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

176 Chapter 7

ist nations without the intent of racial discrimination. It would seem more

fitting to name this theory “Soviet ideological cleansing.”^136 The danger of

covering too much territory (both spectrums of the Stalinist argument) is

that Martin’s “Soviet xenophobia” disempowered the term and category of

“ethnic cleansing.” Effectively, it neutralized the stigma of “ethnic cleans-

ing” due to his term’s vague par ameters and its willingness to accept similar

mea sures of population control under the same terminology. In conclusion,

the Soviet regime’s leaders w ere its policy architects. Stalin was the chief

editor and overseer of the 1936 Constitution. Therefore, Stalin and his

regime must shoulder the responsibility for the results of their policies,

regardless of intent.^137

I will now explain why the tsarist discourses of “correct colonization”

(that is, giving preference and superior land grants to “Rus sians”), the catego-

ries of the “colonizing ele ment,” and other tropes and discourses were so easily

continued and reanimated from tsarism to Soviet socialism. Despite social-

ism, many Soviet workers remained deeply alienated from their work, the re-

lations of production, and their own Soviet leaders. I would argue that Soviet

workers were not any closer to the “work and the fruits of their labor” than

cap i tali st workers, as (1) all “means” were planned centrally from Moscow and

(2) the goods that the Soviets produced, and the quality of their workman-

ship, were not allowed to be overseen through market forces to ensure higher

quality control and productivity. Under the command economy, factories and

their man a g ers were also quite indifferent to feedback from consumers.^138 The

following is a power ful critique of Marxist and Soviet economics:

The Marxist theory of value definitely took its toll on the economy. The

major tenets of this theory— that income is generated only by labor and

that the relative shortage of most resources should not be recognized—

rationalized the indifference of man ag ers to the waste of capital goods and

natu ral resources; the loss of capital goods did not affect the financial

situation of an enterprise and had no negative effect on the economic

indicators used for the evaluation of man ag ers’ per for mance. The same

theory of value was used to explain why rent (i.e., the payment for produc-

tion resources) was absent in official economic calculations. Likewise, time

was also disregarded as an economic factor.^139

The state employed a plethora of mea sures to control and reeducate the
workers and the peasantry. Unfortunately, the national and primordial - isms
exposed ruptures in Soviet life between utopian proclamations and the actual
realities of their ideological, cultural, and material existence. In addition, the