62 Chapter 4freed both men immediately. The article concluded by assuring the reader
that the two chauvinists, the policewoman and the police chief Kravchuk,
would get their “ just deserts,” but it did not elaborate as to whether this in-
deed did happen. In fact, this article was a testament to the difficulty of re-
porting chauvinist incidents in the USSR and having them prosecuted. It
also touched upon issues of Soviet Korean life, because the policewoman
could have easily mistaken Mr. Chen for a Korean and denied his admit-
tance to the streetcar on those grounds.^46
It was pos si ble that Mr. Chen, as an urban factory worker, dressed in a
similar fashion to Mr. Ian in Figure 3. Note Mr. Ian’s Western clothes and
haircut. This author also interviewed the family of Van Si Ven, a Soviet
Chinese (and Soviet citizen) from Irkutsk who was attending the Irkutsk
Agricultural Institute in the 1930s.^47 The point is that the policewoman
could not have known that Mr. Chen was Chinese simply by his appear-
ance. He was Asian, and that was enough for her to deny him admittance to
the streetcar. Second, without the help of Mr. Lan, the city councilman,
the case would likely have never been taken seriously, because the workers
lacked the proper upper- level connections. By 1930, some Soviet natsmen
were well aware of their rights and stood up for themselves in the face of
chauvinism. However, this new consciousness regarding the rights of national
minority produced more tension, conflict, and division in Soviet society.
This was one of the unintended results of korenizatsiia that the Soviet lead-
ership saw as a pos si ble threat to their authority.^48 Fi nally, the April 1930
article “Destroy the Nest of Chauvinism” discussed two recent incidents of
chauvinism towards Chinese workers in RFE factories. It reiterated the fact
that at pres ent the “greatest danger” [chauvinism] was always met with a
great deal of lethargy and inaction. The article concluded with this pro-
nouncement: “ Here is a highly significant fact, that not one clear chauvinis-
tic act has been tried and sentenced. Chauvinists have not received their
deserved punishment.”^49
In sum, inequities and old colonial and imperial values and categories
remained in Soviet society and were most apparent when Soviet citizens
encountered Chinese and Koreans who were recent mi grants and compara-
tively unfamiliar with Soviet/Rus sian culture and language. But there were
changes, and old ways slowly eroded while new paths were being built. In the
RFE, small- scale collectivization through artels and communes was a boon
for the Koreans. Beginning in 1926, a peasant’s registration or incorpora-
tion into these agricultural enterprises allowed him access to citizenship in
the RFE. Many Koreans embraced collectivization because it brought them
citizenship and recognition as “Soviet workers,” the equivalent of which they
did not possess during tsarist times.