Deportation of Koreans in The Soviet Union - Background

Background

Korean immigrants first appeared in the Russian Far East in the 1850s and early 1860s. By the 1890s they had received the right to register as citizens of the Russian Empire, under the terms of a Russo-Korean treaty that determined their citizenship status at that time. Korean migrants who had moved to Russia referred to themselves as the Koryo Saram. As more Korean immigrants arrived in the Russian Far East, the Korean minority became one of the largest border minorities in the Soviet Union, facing in the 1920s and the 1930s the Japanese-occupied Korea on the other side. This minority had been gradually building up since the second half of the 19th century, as poor Korean peasants migrated across the border in search for land and livelihoods. The Korean immigration increased dramatically during the early 1920s, after the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–1905 and Japan’s subsequent establishment of a protectorate over Korea.

By the October Revolution in 1917, there were about 100,000 Koreans in Russia. During the Russian Civil War, Korean allegiance lay primarily with the Bolsheviks, due at least in part to the fact that, “Japanese oppression in Korea and occupied Siberia made most Koreans, if not Bolsheviks, then enemies of the Bolsheviks’ enemies.” Korean immigrants began to submit applications for citizenship in the emerging RSFSR. Suspicions of the “political unreliability” of Koreans, however, meant that in practice relatively few would ever receive citizenship; in 1923, 1300 out of 6000 applicants were accepted for citizenship, and in the following year, 1247 out of 4761.

In 1917–1926, the Soviet Korean population tripled to nearly 170,000 people, and by 1926, Koreans represented more than a quarter of the rural population of the Vladivostok region. Under the circumstances, the official Soviet policy of national minorities prescribed formation of a Korean autonomous territory (the proposed Korean ASSR) for the large Korean community in the Russian Far East. After the Soviet government approved the formation of a Jewish Autonomous District in Birobidzhan, members of the Koryo Saram petitioned for the establishment of a Far Eastern Korean National District. This was denied in 1929, due to opposition from the local Russian population fearing competition for land, as well as the political goal of maintaining a peaceful stance toward Imperial Japan.

As a result, a contradictory policy emerged. On the one hand, the State authorized smaller Korean national territories, and established Korean-language schools and newspapers, representing Koreans as a model Soviet national minority. This was presented with stark contrast to the Korean population suffering under the yoke of Japanese occupation across the border. On the other hand, however, the central government confirmed a secret plan (adopted on December 6, 1926) to resettle half of the Soviet Koreans (88,000 people) north of Khabarovsk on suspicions of disloyalty to the Soviet Union.

This resettlement plan was not implemented before 1930 for a variety of political and budgetary reasons, however. The first forced transfer of Korean immigrants to the north, excepting those who were explicitly proven loyal, began in 1930, initially in small amounts (by 1931, when the plan was officially abandoned, only 500 Korean families (2,500 individuals) had been resettled in the north.). Though this was the first case of ethnic cleansing by the Soviet Union, large-scale resettlement was delayed until 1937 out of the fear that Japan might consider it casus belli.