Korean Korenizatsiia and Its Socialist Construction 79workers were still having difficulty getting equal pay and benefits and being
treated as Soviet citizens rather than foreigners or being socially ostracized.
At the same time, Rus sians (and Ukrainians) received the majority of white-
collar jobs and larger and better land parcels because the tsarist legacies of
“preferences” for Eastern Slavs were carried over into Soviet life. “ Actual
and legal equality” made for great Soviet press and propaganda, but the
real ity appears to be that it was difficult to enforce the policies of korenizat-
siia while replacing older views and mentalities which originated from Rus-
sian culture.^126
Around 1926, the trope of Koreans as a vanguard for Japa nese expan-
sion resurfaced in both official Soviet discourse and popu lar culture while
entirely ignoring the approval of the Japanese- Soviet Convention of 1925 by
Moscow. The korenizatsiia and nationalities policies and programs were
often meant to correct past injustices and unite all peoples under Soviet
power. In general, the Koreans made excellent pro gress. This was also a
show of their fidelity to the Soviet cause following the “Party Line” at all
costs, regardless of rejection or censure from their own community.^127 Indi-
genization tapped into a psychological need for repre sen ta tion and agency
by Soviet national minorities, which in turn cemented their identification
with the USSR. Unfortunately for Koreans, the hy po thet i cal indigenization
versus the real ity of its implementation did not quite match. Racialized
ideas of who could be Soviet, in fact, carried over into Soviet policy in the
form of Arsenev’s “Doklad” and Geitsman’s NKID report, which seemed to
run roughshod over the admonitions of Anosov and Mamaev for reform.