Koreans Becoming a Soviet People 97tated. There was a world to be won, and China, India, and to a lesser degree,
Korea, were thought to be the potential sites where the worldwide socialist
revolution would begin.^76 In turn, this revolution would build a buffer of
socialist allies between Japan and the Soviet Union. Thus, the USSR hoped
to utilize their national minorities to serve as cultural bridges for expanding
internationalism and creating socialist buffer states. “Demo cratic central-
ism” also meant that Moscow would lead and make decisions for its socialist
brothers while allowing some forms of autonomy.^77 The 1920s and early
1930s were a fertile period for the growth of the Comintern throughout
Asia. Communist parties were established in China (1921), Indonesia (1920),
and Mongolia (1920); Japan (1922); Korea (1925); India (1928); Vietnam
and the Philippines (1930); Malaysia (1931); and Thailand (1935).^78 Some of
the CPs were quite small, numbering in the thousands. In China, Shang-
hai’s communist- controlled GLU (General Labor Union) counted 812,280
members in March 1927.^79 Vari ous communist- led agricultural and labor
associations in Korea numbered more than 68,000 by 1924. Some of the
funding for these associations came through the “Tuesday Association” of
Korean socialists, which was headquartered in Irkutsk, Rus sia.^80 Yet Soviet
leaders continued to speak as if imperialists had surrounded them on all
sides and were about to break in. In real ity, during the 1920s, many Western
cap i tali st nations and Asian leaders were afraid of the Red or Soviet threat,
which had established communist piedmonts and threatened to topple
weak, corrupt, or autocratic Asian countries. Japan felt very threatened by the
successful Comintern inroads (piedmonts) made in Japan and Manchuria.^81
Figure 5. The Li family: Korean Social Mobility. (Left) 1920 photo of the Li family: (left)
Kvar (Kwal) Li was the editor of Avangard, a Soviet newspaper; (center) Shen Li was a
Chekist, OGPU officer; while (right) the third brother (name unknown) was a Soviet pi lot.
Photo courtesy of Gleb Li, grand son of Shen Li. (Right) An Avangard advertisement in
Krasnoe znamia.