146 Chapter 6chairman of the Poset CP (VKP).^151 A. A. Kim’s removal from the CP was
a blow not only to himself but to the Korean community. This was the first
of many major upheavals for Koreans. On January 24, 1936, Afanasii Kim
was arrested for leading counterrevolutionary activities as part of a Kwang-
tung Army espionage- wrecking group (the Kwangtung Army Counter-
Revolutionary Center). The task of this group was allegedly to foment an
anti- Soviet uprising in order that the RFE would secede from USSR.^152 On
May 25, 1938, in Khabarovsk, Kim was shot. His name was rehabilitated by
the Soviet Supreme Court on April 9, 1957.
By the time of Afanasii Kim’s arrest in January 1936, it is very likely
that the decision had been made to deport all Koreans from the RFE and
that a timetable had been given for the operation. In the 1930s, the Soviet
nationalities policies si mul ta neously promoted and repressed national mi-
norities for the same inherent cultural traits. This is why Kim could play
such a large role at the 17th Party Congress concurrently with CP consider-
ations for a total deportation. After the sale of the Chinese Eastern Railway
(1935), came a trial- run deportation of Koreans. This was followed by the
immediate dismissal and arrest of A. Kim. Afanasii Kim represented the
only Soviet Korean leader capable of leading the Koreans to resist or revolt
against a repressive action such as total deportation. His arrest was a signal
that the “total deportation” was about to begin.
In the summer of 1936 the NKVD unmasked a plot of (according to
the state) a Trotskyite- Zinoviev bloc to assassinate the leading Soviet leaders.
The Kirov murder in 1934 was an example of this alleged Trotsky- Zinoviev
Center at work, directed by Trotsky from abroad. Naturally, Trotsky would
be linked to foreign governments as well. This began the Great Terror accord-
ing to Robert Conquest and, beginning in 1937, it was to include the depor-
tation of vari ous Soviet nationalities.^153
In 1937, korenizatsiia was still in full bloom, yet the nationalities poli-
cies had changed and suspicions of the region’s Chinese and Koreans were
apparent at the state level and among the general populace. One example of
the continuing suspicions towards Koreans and their diaspora profile re-
sided in their form(s) of territorial autonomy. Map 2 demonstrated that
Koreans were the most numerous nationality in four districts (possibly five)
and comprised a significant population in seven districts of the Primore.^154
The Korean population in each of the seven aforementioned districts in
1929 was as follows: Poset (89 to 95 percent), Suifun (49.1 percent), Suchan
(50.9 p ercent), Grodekov (31.7 percent), Khankai (29.9 percent), Pokrov
(38.6 percent), and Shkotovo (29.1 percent).^155 In any case, this was enough
to grant the Koreans an autonomous oblast (AO) or an autonomous region
(ASSR). Yet, only Poset was named a “national Korean Autonomous dis-