74 Chapter 4studied Marxist Leninism. Requirements for the night university were a
minimum twenty- two years of age, two years’ or more membership in the
CP, and five years or more of work experience.^111 The Dalnevostochnoi Rab-
fak (Worker’s School) during 1928 had 450 students in fifteen study groups.
Of the fifteen groups, nine were Rus sians, three Koreans, three Chinese,
with one group mixed Chinese and Koreans.^112 The educational initiatives
were to reach urban and rural Koreans from adolescents to the el derly. The
literacy campaigns were successful, with large numbers of older Koreans
participating. Young Koreans were doing especially well in the Pioneers and
Komsomol groups with regard to adopting socialist ideals and becoming
“Soviet.” Even Korean laborers and proletariats were going to rabfaks to fin-
ish their secondary education.
Education opened doors for many Koreans to meet and study with other
nationalities in the Soviet Union and obtain a standardized education and
work skills that would allow them to work in state institutions. In addition to
social mobility, education was also a way they could show their allegiance
to the state through their individual “remaking” as loyal and industrious
Soviet citizens. The latter opportunity gave Koreans added incentive to per-
form well in education and educational campaigns.
ACTUAL VERSUS LEGAL EQUALITYIn the 1920s to 1930s, many Chinese and Korean mi grants came to the
Rus sian Far East because they had heard that the Soviet Union provided
jobs with adequate pay and dormitories to urban workers and their agricul-
tural sector had shortages of labor and farmers. These migrants, typically
landless peasants or unskilled laborers, indeed found better pay, some work-
er’s rights, and occupational training programs, all of which offered them
more opportunities than they had in China, Korea, and the Japa nese Em-
pire. In 1923, the Soviet Union boasted that they were the only nation- state
making pro gress towards “ actual equality” while admitting that it had yet to
be achieved.^113 The USSR also proclaimed that they had put the national
question on the highest plane of consideration and implementation (post-
avili natsionalnyi vopros na printsipialnuu vysotu). The “national question”
referred to Soviet minorities receiving equal rights, especially in regard to
land and cultural autonomy.^114 Therefore, as a test of its promises, we shall
examine whether in point of fact Bolshevism succeeded in providing relative
real equality for its Eastern workers (as they were called in Rus sian) vis- à-
vis the Rus s ians and Russian- speaking peoples of the RFE. After all, this
metaphysical good (“equality” in what ever form one envisioned it) was the
allure and the promise of Soviet socialism.