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

192 Chapter 9

were young Soviet cadres during the Stalinist era. The policies and attitudes

of “Rus s ians, first among equals,” whether formal or informal, were reduc-

tionist, zero- sum, and incompatible with the proposal and implementation

of a socialist society, the actualization of individual and collective human

potential, and the construction of a power ful, overarching class identity.^29

Ironically, a nationalist- orientated perspective resonates powerfully today in

the Rus sian Federation with regard to its treatment of minorities and mi-

grants from the former USSR and between Rus sia and the Ukraine. The

Ukrainians refuse to be cowed by a resurgent Rus sia that appears intent on

coercing them to accept a reconstituted Soviet past as a “ ju nior partner”

even in regard to Ukrainian sovereignty. However, the current dispute be-

tween the Ukraine and Rus sia (as it did in the past) involves identity, territory,

resources, and sovereignty, which ensures that some form of contestation

will continue for quite some time. Now we will examine the deployment of

Koreans as Soviet ambassadors of goodwill and technical/educational ex-

changes in the Soviet bloc.

THE CASE OF GUM NAM KIM

Fi nally, if Soviet Koreans had been guilty of collaborating with the Japa-
nese, had taken part in the Kwangtung Army Counter- Revolutionary Cen-
ter, or had not been sufficiently “remade” as a loyal Soviet people, the Soviet
state would not have employed its Koreans as part of the Soviet military,
technical, educational, and trade exchanges and missions with its client
states.^30 One example is that of the Soviet Koreans who were sent to North
Korea immediately after the Second World War. Pang Hak Se, a Soviet
Korean and former NKVD officer, became the head of North Korea’s po liti-
cal police. Soviet Koreans such as Ho Kai- I, Pak Chang Ok, Pak I Wan
(Ivan), and Nam Il, all became vice- premiers of the North Korean CP in
the late 1940s and/or 1950s.^31 Another example is the case of Gum Nam
Kim. Kim had been deported from the RFE in 1937 when he was fourteen
years old. He was in the seventh class at the time of his deportation, and his
education in the RFE was almost exclusively in Korean, so his command of
the language was quite good. He was the lead engineer at the collective
Severnyi Maiak (Northern Light house). In 1954, the kolkhoz hosted a group
of North Korean engineers for three months (September through November)
who were taught how to use and repair Soviet excavators (see Figure17).^32
If the Soviet Koreans had not been loyal, it is doubtful that the Soviet state
would have placed a group of North Korean engineers for an extended stay
in a predominantly Soviet Korean collective farm where the medium of dis-
course was exclusively in the Korean language. In 1954, Japan was allied