16 0 Chapter 7
were executed) and 8,000 deported to Central Asia and Xinjiang.^54 I shall
now examine the geopo liti cal situation of the Soviet Union in the 1930s and
how this influenced Stalin’s decision to conduct the Terror and the nation-
alities deportations.
THE GEOPOLITICS BEHIND THE TERROR
Stalin carefully monitored the events prior to and during Spanish Civil War
in the mid-1930s. This in part convinced him that foreign states such as
Germany or Japan had planted or had the ability to plant fifth columnists in
the Soviet Union.^55 However, for Soviet Koreans and Koreans in general,
Japan was their occupier and enemy. Japan had very little chance to subvert
Soviet Koreans, and the best proof of this was the Intervention and Japan’s
five- year co- rule of the RFE. Five thousand Korean Red partisans officially
fought the Japa nese Army in the RFE, while another 2–3 thousand Korean
Figure 13. (Left) Grigorii Eliseevich Khan aka Khan Chan Gol, 1937, appearing worn and
in NKVD uniform without the insignias of his rank. Perhaps, he realized the precarious-
ness of his position. (Right) Grigorii’s younger brother, Aleksandr, at the Kharkov Military
Acad emy, Ukraine, in the 1920s. Photos courtesy of Revmir Khan (nephew of both men),
Kolkhoz Pravda, Uzbekistan.