The RFE as a Frontier Melting Pot 17The Slavophils, the Pan- Slavs, and other Rus sian nationalist groups
began to enact discriminatory laws towards Rus sian middlemen minorities
and their economic holdings beginning in the 1870s. In 1881, Poles, Jews,
Baltic Germans, and others were deprived of the right to form joint- stock
companies. Vari ous other restrictions were placed on Jewish merchants in 1888
and 1893.^43 Jewish success and over- representation in the Rus sian empire’s
finest gymnasiums is a fitting example of the Panslav and Rus sian nationalist
mentality t owards keeping “Rus sian resources” for Rus sians. When Jews
“beat the system” by excelling in secondary and tertiary institutions (with
matriculation rates well beyond their demographics), the rules were changed
and quotas were enacted.^44 Many of the nationalist movements believed that
Jewish overrepre sen ta tion in education was a drain on the country’s resources.
This view also applied to populist and state opinions (see Arsenev and Ukh-
tomskii) regarding the economic battle between the yellow races (Chinese
and Koreans) and Rus sians in the Rus sian Far East. It will be referred to
throughout this book as a “zero- sum” social paradigm; that is, Rus sian re-
sources expended by aliens or non- Slavs meant a loss for Rus sia in the eyes of
the Rus sian nationalist groups. The latter saw competition— whether in
business, repre sen ta tion in tsarist state institutions, or education—as battles
for cultural and national (i.e., ethnic) preeminence in Rus sia.^45
Influenced by the currents of Rus sian nationalism, the RFE began its
own repressive laws aimed at restricting the economic viability of “yellow
labor” beginning in the early 1880s. Vladimir V. Grave, an ethnographer
sponsored by P. F. Unterberger, was fully supportive of “Rus sia and Rus sian
industry for Rus sians.” He understood that China had left a legacy there
and that the natives still regarded the Chinese as the “masters” of the re-
gion. Wresting the economic reins from Chinese and Korean laborers was
seen as an issue of po liti cal authority. This view of East Asian economic
productivity as one that weakened the po liti cal authority of Rus sians in the
RFE was to resurface during the Soviet period. V. V. Grave stated:
I have focused a little longer on [the subject of] Chinese trade among natives
with the goal of giving a clear pre sen ta tion of the damage from an economic
and po l itic al viewpoint and fi nally from a moral one. Their exploitation of
them and their bondage leads to their extinction... fi nally, through the
economic dependence of the natives, the Chinese strengthen their po liti cal
influence. In fact, it makes them the rulers while belittling the Rus sian
authorities, which [whose authority] is absolutely illusory. It is necessary to
fight against Chinese trade and industry in the region, which has been
recognized by the Rus sian local administration for quite some time.^46