44 Chapter 3KOREAN LOYALTIES AND AUTONOMY (TERRITORIAL)
In the summer of 1921, at the “ Free City” battle (presently known as Svo-
bodny, Amur Oblast), Soviet- Koreans proved their allegiance to Bolshe-
vism by shedding Korean partisan blood. On June 26–27, 1921, two groups
of Koreans clashed in a military showdown that marked a social crossroads
for the Soviet Korean community. The Shanghai- Chita faction were Korean
nationalists who were nominally communists. They were armed and given
provisions by the Soviet army in return for battling the Whites and the
Japa nese during the Intervention. On June 26, the Irkutsk faction, com-
posed of Russified- Koreans who supported the Bolsheviks along with Red
Army regulars, issued the Shanghai- Chita faction an ultimatum to disarm
and return the arms to the Soviet government. In real ity, the Soviet govern-
ment and Comintern had deci ded that support for the partisans was to be
terminated and elected the Irkutsk faction to carry out this task.^54 This
choice was very strategic and depicted the battle in terms of an internal Ko-
rean affair as opposed to Soviet versus Korean. In this way, the management
of the image of the Soviet Union as a “state of nations” and “international-
ism” was kept pristine. This battle called the Alexeyevsk/ Free City Incident
a rout by the Irkutsk faction and the Red Army against an older generation
of “ Korea first” Korean partisans. In total, the fatalities numbered some six
hundred while nine hundred partisans of the Shanghai- Chita faction were
arrested. The Russian- Koreans of the Irkutsk group showed that their loyal-
ties to the Soviet government w ere more than just rhe toric, for they defeated
and killed fellow Koreans (also living on Soviet soil) while fighting in tandem
with two Red Army units. This battle served to eliminate those of question-
able ideology (such as the Shanghai- Chita Faction) in the Party and to dem-
onstrate that the Irkutsk faction was loyal to it beyond ties to their ancestral
homeland or nationality.^55 The result was a Soviet Korean community with
very few dissident voices towards socialism and the CP by 1921. This does
not mean that the Koreans did not have factions. In fact there were plenty of
di ff ere nt factions, but the fighting was usually due to power strug gles and
how each one would implement the policies from the state level.
Unfortunately, when it came to the issue of a Korean autonomous re-
gion, Koreans lacked repre sen ta tion and po liti cal patrons in Moscow. It was
their lack of links to well- placed party bosses as well as their inherent dias-
pora profile that negatively affected their application for an autonomous
region in December 1922. Khan Myon She promoted the necessity for an
autonomous region to serve as a Soviet where Japa nese influences could be
countered.^56 O. V. Kuusinen of the Comintern Executive Committee sup-