150 Chapter 6participation in the Pioneers/Komsomol, and class origins to prove that
he/she was not a White Guard from Manchuria. But how does a Korean or
Chinese resident exculpate him- or herself and deny that he or she is not
Korean or Chinese? This marked entire groups as being “Japa nese spies” by
nationality. Furthermore, the Pravda articles did not explain to the reader
any method for distinguishing between “RFE/local” Koreans and Chinese
versus those serving the Japa nese. The Soviet yellow peril followed a pri-
mordialist logic that Chinese and Korean allegiances were naturally tied to
a Japanese- led, pan- Asian juggernaut.
Lastly, there is evidence that Stalin edited and/or contributed to the
three Pravda articles. In the summer of 1937, Stalin edited a serial in Pravda
on espionage.^165 The subject matter of Japa nese espionage in Pravda’s April 23,
May 4, and July 9 issues suggests that they were prob ably part of the serial
that Stalin oversaw that summer. In the next chapter, we will examine how
the first in toto Soviet deportation was undertaken, the Korean’s new lives in
Central Asia, and a little- known facet of the Korean deportation on northern
Sakhalin. Article 5 and the North Sakhalin concessions illuminate the prob-
lematic nature of a purely ideological “Soviet xenophobia.” We w ill also an-
swer the primary question of this research, “Why were the Koreans deported
despite a history of loyalty and major gains made during korenizatsiia?”
In sum, some Koreans were able to lead or show individual initiative
during the second half of korenizatsiia (1931–1937). During this period, So-
viet nationalities policies began to display the qualities of “double- edged”
sword, using repression and promotion. Primordialist ideas and tsarist legacies
that defined certain nationalities as “aliens” and others (such as the Ger-
mans and Poles) as “kulaks” were wholly responsible for reviving Arsenev’s
“white paper” and Pravda’s Soviet “yellow peril.” The Dalkrai Bureau could
have simply voted for total deportation without Arsenev’s report. Vladimir
Arsenev was dead. But, it chose to revive Arsenev’s “Doklad” because this
view of Koreans as “anthropologically, ethnographically,[and] psychologi-
cally” alien to Soviet socialism held sway with some members of Dalbureau,
and it was thought that the document would influence others who were not
completely convinced of the necessity for full deportation. The final stroke
of Pravda’s Stalin- influenced brush created an unquestionable portrait of
the Chinese and Koreans as the agents of Japa nese espionage.