Deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union
Deportation of the Koreans in the Soviet Union | |
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Part of forced settlements in the Soviet Union | |
Perpetrators | NKVD |
Motive | "Frontier cleansing",[5] Russification[6] |
Part of a series on |
Forced population transfer in the Soviet Union |
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Policies |
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Peoples |
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Operations |
WWII POW labor |
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Massive labor force transfers |
The deportation of Koreans in the Soviet Union (
After Nikita Khrushchev became the new Soviet Premier in 1953 and undertook a process of de-Stalinization, he condemned Stalin's ethnic deportations, but did not mention Soviet Koreans among these exiled nationalities. The exiled Koreans remained living in Central Asia, integrating into the Kazakh and Uzbek society, but the new generations gradually lost their culture and language.
This marked the precedent of the first Soviet ethnic deportation of an entire nationality,[7] which was later repeated during the population transfer in the Soviet Union during and after World War II when millions of people belonging to other ethnic groups were resettled. Modern historians and scholars view this deportation as an example of a racist policy in the USSR[8][9][10] and ethnic cleansing, common of Stalinism, as well as a crime against humanity.
Background
Emigration from the
On 22 November 1922, the
Due to lingering sentiments from the
Between 1928 and 1932,
Resolution No. 1428-326cc: Planning the forced relocation
On 17 July 1937, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union issued a resolution declaring all frontiers "special defense zones", and several ethnic minorities in those border areas were considered threats to Soviet security, including Germans, Poles and Koreans.[21] Soviet newspaper Pravda accused Koreans of being agents of Japan, while the Soviet government closed the borders and initiated a "frontier zone cleansing".[22]
On 21 August 1937, the
The Council of People's Commissars and CC of the VCP (b) hereby order: To prevent the penetration of Japanese espionage to the Far East region undertake the following acts:
- deport all Korean population from the border regions of the far east... and relocate it to the south—Kazakhstan region, areas near Aral Sea, Uzbek SSR
- deportation will begin immediately and will finish by January 1, 1938
- allow Koreans subject to relocation to take movable property, livestock
- compensate the cost of abandoned movable and real property and crops
- increase the frontier troops by three thousand soldiers to secure the border in the Korean relocation region
The official justification for resolution 1428-326cc was that it had been planned with the aim to "prevent the infiltration of Japanese spies into the Far East", without trying to determine how to distinguish those who were spies from those who were loyal to the state,
Deportation
Even though the decree was issued in August, the Soviet officials delayed its implementation for 20 days in order to wait for the Koreans to complete the harvest.[27] On 1 September 1937, the first group consisting out of 11,807 Koreans were deported. Koreans had to leave their movable property behind and receive "exchange receipts", but these were rushed and filled out in a way that they were not considered binding legal documents. The Soviet authorities charged the deported Koreans 5 roubles for each day of their journey. Those Koreans who did not resist the resettlement were awarded with 370 roubles.[28] The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, would go from house to house, knock on the doors, and inform the people inside that they must gather all their belongings, personal documents, and all food they can find at home in less than half an hour and follow them. They were not given prior notice where they were being deported to.[29]
By the end of September, 74,500 Koreans were evicted from Spassk, Posyet,
A correspondence sent by the NKVD official
In total, 171,781 persons were deported.
In 1940, a further number of Koreans were resettled, this time from the
Entire districts in the Far Eastern Region were left empty. Red Army officials obtained the best buildings left behind. Even though the Soviet government planned to settle 17,100 families in their place, only 3,700 families moved there by 1939.[38]
Experience in exile
Arrival and distribution in kolkhozes
We arrived at the railroad station on October 31. There was no shed, and we have stayed with small children for 5–6 days in the cold open air. We speak about anti-human attitude towards settlers. They still do not have a permanent home. The local authorities have no intention of dealing with Korean settlers.
A Korean man recalling his deportation experiences.[40]
The deportees were allowed to take livestock with them and received some compensation (on average 6,000 roubles per family) for property left behind.[24] Upon arrival at their destination, some deportees were sent to barracks under a 24/7 supervision of armed guards.[29] The Soviet government was often negligent towards this process of resettlement. In one instance, 4,000 Koreans arrived by train to Kostanay on 31 December 1937. Due to the winter temperatures, they spent almost a week inside the passenger car "before there was any sign of activity from local authorities".[22] The people were dispersed in whatever buildings were at their disposal, including abandoned hospitals, prisons and warehouses.[41]
By October 1938, 18,649 Korean households formed their own 59 kolkhozes while 3,945 joined the 205 already established kolkhozes in these areas. Some sent letters to the chairman of the kolkhozes, warning about starvation[42] or a lack of fresh water.[43] They also faced shortage of medicine and even employment.[31] Many survived thanks to the kindness of Kazakh or Uzbek locals who shared food with them or gave them shelter, even though they themselves had limited amounts.[32]
The settlers in collective farms were assigned with production of rice, vegetables, fishing and cotton.[31] The Soviet government failed to prepare the terrain for the influx of so many resettled people, with some areas lacking building materials for construction of new houses or schools.[43] In the Tashkent area, of the 4,151 planned two-flat houses for the deportees, only 1,800 were completed by the end of 1938, forcing many to find improvised accommodation in barracks, earthhouses and other places. Additional problems were high taxes imposed on Koreans and the looting of the material intended for the construction of their houses.[43] Some deportees lived in houses made out of straw and mud.[29]
Death toll
Many died of hunger, sickness and exposure during the first years in Central Asia. Typhus[44] and malaria[29] were also the causes of fatalities. Estimates based on population statistics suggest that the total number of deported Koreans who died in exile is between 16,500[1] to 28,200[2] at a minimum, and up to 40,000[3] and 50,000 people,[4] a mortality rate ranging from 10%[1] for the lower estimates, and up to 16.3%[26] to 25% for the high estimates.[45]
Integration
The NKVD and Council of People's Commissars could not agree upon the status of the deported Koreans. In formal sense, they were not regarded as special settlers, nor were they considered exiled since the reason for their resettlement was not repression.
Aftermath
While I was living in Uzbekistan, I knew I would never be truly accepted there. People would always ask: 'Why are you here?'.
An Uzbek Korean who moved to South Korea, 2001[47]
This forced transfer marked the precedent of Stalin's first ethnic deportation of an entire nationality,[7] which would become a pattern during and after World War II, when dozens of other nationalities were uprooted from their homes,[48] amounting to 3,332,589 persons who were deported in the Soviet Union during that time.[49] Even though the earlier de-kulakization deportations were justified as a fight against the rich peasants who were declared "class enemies", the deportation of the Koreans contradicted this Soviet policy, since they were from every class, and most of them were poor peasants from the rural areas.[26]
Upon hearing about the resettlement, the Japanese officials lodged a complaint through their embassy in Moscow in November 1937, claiming that these Koreans were Japanese citizens, by extension of Korea as part of the Empire of Japan, and that the Soviets are not allowed to mistreat them. The Soviet officials rejected their complaint, claiming the Koreans as Soviet citizens.[33]
After Stalin's death in 1953, the new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev started a process of de-Stalinization, reversing many of Stalin's policies.[50] In his secret speech in 1956, Khrushchev condemned the ethnic deportations. However, he did not mention the deported Koreans.[44] In 1957 and 1958, the Koreans started to petition the Soviet authorities, demanding full rehabilitation.[48] It was not until Yuri Andropov's speech in October 1982 during his ascent to the Party General Secretary that Soviet Koreans were mentioned as one of the nationalities which were living without equal rights.[44]
For the Koreans who were deported, the consequences of the deportation included the loss of their ability as well as the loss of their right to return to the Far East; the loss of all knowledge of their native language and the loss of all knowledge of their cultural traditions.[37] According to the 1970 Soviet Census, between 64% and 74% of Soviet Koreans spoke Korean as their first language, but by the early 2000s, this percentage had gone down to only 10%.[51]
On 14 November 1989, the
In the 2000s, post-Soviet Koreans began to lose their cultural cohesion, because the members of the new generations of them did not speak Korean anymore, and 40% of their marriages were mixed. Around the same time, young Koreans travelled to the Russian Far East, exploring the possibility of migrating back to that region and turning it into an autonomous Korean area, but the Russian authorities and the local population did not support their efforts. Ultimately, they abandoned that idea.[56]
Significant Korean institutions from across the Soviet Union congregated in Kazakhstan, including the long-running Korean-language newspaper
Some ethnic Koreans went on to become significant figures or leaders in the Soviet Union.
According to the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2013, 176,411 Koreans lived in the Russian Federation, 173,832 Koreans lived in Uzbekistan, and 105,483 Koreans lived in Kazakhstan.[59]
Modern analysis
Russian historian
Kazakhstani Korean scholar
Historiography
Modern historians and scholars consider this deportation an example of a racist policy which existed in the USSR and they also consider it an act of ethnic cleansing.[8][65][10] Nonetheless, the dominant view among historians of Russia and the USSR was and remains that of Harvard's Terry Martin and his theory of "Soviet xenophobia." This theory is based on the belief that the Soviet Union ethnically cleansed the border peoples of the USSR from 1937 to 1951 (including the peoples of the Caucasus and the peoples of the Crimea) in order to remove Soviet nationalities whose political allegiances were allegedly suspect or inimical to Soviet socialism. In this view, the USSR did not practice direct negative ethnic animus or discrimination ("In neither case did the Soviet state itself conceive of these deportations as ethnic.").[66] Political ideology of all Soviet peoples was the primary consideration.[67] Martin stated that the various deportations of the Soviet border peoples were simply the "culmination of a gradual shift from predominantly class-based terror" which began during collectivization (1932–33) to "national/ethnic" based terror (1937).[68] Accordingly, Martin also claimed that the deportations of the nationalities were "ideological, not ethnic. They were spurred by an ideological hatred and a suspicion of foreign capitalist governments, not by national hatred of non-Russians."[69] His theory entitled "Soviet xenophobia" paints the USSR and the Stalinist regime as having practiced and carried out in politics, education and Soviet society relatively pure socialism and Marxist practices. This view has been supported by several of the major historians of the USSR, those in Russian and even Korean studies. Alyssa Park, in her archival work, found very little evidence that Koreans had proven or were able to prove their loyalties beyond a shadow of a doubt, thus 'necessitating' deportation from the border areas.[70]
In contrast, the views of J. Otto Pohl and Jon K. Chang affirm the belief that the Soviet Union, its officials and everyday citizens produced and carried over (from the Tsarist era)
"Primordialism" is simply another way of saying ethnic chauvinism or racism because the said "primordial" peoples or ethnic groups are seen as possessing "permanent" traits and characteristics, which they pass on from one generation to the next. Chang and Martin both believe that the Stalinist regime took a turn towards primordializing nationality in the 1930s.[75][76] After the "primordialist turn" by the Stalinist regime in the mid-1930s, the Soviet Greeks, Finns, Poles, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, Crimean Tatars and other deported peoples were all seen as being loyal to their "titular" nations (or they were seen as being loyal to non-Soviet polities) because in the 1930s, the Soviet state considered nationality (ethnicity) and political loyalty (ideology) primordial equivalents.[75] Thus, it was not a surprise when the regime resorted to "deportation."
In Martin's view, the Soviet regime was not deporting the various diaspora peoples because of their nationality. Rather, nationality (ethnicity or phenotype) served as a referent or a signifier for the political ideology of the deported peoples.[67][77] Amir Weiner's argument is similar to Martin's argument, substituting "territorial identity" for "xenophobia."[78][79] The "Soviet xenophobia" argument also does not hold up semantically. Xenophobia is the fear of invasion or loss of territory and influence to foreigners by natives. The "Russians" and other Eastern Slavs are coming into the territory of the natives (the deported peoples) who were simply Soviet national minorities. They were not foreign elements. The Russian empire was not the "native" state, polity or government in the Russian Far East, the Caucasus and many other regions of the deported peoples.[79] Koguryo followed by Parhae/Balhae/Bohai were the first states of the Russian Far East.[80][81] John J. Stephan called the "erasure" of Chinese and Korean history (state-formation, cultural contributions, peoples) to the region by the USSR and Russia the intentional "genesis of a 'blank spot.'"[82]
All of the Stalinist orders for the "total deportation" of the thirteen nationalities (from 1937 to 1951) list each of the peoples by ethnicity as well as by a charge of treason. Soviet law required that one's guilt or innocence (for treason) should be determined individually and it should also be determined in a court of law prior to sentencing (per the 1936 Constitution). Finally, on the other end of the "primordial" spectrum, the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) were inherently seen as being more loyal and more representative of the Soviet people.[83] According to Chang, this is a deviation from socialism and Marxist–Leninism.[84]
Relationship with contemporary South Korea
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, several Koreans in Central Asia travelled to South Korea to visit their distant relatives, but most of them declined to permanently move to South Korea, citing cultural differences, and there was never a major movement for the repatriation of Soviet Koreans.[85]
Missionaries from South Korea have traveled to Central Asia and Russia to teach the Korean language for free at schools and universities which are located there.
See also
- Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush
- Deportation of the Crimean Tatars
- Deportation of the Kalmyks
- Deportation of the Karachays
- Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks
- Internment of German Americans
- Internment of Italian Americans
- Internment of Japanese Americans
- Internment of Japanese Canadians
- Mass operations of the NKVD
- Human rights in the Soviet Union
- Political repression in the Soviet Union
- Volga Germans#Soviet deportation
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External links
- German Kim (2004), Deportation of 1937 as product of Russian and Soviet national policy
- KOKAISL, Petr. Koreans in Central Asia–a different Korean nation. Asian Ethnicity, 2018, 19.4: 428–452. Online
- Victoria Kim (14 June 2016). "Lost and Found in Uzbekistan: The Korean Story, Part 1". The Diplomat. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
- Депортация on YouTube– A 1997 Russian-language documentary about the deportation
- '고려말'로 듣는 소련시절 고려인 강제이주 이야기 Ep.1 [문화] on YouTube– an interview (in Korean) with a non-Korean Russian who was orphaned and adopted by a Koryo-saram family before the deportation. She is fluent in Koryo-mar. She was then forcefully moved alongside the Koryo-saram to Central Asia.