Intervention 47Whites in a regiment of thirty- six men. The Koreans also fought alongside
Rus sian partisans during certain battles.
However, the most stunning event of Khan’s life was his participation
in the Gajda Mutiny with Radola Gajda (also spelled Gaida). Gajda had
fought as a commander in the White Army commanding Czech forces, but
was dismissed due to battle losses. On November 16, 1919, Gajda formed a
mutiny against the Whites in order to free Vladivostok. He or ga nized 1,500
men, mostly prisoners of war, Czechs, Chinese stevedores, White deserters,
and Khan Chan Gol. Khan served as the chief of the machine gun crew on
Gajda’s personal train. The mutiny floundered, and on November 17, 1919,
they surrendered. Khan and Gajda were put in prison. Somehow, through
po l itic al maneuvering by (most prob ably) the Americans, Gajda was freed
after twenty- four hours and sailed to Shanghai.^65 In Shanghai, he met with
members of the Korean Provisional Government (one of several “in exile”
governments). It is assumed that the meeting was to discuss the fate of Khan.^66
He remained in prison until partisans freed him on January 31, 1919. Dur-
ing this time the Whites had been publicly executing the mutineers. After
Khan’s rescue, he continued to fight the scattered Whites and the Japa nese
Army as a partisan leader. Sometimes the battles were waged jointly with
Rus sian partisans under N. K. Ilukhov.^67 Khan established an indisputable
public rec ord as a Bolshevik during the Intervention.
Afanasii Arsenevich Kim was the most impor tant leader to emerge
from the Intervention. Kim was born on January 27, 1900, in a Korean vil-
lage named Sukhanovka, near Lake Khasan.^68 His father and family worked
land they rented from Rus sians. The family was desperately poor and their
earnings from sharecropping were subsistence only. Afanasii finished
two classes in his local village and then entered a Rus sian gymnasium in
Nikolsk- Ussuriisk, where he completed the rest of his education. In 1917,
Afanasii reported that he was indifferent to politics and that the October
Revolution did not particularly capture his interest. However, in 1918 Kim
became a socialist, so it is likely that the post- Revolution discussions and
debates in his community and among his peers provided him the necessary
politicization. In the same year, Afanasii Kim was elected the general secre-
tary of the All- Siberian Korean Youth Workers Congress and thus began
his career as a Soviet cadre.^69 On March 18, 1919, he participated in
the March First Korean In de pen dence demonstrations held in the RFE.
He and O Son Muk translated their March First protest pamphlets into
En g lish, Rus sian, Chinese, and Korean. In Vladivostok, the Japa nese police
began arresting Koreans who had participated in the March protests. Kim
was wanted by the Japa nese authorities. Thus, he escaped with O Son Muk
to Manchuria and stayed at a border town called Namgaulen (prob ably