64 Chapter 4artels, communes, and an early form of the kolkhozes that they named “plan-
tations.” Koreans, through their registration as employees in these Soviet
enterprises, were allowed to register for citizenship under the 1923 provisions as
they were now employees working on state land. This sort of “backdoor” route
to citizenship more or less eradicated the feelings of discontent and tension in
the Korean community towards their enfranchisement as Soviet citizens.
In spring of 1929, the Politburo approved a mea sure to grant compre-
hensive citizenship to Koreans in remote regions who w ere working produc-
tively and had lived in the USSR for a minimum of three years.^54 In August
1929 the Territorial Party Committee of Priamur issued its report on the
simplified citizenship mea sures; these were implicitly aimed at the “Korean
question,” which tried to given citizenship to resident Koreans while closing
the border to illegal immigration. Point 3 of the 1929 report reads: “ Every
person situated on the territory of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
shall be deemed a Soviet citizen (priznaelsia grazhdaninom Soiuza SSR) pro-
vided he has not [already] proven his belonging to the citizenship of a for-
eign government.”^55
In 1932, a more streamlined procedure was enacted granting citizen-
ship after one supplied three requirements: proof of residency permit, proof
of employment, and a signature.^56 The gist of the 1932 revision to citizen-
ship seems to have been the de facto practices administered by local Dalkrai
officials since 1926. The pro cess of obtaining citizenship through work on
state collective farms appears to have been one of the nuances of RFE ad-
ministrative autonomy.^57 In sum, the prob lems of land and citizenship were
answered beginning with collectivization (artels and communes) and were
further alleviated with large- scale collectivization (kolkhozes, sovkhoves)
in 1930. True, the land belonged to the Soviet state, but this was a trifle,
because, fi nally, Koreans were incorporated and began to reap the full benefits
of citizenship and korenizatsiia (in the forms of state jobs, scholarships,
development of a career path, white- collar jobs).
LAND CONSTRUCTIONLand construction, that is, the distribution of agricultural land to Koreans,
remained problematic because of illegal migration. Soviet authorities had a
difficult time halting undocumented Korean migration into the RFE from
1923 to 1926, and as a result land distribution was difficult to proj ect and
plan because of the shifting demographics.^58 The Korean population rose
from 106,000 in 1923 to 168,009 in 1926. Of the 168,009 Koreans in 1926,
84,931 were Soviet citizens. However, it appears that the flow of Korean
immigration was stemmed, because in 1927 the Korean population in-