198 Appendixsaw a parade of factory workers on some fete day, and marching in the
parade were over 2,000 members of the unions, all in civilian clothes and all
carry ing rifles. The workers in all factories are practically armed militia. All
the best men in Rus sia are in the army. In Vladivostok, they can get no car-
penters, bricklayers, or engineers to carry on constructive industrial build-
ing for all these men are connected with the military enterprises. The first
call in all factories is for military equipment. In Novo Sibirsk, huge steel and
iron mills are being constructed with the main purpose of providing war
materials.
Mr. Powell estimates that at least ten per cent. [sic] of the Rus sian Far
Eastern Army is made up of Orientals: Chinese, Koreans, and Mongols.
The head of the G.P.U. in Eastern Siberia is a Chinese and one of the chief
officers of the Rus sian aviation force in Siberia is also a Chinese.^2
Between Vladivostok and Habarovsk are over 100,000 Koreans, many
of them in the army. At one small town, Mr. Powell saw a unit of two hun-
dred Red soldiers instructing the villa gers in anti- aircraft defense and every
one of the two hundred was a Korean. The Rus sians make no secret of the
fact that they are building up the nucleus of a Korean Revolutionary Army
in this territory. It is one of the few places in the world where the old Korean
language is being kept alive. At Vladivostok, there is a whole system of
Korean schools extending from primary school up to a university which
they claim has 700 students. Korean newspapers and magazines are pub-
lished as well as thousands of books in the Korean language, which are not
only used in Vladivostok, but are smuggled into Korea and distributed widely.
Mr. Powell and a Chinese professor went to Seishin, across the border in
Korea, and throughout the whole town, they did not see a single sign in the
Korean language and they could not buy books or magazines in the Korean
language. The Japa nese are killing the language, while the Rus sians are keep-
ing it alive.
I asked him whether Rus sia would be able or willing to sell oil to Japan
if Eng land, Holland and the United States should refuse. He said he
thought not, for their own needs were increasing faster than the supply.
Huge refineries are being built in Habarovsk and oil is being brought there
from Saghalin. Mr. Powell was told that Rus sia was not producing enough
oil for its own needs and when he was in Vladivostok, he saw four British oil
tankers in the harbor. However, he added that the Rus sians would do any-
thing to get money and if the Japa nese offered them enough they might sell.
I asked him about a pos si ble German- Japanese understanding and he
said that such talk was quite prevalent in Moscow and in fact all over Rus sia.
The Rus sians believed that the bond between Germany and Japan was be-