60 Chapter 4a consistent prob lem— that is, presenting a prob lem in terms of national
rather than class differences.^43 Second, the prices charged by Rus sian and
Eur o pean merchants in the RFE were typically much higher than those of
Chinese and Korean merchants. The prices for these goods from Eu ro pean
Rus sia remained high during NEP and the early korenizatsiia period. Yet
the merchants of Rus sian/Eu ro pean goods received virtually no criticism in
this article. Koreans, Rus sians, and Chinese were all heavi ly engaged in
speculative trade (illegal in the USSR) as simply resellers, merchants, and
traders. All of these merchants bought goods from China and simply resold
them in Rus sian markets. The article “On the Border with China” stated:
“A shortage of manufacturers leads to high prices [goods], which in turn
feeds into the high sales of contraband goods.” However, the article empha-
sized that a pair of Korean traders who were husband and wife knew the
speculative trade much better than did the Rus sians. This would seem to
be dubious reporting.^44 The article, along with Figure 2, are examples of
the racialization of a “class enemy,” the merchant or NEP trader.
In September 1928, a morphine den owned by U See Dian (Chinese)
was raided by police. In the den they found not only Chinese and Koreans
Figure 1. Two Korean Deportees from Uzbekistan. (Left) Maria Pak, born 1913 in the
RFE at Kolkhoz Sverdlov, Uzbekistan; (right) Nikolai Vasilevich Pak, born 1923 in the RFE
at Kolkhoz Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan. Source: Jon Chang, photos taken in 2009.