Koreans Becoming a Soviet People 93propaganda that they were a “state of [many] nations” and their effort to
promote revolution in Korea. He and other Korean socialists were loyal to
the Bolsheviks because they were the first and only group to fully empower
the Koreans of Rus sia with a po liti cal voice, repre sen ta tion and the feeling
that their voices mattered. This was a far cry from tsarism, when the Koreans
were basically left alone unless someone needed cheap labor, when taxes
needed to be collected, and when military conscription was desired. Bolshe-
vism was the only ideology that had fully enfranchised a large proportion
of Korean community and took the time to teach them its beliefs. Never-
theless, Soviet socialism also came with its preconceived ideas, biases, and
hierarchies, which it inculcated to its followers.
In February 1923, G. N. Voitinskii, the head of the Korean Bureau, sent
a request to study the issue of a Korean autonomous region to a deputy com-
missar of Narkomnats, Klinger. The issue was left to die and no further dis-
cussion or response was forthcoming from Narkomnats except that the issue
of Korean autonomy was hampered by the fact that the majority of Koreans in
the Primore were not Soviet citizens.^60 However, Khan did not let the subject
of territorial autonomy die. In fact, he again linked the lack of territorial
autonomy as an unwillingness to resolve the Korean Question, which, after
all, was simply a question of nationality (national construction). In a May 15,
1924, speech to the Far Eastern Division of the Comintern (which in-
cluded G. N. Voitinskii), Khan gave a report titled “Report on the Conditions
of the Korean Population in the Primorskii Guberniia (the Primore)”:
Moreover in the Primore, especially in the first year of existence of Soviet
authorities, there were some cases of “ Great Rus sian” chauvinism. Such
as when Comrade Kubiak of the First Guberniia Party Conference at the
beginning of last year [1923] in his own speech, without grounds, accused
all Koreans as being adventurists [rogues] and swindlers, calling them
Japa nese colonizers who should be subject to exile outside of the borders of
the region [Primore]. Prob ably, on a reason closely related to this, the Soviet
authorities of Kamchatka exiled 700–800 Korean workers from Oxotsk and
Aian to Japan. Another concrete example of chauvinism was the absence of
documented facts [for this]... the existence of chauvinism does and still exists.
This was not even noted once during the conference. According to the opinion
of the Secretary of the GubKom, Comrade Pshenitsyn, there is no chauvinism in
the Primore. But he has engendered the [Party] apparatus from top to bottom with
this and it makes the Korean population very anxious [italics mine].^61In his private reports to the Comintern, Khan openly criticized Soviet na-
tionalities policies and socialist construction towards Koreans in 1923–1924