office. Hunger, cold, unsanitary conditions prevailing in the freight cars led to infectious diseases, and claimed the lives of hundreds of people. The survivors were distributed over 110 districts of 14 regions of the republics of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
The second wave of deportation took place during the war and post-war years. No more than 10 Kurdish families were allowed to settle in new places of settlements without the right to leave and move.
Communication between relatives was allowed with special passes. Due to the lack of knowledge of the language of the indigenous population, the difficult economic situation, Kurdish children were not able to attend schools. Therefore, illiteracy reigned among the Kurds for a long time. The settlers did not want to put up with this, they rose to defend their human rights, protested against lawlessness and murder. During the performances in 1938 in the city of Kizikia (Kyrgyzstan), many Kurds were shot, including five young people with higher education.
One way or another, the autonomy of the Kurds was destroyed. This was not the end of it. The then secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan Bagirov began to intimidate: if you do not want to be repressed, like your fellow tribesmen in Armenia and the Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, you must forget the word "Kurd" forever.
From 1940 to 1980, the Soviet Kurds lost tens of thousands of their sons and daughters, who became Azerbaijanis, Turkmens, Turks, etc. Not only in Kazakhstan, but also in Armenia and Georgia, the Kurds did not manage to avoid the impact of illegal acts of infringement of their rights and interests. For example, schools were closed, book publishing was prohibited, the Kurdish alphabet was changed several times, the Transcaucasian Kurdish Pedagogical College, the Kurdish Studies Department at Yerevan University were closed in Armenia, the country's only Kurdish State Theater was dissolved. The administrative bureaucracy used able-bodied Kurds primarily as a black labor force. As a result, over the 75 years of the existence of Soviet power, the bulk of the older generation of Kurds remained illiterate. Bitterly, one has to realize that today only a few Kurds can read and write in their own language. There is a spiritual crisis - the native language is clogged, national traditions and customs are perverted, the word "Kurd" has become offensive in the minds of the ruling nation. In her view, the Kurds are illiterate people, nomads. Therefore, many representatives of the Kurdish intelligentsia were forced to abandon their nationality, only because they could lose their place in the service, however, after Stalin's death, the national and political rights of the Kurds were restored.
Despite the brutal repression, grief and suffering, the national culture began to revive, the intelligentsia began to form. The Kurds have preserved their national spirit and continue to fight for their national rights, honor and dignity of their people.
The collapse of the former USSR gave a strong impetus to this struggle. In Azerbaijan, there is a struggle for the restoration of the Kurdistan Region, which was liquidated in the 30s, and, accordingly, for the official recognition of the Kurds in this republic.
In Georgia in recent times there is a development of the Kurdish intelligentsia and the rise of its activity in the ideological - political and cultural - educational life of the people. This, in turn, leads to the growth of national identity. Youth and cultural centers who have close contacts with Kurdish centers not only in the CIS, but also with associations and social and cultural organizations of Kurds abroad.
A newspaper is being published again in Armenia. Teaching of the Kurdish language has begun in schools. Armenia, which has become the center of culture of the Kurds of the CIS, has received the well-deserved recognition of the Kurds of the whole world.
The Kurds of Kazakhstan and Central Asia, despite all the suffering, despite the oppression and repression, have preserved their language, customs and mores, national culture. Currently, over 25 thousand Kurds live in Kazakhstan. In recent years, they have been able to freely develop their national culture, create associations, publish newspapers and magazines.
At present, the Kurdy magazine and the Kurdistan newspaper are published in Kazakhstan, there are cultural centers, there are art ensembles, and the number of national personnel is increasing.
The need for a comprehensive and in-depth study of the topic of deportation and rehabilitation of "punished peoples" is also determined by its own scientific relevance. In recent years, the main drawback of research of the previous time has been clearly revealed, which was dictated by the fact that for many years the topic was under the control of the bodies of ideological censorship. Academic research in this area was not encouraged, and the works that appeared covered the problem only within strictly defined frameworks, and going beyond them was considered a distortion of historical truth that did not contribute to the strengthening of friendship and internationalist attitudes between peoples. The lack of knowledge on the problem began to be filled only in the second half of the 1980s. The ability to publish historical works and documents played an important role in shaping contemporary theme deportation. The accumulated factual material is not only to be generalized, but also evaluated using modern criteria and approaches. It is important not only to reveal the tragic past and construct the image of the "punished people", but also to show from a scientific point of view that negative phenomena in history were combined with the policy of support and national development of the repressed peoples in the post-deportation period.
Since the mid-1960s. the process of rehabilitation of the "punished peoples" was almost curtailed. Moreover, measures were taken to obliterate Stalin's crimes. But by the end of the 20th century, the communist regime had been crushed in Russia. The course towards democratic transformations in the country, taken at the turn of the 80s and 90s, gave a second wind to the process of rehabilitation of the repressed peoples. At the September (1989) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, it was noted the need to decisively condemn the facts of arbitrariness and the eviction of peoples from their places of residence during the Great Patriotic War. The analysis of the crimes committed against them and making them public prompted the USSR Armed Forces to adopt on November 14, 1989, the Declaration "On the recognition of illegal and criminal acts of repression against the peoples subjected to forced resettlement, and on ensuring their rights." A fair assessment of the arbitrariness in relation to millions of citizens and entire nations was given in the resolution of the Second Congress of People's Deputies of Russia "On the Victims of Political Repression in the RSFSR" (1990).
An important milestone was the Law "On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples" adopted on April 26, 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, which outlines the outlines of the full restoration of the rights of repressed peoples, which means recognition and implementation of their rights to restore territorial integrity that existed before the violent redrawing of borders, as well as compensation the repressed peoples and citizens of the damage caused during deportation. The Law on Rehabilitation proclaims the political rehabilitation of "disgraced" peoples. He created a legal basis for the conceptual solution of the problems of rehabilitation and national development of repressed peoples on a state basis. The federal and local authorities and the public have constantly shown interest in the implementation of rehabilitation measures.
Eighty years ago, the first ethnic deportation in Soviet history was completed. All Koreans living there - more than 172 thousand people - were forcibly evicted from the Far East. On October 25, 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov reported on a successful resettlement operation.
At the beginning of the 20th century in Russian Empire there were tens of thousands of ethnic Koreans
Suspicious appearance
Vladimir Petrovich Kim's parents were deported - Peter Ivanovich Kim and Lydia Nikolaevna Tsai. They got married in 1937, the year of deportation, both were then 18 years old. The newlyweds lived in the Posiet region. They learned about the eviction in their village a few days after the village was surrounded by NKVD soldiers.
Vladimir Petrovich recalls the stories of his parents: “They promised mountains of gold. They promised money for the cattle, for the harvest. In the end, nothing was given. They were allowed to take only food with them for a while and that was all. And of things - the most necessary. "
Judging by the documents of the Council of People's Commissars declassified in our time, money was allocated for compensation for property and many other purposes related to resettlement, but apparently they did not reach the Koreans.
The fate of the Soviet Koreans was decided on June 28, 1937 in the Kremlin. On this day, the head of the UNKVD of the Azov-Black Sea Territory (modern Krasnodar Territory, Rostov Region and Adygea), State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov was summoned to Stalin. During a 15-minute conversation, Lyushkov learned that in a month he would be appointed head of the NKVD for the Far East, and received instructions to deport the Koreans.
Top secret decree No. 1428-326 of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) "On the eviction of the Korean population from the border regions of the Far Eastern Territory" was signed by V. Molotov and I. Stalin on August 21, 1937.
The decree stated that the resettlement was necessary "in order to prevent the penetration of Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Territory." The logic was simple: in the summer of 1937, the Japanese launched an invasion of China, Korea was part of the Japanese Empire, and who can distinguish a Korean from a Japanese spy in appearance?
Top secret decree on the deportation of Koreans from the border regions of the USSR - the first deportation on ethnic grounds in Soviet history
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
The deportation began in early September.
Before the start of the eviction, communication between the villages inhabited by Koreans was interrupted. Koreans were prohibited from buying train tickets. In fact, ethnic Koreans in the Far East have lost their ability to travel. Then the active phase of the operation began.
Everything was done quickly. The Korean village was surrounded by the military, the residents were informed about the resettlement, and "explanatory work" was carried out with them. Passports were taken from Koreans (who had them, about three quarters of Koreans did not have Soviet citizenship), hunting and other firearms were confiscated. They were promised monetary compensation for the abandoned housing and property, and in a day or two they were transported to the railway station to be loaded onto trains.
Vissarion Georgievich Em also had parents deported - Em Cher Su and Kim Ai Sun, who lived in the Posyetsky district. Em Cher Soo crossed the border in 1920. He learned Russian, joined the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, graduated from a nautical school. Kim Ai Sun was born in Posiet. They got married in 1930. At the time of the deportation, the husband was 35 years old, the wife - 23. They had two children, one in 1937 was two years old, the second was a baby.
Vissarion Em after the meeting of the Balashinsky city court on the recognition of his son repressed parents
Photo: Kristina Kormilitsyna, Kommersant
Kim Ai-sung recalled: “They just came to us and said: 'Collect the most necessary things, dive into the trains, you need to move.' Echelons stood on the railway tracks, and people who lived far from the railway were brought to the place of loading into the trains, some by car and some by foot. From the things they took only what was necessary - they left everything. "
Human carriages
The train consisted of an average of 50 human cars, one "class" (passenger), one kitchen, one ambulance, five or six covered cargo and two open platforms. What is the difference between a human carriage and a passenger carriage? The fact that the passenger is adapted to transport people. And the human one, called in everyday life a calf one, is a freight car for the transport of goods and livestock, hastily equipped with two-tier bunks and a stove-stove. There were no excesses like heating, a washbasin or a toilet in the human carriages. “The family made do with buckets,” says Vladimir Petrovich Kim.
Echelons were equipped at the station Pervaya Rechka. The workers worked tirelessly, the foremost workers fulfilled the norm by 500-700%. It took the Stakhanovites four hours to complete one train. That is, no more than five minutes per carriage! In any case, this is how they reported to Stalin and Yezhov in secret telegrams. Of course, it was not without arrests here, both among the railway workers and among the Chekists.
The NKVD tightly controlled the situation, making it impossible for the Koreans to escape. Echelons and other vehicles used for transportation were guarded, agents of the NKVD reported on the mood among the settlers.
The newspaper of Soviet Koreans "Senbon" ("Avangard") was published in the Far East since 1923, and after the deportation of Koreans began to be published in Kyzylorda (Kazakhstan) under the name "Lenin kichi" ("Lenin's banner")
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
Kim Ai-sung later told the children, “They were transported in a cattle car. It was terribly crowded, stuffy, dark. The doors were sometimes opened at deserted stations. People came up with the question - are there any dead? Corpses were taken outside and stored along the way. The flaps were closed, and the train went further west. "
The journey to the unloading stations in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan took 30-40 days. Echelons with exiled people gave way to all other trains passing along the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Stops were only at night. While parked, an NKVD soldier stood at each carriage, but Koreans were sometimes allowed to quickly run to fetch water or boiling water.
In the declassified documents of the Council of People's Commissars concerning the resettlement of Koreans, the item of expenditure "on food, cultural and medical services, 250 rubles per family" looks especially cynical. It is not clear whether throwing a corpse out of a frozen carriage at a halt was a cultural or medical service?
During resettlement, people lost sight of each other, relatives sometimes ended up in different echelons and in different places.
The exact number of those who died during the resettlement is unknown, presumably several hundred people died on the way from cold and hunger.
Memorial on the site of the former Korean settlement in Vladivostok
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
The housing left over after the eviction of the Koreans was transferred to military units relocated to the Far East and railway workers.
Spies all around
At the end of September 1937, another top secret resolution of the Council of People's Commissars No. 1647-377 "On the eviction of all Koreans without exception from the territory of the Far Eastern Territory" was adopted. It meant that the resettlement should also capture the non-border areas, but on the basis of this decree, Koreans were arrested and deported, living in all cities of the central part of Russia.
On October 25, 1937, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov reported: “The eviction of Koreans from the DCK is over. In total, 124 echelons of Koreans were evicted, consisting of 36 442 families - 171 781 people. Remained in the DCK, Kamchatka, Okhotsk, special settlers, up to 700 people in total, who will be taken out by a combined train by November 1, 1937. Koreans are distributed in the Uzbek SSR - 16,272 families, 76,525 people; in the Kazakh SSR - 20,170 families, 95,256 people. 76 trains arrived and were unloaded on the ground, 48 trains are on the way. The NKPS coped with the transportation quite satisfactorily, the echelons, with few exceptions, went and are on schedule. "
The Korean theater from Vladivostok shared the fate of all Koreans in 1937 - it moved to Kyzylorda
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
The "minor exception" refers to the train wreck that happened on September 12 on the stretch between Dormidontovka and Khaka stations on the Trans-Siberian Railway. 21 people died, more than fifty were injured.
The State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Lyushkov actively took up the investigation of this incident. And already three days later, by secret telegram, he reported to Moscow about the revealed conspiracy. The driver and conductor of the crashed train confessed to being Japanese spies and named many other Japanese spies who were also arrested.
The NKVD version looked like this. The Japanese consul in Khabarovsk Shimada (of course, a spy) instructed his agents to embitter the Koreans and agitate against the eviction from the Far East, and for this to organize a series of train crashes in order to delay the removal of people.
The Japanese spy consul allegedly claimed that
many Japanese agents from Koreans have already been deployed to the Korean regions to prepare for the uprising, and several thousand more will be deployed additionally under the guise of fishermen on scows and boats.
The head of the frontier detachment, a Trotskyist, will open a section of the border for the Japanese. The uprising will begin with the provocative killing of a Korean by one of the border guards during the eviction. After that, the rebels must turn to Japanese Korea for help. There, the Japanese militarists have already prepared weapons and detachments of Korean "volunteers" who will immediately cross the border.
For many Russian Koreans, the Civil War in the Far East was also a war against the Japanese colonialists.
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
In general, the train crash made it possible for the NKVD to deal not only with the resettlement of Koreans, but also with the more usual thing - arrests and executions. From among the displaced persons, 2,500 people became victims of repression.
The press fanned spy mania.
"Subversive work of Japanese intelligence"
In Soviet waters in the Pacific, Japanese naval officers spied under the guise of workers in Japanese fisheries. There are also known attempts to transfer Japanese intelligence officers to the USSR under the guise of Koreans and Chinese.
The only spy
"Relatives"
(By telegram from sob.corr)
It rained all day. By evening, the rain intensified. Kim Iksen, chairman of the border Korean collective farm "Borba", returned home chilled.
After changing his clothes, Kim sat down at the table. At that moment, the steps of a man were heard outside the window. Thinking that his own collective farmer was coming, the chairman hospitably opened the door. He saw a stranger.
I am soaked to the skin. Let me spend the night.
Well, please, there is enough room. Do you want to eat?
The stranger readily agreed. Kim, observing how greedily the guest swallowed rice porridge and chunks of meat, concluded that he had come to him from afar.
Do you keep your way far?
No, relatives live nearby.
After talking with the guest, Kim said that he needed to go to the board of the collective farm. However, instead of reigning, Kim ran to the outpost and there told about the guest who had come to him.
The head of the outpost immediately dispatched a detachment of border guards. At the outpost, an unknown person confessed that he was coming from abroad.
It is bad for us to live there, there is nothing to eat. I made my way here to find my relatives ...
We found out the real face of the Korean. It was a spy deployed by the Japanese into our territory.
The Japanese carefully study the border population and, having learned that some of the inhabitants of Manchuria have relatives on our side, they recruit them as spies and send them to the territory of the USSR.
Recently, Soviet border guards detained a whole family of Manchukuo residents who had crossed the border. They complained about the unbearable life in Manchukuo, asked to be sent to one of the collective farms, where, according to them, relatives live with them. It turned out that the "guests" were Japanese intelligence agents.
Once, after a stormy night, the border guards were returning from their squads. The sniffer dog ran into the trail of the intruder and led the border guards. The trail led to the village cemetery, where the intruder was detained.
Why did you come to Soviet territory?
My relatives are buried in this cemetery, so I came to pray.
The "Prayer" turned out to be a major spy.
In the whole story of the search for Japanese spies in the Far East, it is an irrefutable fact that only one person worked for Japanese intelligence. This is the organizer of the deportation of Koreans, the de facto ruler of the Far East in 1937, the head of the regional NKVD, State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov.
The next year, 1938, Lyushkov was summoned by telegram to Moscow. Not wanting to be shot, he, taking advantage of his official position, crossed the border and surrendered to the Japanese. He worked for Japanese intelligence until 1945, telling Japanese newspapers the truth about the Gulag, repression and Stalin's show trials. Prepared two plans to assassinate Stalin. After the defeat of Japan in the war, he was killed as unnecessary.
From the memoirs of Kim Ai Sun: “We could not understand where we were brought. They said it was Astrakhan. They began to distribute people in groups. A dozen Korean families were placed either in a stable, or in a cowshed without gates and glass. It was very cold. There was no light, no water. Products ran out while still in the train. And upon arrival at the place, no one was going to give out. We had to look for food ourselves, so as not to starve. "
The family of Em Cher Soo and Kim Ai Sung were included in a small number of Koreans who were officially considered resettled in Kazakhstan, but in fact sent to the Astrakhan district of the Stalingrad region. 520 Korean families (2871 people) were "transferred" to the Astrakhan enterprises of the Gosrybtrest. “Transferred” is the official term.
The locals reacted to Koreans unfriendly and aggressively. But what about - Japanese spies, enemies. So it was written in the newspapers.
Kim Ai-sung recalled how the locals repeatedly attacked the stables in which the Koreans lived, with the words “what are you eating?” They turned over the cauldrons with food prepared for all families, swore obscenities.
Later, the Koreans were relocated to more suitable housing. Men worked on fishing vessels, women were not involved in the work, but were at home with children. Life was very difficult. Em and Kim have lost their nursing baby.
Having experience in navigation, Em Cher Su became the captain of a fishing seiner. In addition, he was marked by letters of commendation and commendations from the Red Army in the combat training of gunners. Em Cher Su piloted a target towing vessel during coastal artillery practice firing in the Caspian Sea. For some reason, no one was surprised by the fact that the combat power of the army is helped to strengthen the person, from the official point of view, considered a potential Japanese spy.
In December 1941, all Koreans in the Astrakhan region were resettled for the second time, this time to Kazakhstan.
Kim Ai-sung recalled: “The Enkavadists surrounded everyone and again drove everyone into freight trains. They were allowed to take only the most necessary things, household utensils. After a long journey in closed wagons, I was dropped off at a station in Kazakhstan. A small group, which included our family, was put on a sled and taken to no one knows where under escort. It was winter, a strong wind was blowing, it was very cold. The NKVDists themselves were in sheepskin coats and winter hats. Brought to a deserted place southeast of Balkhash. Not a single settlement was found nearby. Everyone was dropped off. The guards themselves drove off without explaining anything. Leaving people in the middle of the desert and night. Apparently, they unloaded so that everyone would die.
I had to save myself. They began to dig holes and cover them with trunks and branches of local shrubs and saxaul. So dugouts appeared. There were few products. The bread ran out. They went to the local Kazakhs with cuts of fabric, satin-silk clothes to exchange for bread, flour and salt. There was no meat. Men went to wolves. They lasted three months and in the spring gathered for a council on what to do next. We made a decision: each family follows its own chosen direction. "
The Em family came to the village of Kuigan in the Balkhash district of the Almaty region. The chosen place somewhat reminded them of the Far East. The lake looked like the sea, the hills like mountains. On their own, Em built a house of adobe bricks (clay and straw), equipped a heated floor and a stove.
“It was hard in the new place,” says Vladimir Petrovich Kim. “But the local population received us well, especially the Uzbeks. Father's brothers worked in agriculture, were engaged in rice cultivation. My father finished accounting courses in Kokand, worked as a financial inspector, and went to the head of the financial department of the district. "
What for?
Historians offer several answers to the question of why the deportation of Koreans was necessary. The simplest and most traditional explanation: Comrade Stalin reacted this way to Japan's aggressive policy in Soviet borders... "The eviction of Koreans is an overdue matter" (J. V. Stalin)
To exclude the possibility of Japanese espionage, he ordered the resettlement of Koreans, especially since it is difficult for a Russian to distinguish a Korean from a Japanese.
Even under Nicholas II, the Russian authorities preferred to decide for themselves where Koreans should live.
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
Doctor of Historical Sciences German Nikolaevich Kim in his works puts forward the thesis that the deportation of 1937 was the logical conclusion of the entire policy of the autocracy and the Soviet government in the Far East. Plans for the resettlement of Koreans arose under the tsarist regime, especially on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, and under Lenin and under Stalin.
Already in 1927, the first directives of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks appeared on the resettlement of Koreans from the border regions to the remote territories of the Khabarovsk Territory. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) discussed the issue of resettlement of Far Eastern Koreans in 1930 and 1932.
Another theory: the eviction of the Koreans was a friendly step towards Japan, Stalin's cunning diplomatic move in the pre-war period. This theory is contradicted by the reaction of the Japanese Foreign Ministry to the news of the expulsion of Koreans from the Far East. In the newspaper Pravda on November 28, 1937, a short message was published: “In the People's Commissariat. The Japanese embassy protested to the NKID over the resettlement of Koreans living in the Far Eastern Territory. In a note, the NKID firmly rejected this protest, pointing out that it cannot recognize the Japanese embassy's right to intervene on the issue of Koreans who are Soviet citizens (TASS).
In fact, most of the deported Koreans were not Soviet citizens and did not have passports. It is also surprising that this message was generally published in a newspaper that was read by the entire USSR, because the newspapers did not write anything about the deportation of Koreans.
War and Peace
The exiled and defeated Soviet Koreans remained patriots of the Soviet Union even in exile. During the Great Patriotic War, Koreans were not drafted into the army: Korea was part of Japan, an enemy country. Koreans went to the front, reporting false information about themselves, for example, of a different nationality.
On the this moment historians have identified about 400 Koreans who participated in the Great Patriotic War. Among them - Alexander Pavlovich Min, Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).
In 1946, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan received an order from Moscow: to register all Koreans-communists, candidates for party members, Komsomol members who have at least completed secondary education and speak Korean or Chinese... Of the 2 thousand people included in these lists, about 500 were sent on a special mission on the instructions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to the northern part of Korea under Soviet control.
Ten San Din is the only Soviet soldier of Korean origin who fought for the liberation of Korea from Japanese invaders in 1945. 1952-1955 - First Deputy Minister of Culture and Propaganda of the DPRK
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
These people took an active part in the creation of the DPRK, and then in the Korean War.
Among the Soviet Koreans were holders of the highest military award "Hero of the DPRK", generals of the North Korean army.
After the Korean War, the overwhelming majority of Soviet Koreans returned to the USSR. Of those who remained in North Korea, many were persecuted, and the rest faithfully served the regime of Kim Il Sung.
Those who returned to the Soviet Union were silent about their special missions.
In Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Soviet Koreans achieved great success in labor, primarily in rice growing. For high achievements in agriculture, many were awarded orders and medals of the USSR. More than 130 of them were awarded the title of Hero of Labor, and the chairman of the collective farm "Polar Star" Kim Byung Hwa was awarded this title twice.
After World War II, and especially after Stalin's death, changes for the better began to take place in the life of Soviet Koreans. From August 1946 to March 1947, they had the opportunity to obtain Soviet passports. In 1956, the special settlement regime was canceled, and Koreans and other deported peoples gained freedom of movement and all other rights.
The deportation of Koreans contributed to the great success of rice growing in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and the collapse of this branch of agriculture in the Far East.
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
Only on April 1, 1993, by a resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, were the acts adopted against Soviet Koreans illegal.
Moscow, 1953. “Participant of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, Hero of the Socialist. Komsomol member Yekaterina Kim tells Ashgabat schoolgirls Valeria Maslova, Nina Eltanskaya, Lilia Ryzheva about the successes of her unit. Photo from the magazine "Ogonyok"
Photo: V. Smetanin / Photo archive of the Ogonyok magazine, Kommersant
"We are waiting for change": the beginning of the mass exodus of ethnic Koreans from Russia
Under Nikita Khrushchev, the life of Soviet Koreans began to change for the better
Photo: Photo courtesy of Victor An, Kommersant
Next to the Ansan University metro station in Seoul, there used to be only one Russian cafe - Smak. Now there are four of them, in the eatery "Polyana" you can buy beer, pilaf and pasties. Andrey and Dima often come here after work. Andrey is from Vladivostok, and Dima is from Lipetsk. They both do not speak Korean, although they came here on a visa for overseas Koreans. It is issued within the framework of a special state program of the Republic of Korea, thanks to which Russia may very soon become one less nation on the multinational map.
Peter Ivanovich Kim with his wife Lydia Nikolaevna Tsai a year after the cancellation of the special settlement regime for Koreans visited Moscow, at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (now - All-Union Exhibition Center)
Photo: Photo from the archive of the Kim family
In the suburb of Seoul, Ansan, live about 12 thousand people, for whom the native language is Russian. There are more than 50 thousand of them on the territory of the Republic of Korea, and their number has been growing rapidly over the past two years.
Russian and Korean - brothers for a century and a half
The common border between Korea and Russia with a length of 14 km appeared after the Aigun Agreement of 1858 and the Beijing Treaty of 1860. And almost immediately the Koreans began to cross this border. The first official certificate is the report of the head of the border post, Lieutenant Vasily Rezanov, dated November 30, 1863. The lieutenant reported to the military governor of the Primorsk region that 20 Korean families had settled on the banks of the Tizinkhe River. They have built six fanz (straw houses) and are asking the Russian authorities to allocate at least five soldiers to defend against the Chinese Hunghuz bandits. The Koreans also reported on the readiness of their relatives to move to Russia if they were provided with security. This is how the village of Tizinkhe appeared, which was soon renamed into the Rezanovo settlement.
Famine drove the Koreans to the Russian Empire. The years of crop failures and severe floods in the north of Korea were marked by the largest number of displaced persons. In 1867, 500 people crossed the border, in November-December 1869 - 4500. Koreans settled mainly in the regions bordering with Korea, in the Suchansk valley, favorable for agriculture.
Korean authorities fought emigration. Those caught trying to cross the border were tortured and executed, border guards shot at the fugitives with bows, so that the banks of the border river Tumen-Ula were strewn with corpses.
The migration flow grew from year to year, but especially intensified after Korea first became a protectorate (1905) and then a colony of Japan (1910). The Japanese authorities, unlike the authorities of independent Korea, not only did not forbid, but even encouraged the migration of Koreans to Russia. TO late XIX century, about 23 thousand Koreans lived in Primorye, and by the 1920s, about 100 thousand. Only a quarter of them had Soviet citizenship.
During the Civil War in the Far East, Russian Koreans took an active part in the partisan movement, fighting the Japanese invaders. Some Korean guerrilla units numbered 300-500 men each. During the period of collectivization, Koreans joined collective farms more actively than the Russian population of the region.
In the 1930s, a Korean library, a Korean theater of working youth and the Far Eastern Regional Korean theater, and the Korean Pedagogical Institute existed in Vladivostok. In Primorye, there were more than 300 Korean schools and two Korean teacher training colleges. True, about half of the children from Korean families did not attend school due to the poverty of the Korean peasantry.
Companies that help with the registration of immigration documents are being opened all over Russia; in Seoul, there are many firms engaged in the employment of Russian speakers in factories and farms; more and more Russian channels dedicated to life and work in Korea are opening on Youtube. It is obvious that emigration to Korea is becoming a mass phenomenon.
According to the Statistics Service of the Republic of Korea,
the number of Russian citizens who visited the country increased from 2014 to 2016 almost five times - from 3207 to 15,025 people. And this growth is not associated with the influx of tourists: most of them come on special visas for overseas Koreans.
In 2014, there were 1185 such people, and in 2016 there were already 7474 - an increase of 400%. In 2016, the Korean consulates in Russia issued an additional 14,669 such visas.
There are many signs in Russian in the Seoul suburb of Ansan
Photo: Petr Silaev, Kommersant
If the growth of emigration continues to double annually, then in a few years all 150,000 Russian Koreans will leave our country.
The explosion of emigration is associated with the evolution of legislation in Korea. Back in 1999, the country passed a law on overseas Koreans, which set the framework for the future repatriation of compatriots living abroad.
Then this law applied to a rather narrow circle of people, for example, Koreans, who were forcibly transported by the Japanese to Sakhalin in the 1930s – 1940s. After Sakhalin became part of the USSR in 1945, most of these people could not return to their homeland and became citizens of the Union. By 1999, they were all about 60-70 years old and they all had the opportunity to repatriate. But not their children and grandchildren.
The ensuing mass relocation of pensioners was strongly felt in Sakhalin region and Primorye, but in the whole country much less.
At the same time, the relatives of the elderly were given the opportunity to visit them as tourists. This created a constant stream of Sakhalin youth who went to Seoul to work. They joined the masses of the Far East who were already in Korea as illegal workers.
The image of immigrants from the former USSR also changed.
If earlier they were viewed as representatives of a hostile political camp, now they are seen as another resource of cheap labor, and Soviet Koreans are perceived as compatriots.
Legislation continued to change, opening up legal employment opportunities for overseas Koreans. This process involved several stages and lasted more than ten years, but by 2014 most Koreans of the former USSR were able to live and work legally in Korea.
At the moment, the spectrum of laws related to overseas Koreans resembles a mass repatriation program, although the concept itself is not found there.
"Stupid money"
Sergei Tsoi runs one of the many companies that employ our compatriots at enterprises in Korea. He himself moved here and got a job as a simple worker eight years ago.
“I believe that everyone will move, the entire working population, 90 percent for sure,” he says. “Officially, our company has been operating for more than three and a half years. Every month more and more people apply. If by 2014 about a thousand people passed through the company, then from that moment to today there are already somewhere about five thousand. "
“I myself am a believer,” Sergey continues (like many Soviet Koreans, he is a member of a small Protestant church). “Many pastors here see this as an Exodus.”
Sergey Tsoi is from Uzbekistan, and most of his company's clients move to Korea from Central Asian countries. However, since the beginning of the recession and the fall in the ruble exchange rate in 2014, it has seen a constant increase in the number of people wishing to move from Russia, not only from the Far East, but also from the central regions.
The same trend is noted by Melis Malabaev, a manager of a large company from Vladivostok that sends people to work in Korea. In recent years, the company has been rapidly expanding, moving from east to west: now offices operate in Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk.
“In Vladivostok, all this has been operating since 1996: Vladivostok has been traveling to Korea to work for more than 20 years,” says Melis. “For Siberia, this is all new, there are people who say: is it possible to work in Korea? Why then do Koreans come to work here? That is, they do not distinguish North Korea from South Korea. If we take Siberia, the Urals and the Center, this flow is just beginning there ”.
Repatriates arriving in the country are involved in the life of the diaspora in different ways
According to him, in recent years, 200 families of ethnic Koreans have moved from Rostov-on-Don to Korea, for the entire western part of Russia, according to his estimates, their number has exceeded 10 thousand people.
Sergei Tsoi does not create illusions about the reasons for the explosion of interest in Korea: "To be honest, this is stupid money."
The average salary of an unskilled worker without knowledge of the language in a Korean factory ranges from $ 70 to $ 120 per day - a good amount not only for Central Asia and Primorye, but also for Moscow.
A firm from Vladivostok, where Melis Malabaev works as a manager, is engaged in sending to work in Korea
Photo: Photo from personal archive
“The purchasing power of money here is one and a half times higher than in Moscow,” adds Sergei.
The second argument is debatable: Seoul is in an alarming sixth place in the Economist's cost of living ranking, while Moscow is in 98th. However, the famous Big Mac index of the same magazine shows that food in South Korea, although more expensive than in Russia, is much cheaper than in Western Europe. South Korea ranks 32nd in the World Bank's GDP per capita purchasing power parity rating, 22 points higher than Russia.
One way or another, Sergei confidently says that out of the thousands of people who have passed through his company, he can remember only four who, having worked at the plant, decided never to return to Korea.
"In five years, all Koreans will be here."
An important stage in the development of legislation on overseas Koreans was the inclusion in their number of those who were born and raised in Central Asia. Unlike the Sakhalin Koreans, their ancestors settled on the territory of the Russian Empire voluntarily and long before the twists and turns of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904. Exactly 80 years ago, in accordance with the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks No. 1428-326, the overwhelming majority of them were deported to Uzbekistan. Today, it is their descendants who make up the majority of the Korean population of Russia, and they also make up the majority of Russian speakers in Korea.
A large-scale event was timed to coincide with the deportation date, September 12, in the Seoul suburb of Ansan. About 2 thousand people gathered in one of the city's parks. Among the guests of honor are several deputies, city leaders and even the speaker of the National Assembly of Korea, Chon Se Kyun.
“I am interested in consolidating the status of Koreyin (the self-name of the Koreans of the Diaspora - Kommersant) and I will support bills in parliament aimed at ensuring your decent life,” said the speaker of the National Assembly of Korea.
This is a law that allows fourth-generation foreign Koreans - great-grandchildren of those born before 1945 - to move to Korea. There are many of the participants in the rally: children have the right to live with their parents until they come of age, and after 20 they find themselves in a gray zone. The new law allows them not to leave the country.
Vova is 14 years old, he is from Tver, but has been living with his parents in Korea for three years. He goes to a regular school in Ansan, there are four more Russian-speaking students in his class. "And in mine - only one besides me!" - adds his friend. “Lucky,” Vova remarks judiciously. Faster language you will learn. "
In mid-September, Ansan hosted a holiday timed to coincide with the start of the deportation of Koreans from Russia
Photo: Kim Shin
Although the commemorative event was organized by the city hall, about 80% of the festival goers are Russian speakers. All around you can hear only Russian speech, dumplings and samsa are sold, an amateur ensemble in Uzbek national costumes performs, "A Million Scarlet Roses" sounds from the stage.
Sergey and his friends have been working at the plant for a long time, he says that the work is difficult, 30% of people are not ready for such a rhythm. “But the salary draws people in,” he adds philosophically. “Another is the national issue.
Korean National Assembly Speaker Jung Se Kyun urges returnees to support legislation that allows fourth-generation overseas Koreans to move to the country
Photo: Evgeniya Karmanova, Kommersant
All the same, they treat us normally here. We are narrow-eyed in Moscow, dog-eaters in Uzbekistan, and here we are Russians, but they understand that we are their blood. "
Sergey believes that emigration is massive and irreversible process: “In five years, all Koreans will be here. When classmates meet, more gathers here than there. "
The assumption that at some point all 500,000 Koreans from the CIS may end up in Korea, which is obvious to the emigrants themselves, has puzzled Korean officials. Lee Ji Young, chairman of labor issues at the Left Liberal Justice Party, one of the organizers of the Ansan event, is cautious:
“Personally, I am completely in favor, but I have to ask the opinion of the people. There is no antipathy towards Korein in society, but there is towards labor migrants in general. In Korea, there are now many workers from different countries, and there is resentment that they are willing to work for minimal wages. Because of them, the total wages in the market are falling. However, the Korean government must accept compatriots. "
This position is typical for representatives of the Korean authorities. “We never invite them here,” says Han Ji Won, deputy head of the public relations department of the Korean Overseas Foundation. It is a government agency located in a 12-story government building next to the Gangnam Business Center in Seoul. His work is entirely dedicated to the design and execution of programs related to ethnic Koreans who live overseas.
“Our legislation is not aimed at repatriation, but at supporting our compatriots, including supporting them in the countries where they now live,” says Ms. Khan. “Our attitude towards them is very emotional. We think we have some historical responsibility for them. The original goal was not to import labor, but suddenly they started coming here with these visas and started working. And they have children, they all don't speak Korean. We want to make this process smoother. ”
“I don’t think that all Koreans from the CIS want to return to Korea,” Ms. Khan continues. “But if they want, there is no reason to prevent them. We have a lot of foreign workers, and they (overseas Koreans - “Kommersant”) will probably be the best for us. With them we share the same history, culture. This is my personal opinion, but I'm sure many will agree with it: the return of Koreans will have a positive effect on the birth rate in Korea.
Now this is one of the main problems - there are a lot of elderly people and few young people, people give birth to little. So far, there has been no negative reaction to the move of Korein, because from school our children are taught that foreign compatriots are one nation with us. From the point of view of social integration, it will be easier for us with them. "
Indeed, although many immigrants have moved to Korea, they do not create any specific problems for society. Sergei Tsoi notes that most of the detentions of our compatriots are associated with excessive consumption of local alcohol - neither the mafia nor the racketeering gave rise to their arrival. Cases of fraud among intermediaries and employers, according to Yevgenia Ri, a lawyer at the municipal center for legal advice for migrants in Seoul, are frequent, but they are not widespread: the process of moving and finding a job is quite straightforward and does not give much room for deception.
The agency commission for a device to an enterprise can be fixed, about $ 100, or floating - about 10% of income. In any case, the workers themselves do not consider it to be predatory.
It is not known whether all Russian Koreans will be willing to relocate due to the opportunities that have opened up, but it is clear that many will remain. Yuri Tsoi, a deputy of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk city assembly, recently became famous throughout the country thanks to an inventive election campaign for a seat in the Sakhalin Regional Duma (it was held under the slogan "Tsoi is alive!") And won, almost twice ahead of his rival in the district.
“I have been to Korea many times, I have relatives there,” Yuri Gvansuevich shares by phone. “Our generation, of course, observes culture and traditions, but at the same time we already have a Russian mentality. We are already Russians anyway. I still want to go back and try to build a professional career here. Become a lawyer, doctor, cook. I don’t think that the parents themselves are happy that the child has trained as a lawyer and flew to Korea to work at a construction site. ”
Whatever crises befell our country, Yuri Gvansuevich, the owner of a chain of car tire stores, does not intend to leave Russia: “I would consider going to Moscow all the same. I am not considering moving to Korea. "
KOREANS ARE VICTIMS OF POLITICAL REPRESSION IN THE USSR. 1934-1938 YY.
BOOK SIX
Authors of the project and compilers:
KU-DEGAI Svetlana, KIM Vladimir Dmitrievich
Place of publication: Moscow
Vozvrashchenie Publishing House
Year of publication: 2005
Circulation: 500 copies.
The publication was carried out with the support of Valentin Petrovich Pak,
Chairman of the Public Fund "Unity" of the Primorsky Territory
Shin Vladimir Nikolaevich.
By the release of the sixth book "Koreans - Victims of Political Repression in the USSR, 1934-1938."
Ku-Degay Svetlana.
Foreword
Martyrology
Photos from archival investigation files
Fragments from the archive files of Kim Grigory Timofeevich, Kim Sofya Sergeevna, Pak Ten Suk, Kim Pavel Kak-Seyvich, Chen Min (Se Cho)
Zheng Ying-Su.
"Remember this day, my grandson In-Su"
Kim Vladimir Dmitrievich.
Afterword
Documents from the 1930s. about the deportation of Koreans
List of abbreviations
Sources and Literature
Foreword
Book six "Koreans - Victims of Political Repression in the USSR, 1934-1938" includes the names of those repressed in the republics of Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
For a long time, when collecting material on the regions of the former USSR, Uzbekistan remained a blank spot. In the Moscow Memorial I learned the address of the Museum of the History of Political Repressions and the Shahidlar Khotirasi Foundation, recently created in Tashkent.
The chairman of the fund, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Naim Fotikhovich Karimov, at my request for information on the repressions in Uzbekistan, gave me the phone number of Vladimir Dmitrievich Kim, in whose card file there were 369 names and surnames of repressed Koreans in the Republic of Uzbekistan.
So it became possible to combine the lists for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and issue a separate book about repressed Koreans in the republics of Central Asia.
Of course, not all names are listed in the sixth book, so the search must continue. How much this is possible will depend on many circumstances. For Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, we have only data on arrests and, at best, data on the execution of sentences and rehabilitation.
Kim Vladimir Dmitrievich was born on September 24, 1933 in the city of Vladivostok, Primorsky Territory Russian Federation... In 1937, during the forced eviction of the Korean population to the republics of Central Asia, his parents and close relatives were killed. He was brought up in orphanages. In 1952 he was drafted into the ranks of the Soviet Army. He served on the ships of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. After graduating from the law faculty of Tashkent State University, he worked as a history teacher, school director. Since 1980 - a lawyer of the Tashkent regional collegium of advocates and head of legal advice.
Member of the Writers' Union of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Doctor of Law, Full Member of the International Academy of Sciences.
Has received awards, including the Badge of Honor of the President of the Republic of Korea.
For more than twenty years he has been studying the history of political repression in the USSR.
The books were published: "Tumangan - border river" (1994), "Echelon-58" (1995), "Truth - half a century later" (1999). They were translated into Korean and published in Seoul. Preparing for the publication of the book "Echelon-58 ... is gone forever", "Blood-watered Tumangan".
KU-DEGAI Svetlana
Afterword
The previous five books include lists of victims of political repression in the regions of the former Soviet Union, mainly in the Russian Federation; this book includes lists of those who were politically repressed at their place of arrival in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other republics of Central Asia.
On the basis of the secret Decree No. 1428-326 dated August 21, 1937, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) "On the eviction of the Korean population from the border regions of the Far Eastern Territory", the largest number of Koreans were evicted to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
In 1936, 204 thousand Koreans lived in the Far Eastern Territory. By the beginning of the mass eviction, 2,500 people had been arrested, mainly party workers, soldiers from privates to command personnel, teachers, doctors and heads of collective farms, state farms, institutions and organizations.
Upon arrival in Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the NKVD authorities reported to the Center: 172,597 people were evicted, of which 76,525 were to Uzbekistan. The question arises - where are the other 28,903 people?
Neither archival materials, nor statistical reports, nor the NKVD bodies, both locally and in the highest echelons of power, will give an exact answer to this question. There was no accounting, and the punitive authorities did not need it. One can only assume what became of these people.
First, the continued local repression upon arrival.
Secondly, the death of people along the way (in freight cars intended for the transport of livestock and in an unsanitary condition) due to the lack of an elementary medical care, food.
Thirdly, massive diseases on the ground, previously not observed in the Far East, such as malaria, intestinal, as well as a sharp change in climate due to a change in place of residence.
Fourth, difficult living conditions (the first winter, the settlers mainly lived in dugouts), lack of livelihood (for one reason or another, they did not accept work).
All of the above factors tragically affected the fate of 28,903 people - death or arrest. Almost half a century later, the Korean population reached 410,000 by mid-1985, i.e. the increase in the population for 50 years amounted to 206 thousand people, approximately equal to the number before the eviction.
The absence of any official registration or registration of evicted persons, except for those arrested, is confirmed by the following fact, unfortunately, I convey the literal content of the letter I received from the State Archives of the Office of Archives and Documentation of the Atyraus (former Guryev) region No. 4-9 / 27 dated 05.04.2004 .: “On your request of February 25, 2004, we inform you that when viewing the documents of the archival fund of the Executive Committee of the Guryev Regional Council n / a / f. 855 in the list of Koreans-immigrants who lived in Guryev on 01.11.1938, number 189 is Kim Chuksin (according to the document), place of work - Oblstroytrest, position - sawmaker, address - st. Morskaya, 56, family composition - 8 people. Base: f. 855, op. 1, d.40, l. twenty".
To my request to name these eight people by their surnames, including to indicate whether I am, Vladimir Kim, they gave me an explanation that they could not answer due to the fact that the surname, name, year of birth of family members were not given, only these chapters were indicated families. This shows what was the attitude towards human destinies, people were considered without exception, like cattle.
Numerous materials have been published about the deportation of the Korean population from the Far Eastern Territory in the cold autumn of 1937, there are different points of view. Some researchers believe that this was necessary for the development of desert lands and reed tugai, rice cultivation, others believe that this historical prerequisite was caused by the need for the establishment of a dictatorship at the top of the Kremlin, headed by I.V. Stalin. The dictator of the empire and its center have always considered Central Asia and Kazakhstan a place of exile for the unreliable. Adhering to this hypothesis, the totalitarian government resettled other "guilty" small peoples to these regions. Koreans from the Far Eastern region became the first, followed by the Germans of the Volga region, Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, Meskhetian Turks from the Caucasus, Crimean Tatars. I believe that none of the above concepts are suitable on this issue. We must proceed directly - from the anti-constitutional, Stalinist-Molotov Decree "On the eviction of the Korean population from the border regions of the Far Eastern Territory" of August 21, 1937 and Memorandum No. 516 addressed to the NKVD to the 111th rank KGB Commissar Lyushkov, which clearly states - in order to prevent penetration Japanese espionage in the Far Eastern Territory to carry out the following activities:
Evict the entire Korean population (first of all, the border regions are listed, and then the entire Far Eastern Territory, item 2). To begin the eviction immediately and finish by January 1, 1938, while cynically advising the authorities not to obstruct the desire of the resettled Koreans to travel abroad, allowing a simplified border crossing procedure, and carefully oblige (paragraph 11) to increase the number of border troops by 3 thousand. people in order to tighten the protection of borders in areas from which Koreans are resettled.
On the basis of this formidable document, signed by the dictator Stalin and his henchman V. Molotov, as well as his chief executor N. Yezhov on August 24, 1937, an order is issued, and directives are given to Lyushkov's henchman on its immediate execution.
Consider what this humane act was - a simplified border crossing. According to the 1935 Law on the Border Troops of the USSR, the latter were given great powers - in a 22-kilometer strip, border guards could stop or detain every suspicious person, subject him to a document check and search, and in case of a border violation, arrest. The Border Guard also had the right to use weapons with the only condition that bullets did not fall on the territory of a foreign state.
Taking into account the borders of Manchuria with Korea, where there were about 1 million troops, and the attitude of the Japanese and the NKVD bodies of the region, which included the border troops, to the Korean population, one can imagine what consequences those wishing to cross the border could have under the above Resolution.
As for the suppression of the penetration of Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Territory, indeed, the military-political situation in the 30s worsened. In the West, in Germany, Hitler came to power in 1933, nurturing a plan to dominate the world. In the East, the young predator is imperialist Japan, which was not satisfied with the island position and which, in turn, nurtured a plan of domination over the entire Asian continent. Without declaring war on China and the USSR, these plans could not come true. Having conquered Manchuria, Japan planned to seize Mongolia and Primorye, to establish its rule as far as the Urals.
Knowing the predatory plan of imperialist Japan, the top leadership of the USSR was preparing to strengthen eastern border USSR with Mongolia, where Japanese troops concentrated more than 1 million soldiers of the Kwantung Army. The latter more and more often provoked a conflict on the Far Eastern borders of the USSR and the Mongolian People's Republic. The Soviet Union did everything possible to localize these conflicts, without leading to hostilities with Japan. To avoid war, the Soviet Union on January 4, 1933 proposed the conclusion of a non-aggression pact. However, Japan abstained for a long time and only in 1935 gave a negative answer. Japan's provocative actions continued. In 1935 alone, 80 border incidents were recorded; in 1936, the Soviet border guard detained 137 Japanese agents.
The Soviet government, having information about the preparation and attack of Japan on the Soviet Union with the initial capture of Mongolia, entered into an agreement with the Mongolian People's Republic on November 27, 1934. The fighting provoked by Japan on the Mongolian-Manchu border in February 1936 posed a serious threat to the outbreak of war between Japan and Mongolia, followed by Japan's seizure of the Primorsky Territory and occupation up to Baikal. March 1, 1936 I.V. Stalin, during a conversation with Roy Howard, Chairman of the American newspaper association Scrix-Howard Newspapers, said: "If Japan decides to attack the Mongolian People's Republic, encroaching on its independence, we will have to help the Mongolian People's Republic."
This statement temporarily cooled Japan, which did not dare to start a war against Mongolia and the USSR.
From the testimony of the former chief of staff of the Kwantung Army Itagaki at the Tokyo trial on October 16, 1946 about the event in the areas of Lake Hassan in 1938 and the Khalkhin Gol River in 1939: “If you look at the map of East Asia, it will be clear at first glance that the external Mongolia occupies an important position from the point of view of the influence of Japan and Manchuria and is a very important area covering the Siberian Railway - the main line connecting the Soviet Far East with the European part of the USSR. Consequently, if Outer Mongolia is annexed to Japan and Manchuria, then the security of the Soviet East will be dealt a severe blow. If necessary, it will be possible to oust the influence of the USSR from the Far East almost without a fight. Therefore, the army plans to spread the influence of Japan and Manchuria to outer Mongolia by all means at its disposal. "
The Japanese prime minister, retired general Tanaka Giichi, drew up a famous memorandum, which was addressed to the emperor: “The capture of Manchuria and its use as a staging area for aggression would allow the strike forces of the Japanese army to strike at any Far Eastern region. If successful, it would be possible to cut the Amur and Ussuri railways and capture Primorye ".
“By the end of 1941, a grouping of Japanese troops, numbering over 700 thousand people, was concentrated near the Far Eastern borders of the USSR, and by January 1942 the strength of the Kwantung Army reached 1 million 100 thousand people. By the beginning of World War II, 39 divisions were forced to keep in the Far East and Transbaikalia, the total number of Soviet troops in this region was 1 million 343 thousand people. "
It was in such conditions that the country's top leadership took security measures at the Far Eastern border. What kind of development of the virgin lands of Uzbekistan and the desert steppe of Kazakhstan for agricultural production could we talk about? Any investigative operational work to identify foreign Japanese agents was not carried out, the patriotic feelings of the Korean population, loyalty to the Soviet Union for shelter in the difficult years of the struggle against the Japanese colonialists who found themselves in the Russian Primorye and with arms in their hands defended Soviet power, who believed in false promises of the command and the Soviet Government to liberate Korea from imperialist Japan after the liberation of Primorye from Japanese imperialists and White Guards. As you know, in the Far Eastern Territory, only according to archival data, there were 47 partisan detachments.
In Primorye, there was the Korean Socialist Party led by Lee Dong Hwi. In the Russian Primorye, the birth of the Korean Provisional Government was announced - the Korean People's Assembly, headed by such prominent patriots as Lee Dong Hwi, Ahn Chung Geun, Hon Bom Do, Ryo Un Hyun and many others. They fought for the liberation of Korea, and hundreds of thousands died to free their homeland from Japanese colonial oppression.
Dozens of years will pass, the last living witnesses of the 1937 tragedy will leave. It is bitter to hear from individuals that it was a long time ago; some eyewitnesses of this tragedy consider it almost a blessing for the Korean population.
We must live and work, being confident that such a tragic story will not repeat itself, I can say these words as a consolation to people who have experienced this tragic forced resettlement. "
In another issue of the same newspaper on April 29 of the same year, an article was published "In constant search", which says: "Forcibly lifted from their homes, Koreans were traveling in freight trains, not knowing where they were going and why they should move."
For this publication, pensioner Li Nikolay wrote a letter to the editorial office of the Lenin Kichi newspaper, where he expresses his point of view: “The word“ violent ”was incorrectly used in these two articles. It turns out that the Koreans really did not know where they were being resettled and for what, they were simply subjected to repression. I think this is absolutely wrong. In my opinion, the authors did not understand the situation in the country in those years, the reasons that caused the resettlement, and groundlessly criticize the actions of the government. In this regard, I would like to say a few words.
When issues of national importance are being addressed, it is not necessary to ask everyone about their desire to relocate. There is nothing wrong with the fact that many did not know where and why they were being resettled. But, as far as I know, representatives of the NKVD carried out explanatory work indicating the address of resettlement, in particular, to grow rice in Kazakhstan.
Relocating an entire people, even in the interests of the state, is not such a simple matter. Imagine how much money and millions of rubles must be spent to send people thousands of kilometers away by sea, by rail. And the authors write why the immigrants were transported not on passenger trains, but on freight trains. How much time and money is needed to relocate 180 thousand people in passenger cars?
I believe that the authors present their arguments only in order to blame all the actions of the 37th year. In my opinion, the resettlement of Koreans from the Far East was the right political act, and in this regard, I would like to state my position on this issue.
Resettlement was a necessary and correct policy. And this was not a forced resettlement.
I have been living in the Karatal district of the Taldykurgan region for 27 years. And I know the history of this region well. Now in our state farm "Far East" people of different nationalities live as a friendly family. The state farm has a three-story school, a two-story nursery, a Palace of Culture, a department store and other buildings. If we had not come here then, then all this would not have been with us.
Nikolay Li, pensioner, Karatal district, Taldykurgan region. "
Another example. In July 2003, I was invited to a meeting of the assets of the cultural autonomy of the Primorsky Territory in Ussuriysk. Along with other issues, they discussed the book by Nikolai Chen "Children of their people", which tells about the Koreans of the seaside. When discussing the problem of the deportation of the Korean nation, one businessman, 35-40 years old (I do not give my last name for obvious reasons), replied: “The problem of deportation is like a sore throat for me. How much can you write about it. " Silence reigned in the hall. Nobody answered him. The meeting continued.
A young, apparently, successful businessman cannot understand their ancestors who returned to their native places in a different capacity, in a different geopolitical world, in a different status. He cannot understand this - he is welcome here, enjoys great prestige, during the period of a rapidly developing market economy, he has large capital, does not recognize nationality, and lives in the current realities. It’s not his fault. Born in the 60s and 70s of the 20th century, he escaped the national tragedy of his people. For him it was a long time ago, as for us the history of the ancient world studied at school.
The state policy of spy mania in relation to the Korean people continued to persecute even in the places of deportation to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The overwhelming majority of the persecuted were illiterate; they worked as collective farmers, watering workers, bookkeepers, builders, etc. But the black wheel of repression continued to devour innocent victims. Their names are published in this publication. According to my information, this is not all. The search for the repressed continues. Families of the outstanding sons of the Korean people, in particular the first secretary of the Posyet district committee of the party, delegate to the 17th Congress of the CPSU (b) Kim Afanasy Arsenievich, were evicted to the Uzbek SSR, Tashkent region, Nizhnechirchik district, the collective farm named after I. Engels. His wife Yugai Ekaterina Nikolaevna worked as a teacher at a local school. Each time, turning to the highest bodies of the NKVD of the USSR, the Supreme Court and other instances, she received a stamped answer on the official letterhead: "Your husband is in a remote camp without the right to correspond with his family." Without waiting for news of her husband's fate, she died in the city of Evpatoria, Crimean region in 1971.
Another prominent figure, Kim Mikhail Mikhailovich, head of the political department of the state farm named after Sun Yat Sen, a delegate to the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, was also arrested, and his family was deported to a deep Kazakh village, located 250 km from the city of Aktyubinsk.
Families of the outstanding sons of the Korean people, by the will of fate, escaped the second wheel of repression in the places of eviction. The wife of Kim Mikhail Mikhailovich Kim Vera Gavrilovna worked as a teacher, died on March 3, 1992, and was buried in Semipalatinsk.
All trials of innocent people were ordered. The main customer is the tyrant, the Kremlin despot Stalin. The rest were executors, later they also suffered the fate of the repressed, with which they were delayed a little so that they could complete the order to the end.
In my opinion, the scenario of repressions against the Korean population, the party, military and economic leadership of the DCK have an analogy with the actions of the German special services in 1938.
After the appointment of Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov as the head of the NKVD Directorate of the DCK, in a short period all the top party economic leaders of the region and the command staff of the Red Banner Army and the UGB DCK were destroyed and beheaded.
Fascist Germany fabricated allegedly documentary information about the "conspiracy of the military" in the USSR, headed by M.N. Tukhachevsky against I. Stalin. This top-secret document through the President of Czechoslovakia E. Benes in May 1937 was transferred to the Kremlin by I.V. Stalin. Subsequently, he played a fatal role in the fate of the top commanding staff of the Red Army on the eve of World War II.
The history of the secret services of powerful countries of the world does not know of such a precedent, when a high-ranking secret service official with tremendous powers, in a short period could betray his Motherland, go to the service of the enemy and cooperate with the top leadership of the Japanese army. Perhaps, if someday the secret archive of the General Staff of the Japanese army and special services is made public, then a gap will appear.
Speaking about the betrayal of Lyushkov and its consequences that influenced the fate of the Korean people in the tragic 1937, I would like to dwell on the following. On the subject of the 1937 deportation of the Korean population from the DCK, in many publications of scientific research literature, as well as in periodicals, we meet the spelling of resettlement and eviction. It is correct to consider the eviction. The White Paper on deportation repeatedly emphasizes "the historical creation of a totalitarian regime", repeating the words eviction, evict.
In accordance with the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, adopted at the II session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and enacted on January 1, 1927, evictions in accordance with Art. 20 is a criminal punishment, according to paragraph "g" of the same article, eviction is removal from the RSFSR or a separate locality with or without compulsory settlement in other localities, or with the prohibition of living in certain localities or without such a prohibition.
Further, in accordance with Art. 36 of this Criminal Code of the RSFSR, in the disposition of this article, removal from the boundaries of a given locality with compulsory settlement in other localities can be applied by a court only in cases of conviction for crimes under Art. 58-2 - 58-14 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.
Consequently, the entire Korean nation was accused under the above articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code. Consider only Art. 58-2 - Armed uprising or invasion of the Soviet territory by armed bands for counterrevolutionary purposes, seizure of power in the center or on the ground for the same purposes and, in particular, with the aim of forcibly tearing away any part of its territory from the USSR and a separate Union republic or to terminate the treaties concluded by the USSR with foreign states entail - the highest measure of social protection - the shooting or declaration of the enemy of workers with confiscation of property and deprivation of the citizenship of the Union republic and thereby the citizenship of the USSR and expulsion from the USSR forever, with the assumption that extenuating circumstances, demotion to imprisonment for a term of at least three years, with confiscation of all or part of the property / July 6, 1927 / SU No. 49, art. 330 II.
As for the word resettlement, it is the movement within the country to settlements in order to populate areas for the development of natural resources. Resettlement is carried out in the manner of public recruitment or conscription, migrants leave with families, individual teams, collective farms, state farms, they are provided with benefits, paid for travel passes, issued guarantees, and for a certain time are exempted from taxes.
In pre-revolutionary times from central regions Russia was resettled to the Primorsky Territory for the development of the Far East. Initially, they moved by sea from Odessa through the Suez Canal to Vladivostok. It took 40-50 days to get there, they were given a loan, travel expenses, they were exempted from land rent for three to five years, i.e. the state encouraged voluntary resettlement. Therefore, for the Koreans in the tragic 1937, there was definitely a forced eviction. The policy of genocide, I think, needs no comment.
Thanks to the publication of the series of books "Koreans - Victims of Political Repression", it was possible to perpetuate the memory of the best sons and daughters of the Korean people who became victims of political repression.
The history of your people should be known not only by achievements in the field of literature and art, science and technology, outstanding personalities, but also by tragic pages. The Korean people went through a period of mourning in the history of Soviet Koreans in the 1930s and 1940s.
This truth should be known today, tomorrow, always. And the series of books "Koreans - Victims of Political Repression", published and those that will be published, will become an eternal monument to those who prematurely, innocently departed into another world, will serve as a reminder to current and future generations of tragic fate long-suffering Korean people in the 30-40s of the last century.
Vladimir KIM,
Doctor of Law,
member of the Union of Writers of the Republic of Uzbekistan
The Criminal Code of the RSFSR, revised in 1926. - S. 27-28.
