Korean Korenizatsiia and Its Socialist Construction 69Koreans) for specifically designated Red Army kolkhozes, many near Lake
Khanka (Lake Khasan, near the Japanese- Russian border) and in the Ussuri.
Ten thousand Red Army settlers arrived by March 1931 on the western edge
of the Amur Province. But only 6,800 reached their targeted arrival points.
Along the Trans- Siberian railway, some of those who dis appeared took sal-
aried jobs along the Trans- Siberian checkpoints (meal points) in construction
and industry. Others heard of prosperous collective farms along the route and
jumped at these opportunities rather than building from scratch. Seventy
percent of the first year’s OKDVA collective farm settlers were Ukrainians.^81
The inequities in the distribution of land, benefits such as grants, tax
exemptions, the placement in artels versus state- sponsored collective farms,
and even the quality of the parcels of land gave Koreans a distinct disadvan-
tage vis- à- is Eastern Slav colonists. v^82 Demobilized Red Army resettlers
(Ukrainians and Rus sians) received benefits that demobilized Koreans who
had been Red Army/Red partisans did not. The excessive reverence and
exaltation of every thing “Rus sian” produced policies of in equality that con-
versely benefited Eastern Slavs. This too was heavi ly influenced by the con-
tinuities of tsarist views and attitudes.^83 nder Bolshevism, all nationalities U
were supposed to be equal in every way.^84 In fact, from 1923 onward, the
USSR criticized cap i tal ist countries for promising only “ legal equality,”
while the Soviet regime boasted that only they delivered on “ actual equal-
it y.”^85 However, Soviet planning and the distribution of “separate and
unequal” land, benefits, and policies constituted state chauvinism towards
Koreans. The korenizatsiia and socialist construction policies in the RFE
showed a great deal of autonomy and specificity to the prob lems that the
Koreans and the Chinese faced. These mea sures were also implemented ear-
lier than their all- union policy counter parts in regard to collectivization and
citizenship. But their autonomy was one that was clearly regulated by Mos-
cow as part of “center- periphery” relations. Moscow and Stalin often gave
the orders for the beginning and termination dates of vari ous campaigns, the
general tone, objectives, and quotas. Local RFE cadres (in the periphery)
would go about filling the orders and giving “life” to policies by determining
how these would be enacted and their features.^86 By the early 1930s, the
prob lems of collectivization and citizenship among the Koreans were largely
solved so that mea sures that were more readily defined as indigenization/
korenizatsiia could be implemented.
EDUCATION: THE GAT E WAY TO SOVIETIZATIONSoviet educational campaigns such as the literacy campaigns (likbez) against
illiteracy, collectivization, education, and others represented Communist