Burnt by the Sun. The Koreans of the Russian Far East - Jon K. Chang

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SIX

Security Concerns Trumping Korenizatsiia,

1931–1937

When you chop wood, chips fly.

— Nikolai Ezhov, Head of NKVD, March 1937

(referring to the cost in human lives of the purges)

T

his chapter will unravel and partially answer the question “Why
were the Soviet Koreans deported?” In the 1920s, Stalin had his
“eyes and ears” in every Soviet kishlak (village) in the form of
his GPU/OGPU agents and their subsequent network of in for mants. The
Georgian vozhd (leader) concentrated primarily on seizing control and
eliminating rivals, opponents, and oppositional dissension within the ranks
of the CP. In the late 1920s, he directed the strength and terror of the OGPU
to repress social groups such as specialists, intelligent sia and the so- called rich
peasants (kulaks). This was a major turn and indicated that the nationalities
would soon capture his attention. From 1931 to 1937, the Stalinist regime
developed many new techniques and structures of control, influence, and
state building such as passportization and the expansion of the term “po liti-
cal crime,” which thereby increased the power of the OGPU/NKVD to
search, arrest, and sentence.^1
In 1932, a new state was launched by Japan, Manchukuo, along with
the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany (1933). Stalin felt
surrounded by enemies, and certainly in the Rus sian Far East there were
Japa nese states (in Korea and Manchukuo) on both of its rear flanks. There-
fore, the state began to see korenizatsiia as somewhat of a luxury and cer-
tainly as a program that spawned views, attitudes, and leaders (along with
their constant demands for land, equality, rights, and autonomy) that were
divisive and in opposition to the regime’s goals of controlling and unifying
both state and society. Paradoxically, the Soviet Koreans developed and inter-
nalized a much stronger sense of Soviet nationality because of their partici-
pation in the Red Army and the collective farmers’ border defense units.
The conflation of the po liti cal loyalties of the diaspora peoples with their