151SEVEN
The Korean Deportation and Life
in Central Asia, 1937– Early 1940sIn the RFE, there still remain 25–30 thousand Koreans. Situ-
ated near and around the ocean’s base and near the large districts
of (Vladivostok, Shkotovo, Suchan, Olga, Sovgavan), these Ko-
reans are without a doubt cadres of Japa nese espionage.
— Nikolai Ezhov to Stalin, September 24, 1937^1B
y 1937 Stalin had already removed from power all of his major
opposition within the VKP (All- Union Communist Party). Leon
Trotsky, Grigorii Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev were exiled or had
been executed. N. I. Bukharin and Aleksei Rykov were removed from the
Politburo and would stand trial and be executed in 1938.^2 At the same time,
the power of NKVD Commissar Ezhov to arrest, purge, and execute or
deport socially harmful groups/social ele ments, targeted social classes, and
the vari o us Soviet nationalities was at its zenith. Geopo liti cally, Stalin felt
surrounded by enemies on both his western and eastern borders by Poland,
Germany, and Japan. In 1937, the Soviet Union and Japan continued
their military buildups along the Soviet/Korean and Manchurian borders.
In 1932, as the new state of Manchukuo was introduced, Japan’s Kwantung
Army had 94,100 soldiers, 100 aircraft, and 50 tanks in Manchuria, while
the Soviet Union had some 8 divisions, 200 aircraft, and 250 tanks (no
definitive number of soldiers was given). Yet, by 1937, Soviet troop strength
was 370,000 soldiers, 1,560 aircraft, and 1,500 tanks in the RFE. Japa nese
forces had also increased dramatically to 200,000 soldiers, 250 aircraft,
and 150 tanks in Manchuria by 1937.^3 As for the Soviet Korean leader Afa-
nasii A. Kim, he had been removed from his position as chairman of the
Poset CP (1935) and arrested in 1936. In 1935, a full echelon of trains filled
with Koreans were forcibly sent from the RFE to their new homes in Central
Asia. Yet Afanasii Kim’s speech to “defend... until our last drop of blood”
appears to have been heeded.^4 Koreans participated in the vari ous armed
assistance brigades and self- defense units on collective farms throughout
the RFE. These brigades vigilantly patrolled Soviet borders, capturing illegal