Chinese in The Russian Revolution and In The Russian Civil War - Background: Chinese Speakers in Russia

Background: Chinese Speakers in Russia

Large numbers of Chinese lived and worked in Siberia in the late Russian Empire. Many of these migrant workers were transferred to the European part of Russia and to the Ural during World War I because of the acute shortage of workers there. For example, by 1916 there were about 2,000 Chinese workers in Novgorod Governorate. In 1916-1917 about 3,000 Chinese workers were employed in the construction of Russian fortifications around the Gulf of Finland. A significant part of them were convicted robbers (honghuzi, "Red Beards", transliterated into Russian as "khunkhuzy", хунхузы) transferred from katorga labor camps in Harbin and other locations in the Far Eastern regions of the Russian Empire. After the Russian Revolution, some of them stayed in Finland and took part as mercenaries in the Finnish Civil War on both sides. After 1917 many of these Chinese workers joined the Red Army. The vast majority of these Chinese were apolitical and become soldiers solely in order to earn a living in a foreign country.