80

FIVE

Koreans Becoming a Soviet People,

1923–1930

And who can guarantee now that when we only just pushed out

the Chinese merchants until we discover him on the strength of

this [the OGPU campaigns against Chinese merchants/NEP-

men] as evolved into a Korean or a Japa nese.

— Vladivostok NKID (Narkomindel) Representative

Geitsman, March– April 1928, in letters to

Dalbureau and the Moscow NKID

K

orenizatsiia was many aspects— liberal, modernist, progressive, and
Leninist. After Lenin’s passing in January 1924, Stalin began his
quest to eliminate his rivals such as Trotsky, opposition leaders, and
their Party machinery in the vari ous locales and cities. Thus, he allowed the
writ of korenizatsiia to run its course, developing and, for the most part, im-
proving the lives of the vari ous nationalities and social groups during NEP.
Whether through sheer luck or shared affinities, he found two OGPU lead-
ers (Menzhinskii and his deputy, Iagoda) who helped him orchestrate the
entrapment and repression of several opponents, notably Savinkov and
the first show trials (Shakhty). One fact that is often overlooked is Stalin’s
ubiquitous use of the po liti cal police (OGPU) rather than his powers
as general secretary, which enabled him to easily defeat his po liti cal oppo-
nents in the lower regional Party apparatus and the control commissions
despite his deficits in erudition and Marxist theory. Stalin assigned OGPU
officers to infiltrate the control commissions and others to spy on the local
Party organ izations throughout the USSR in order to harass and incrimi-
nate his po liti cal rivals. By controlling the local Party apparatus, he was able
to elect and replace many members of the Central Committee with his cro-
nies who owed their po liti cal lives to his patronage. In the 1920s, Stalin
controlled the leaders of the po liti cal police through guile, compromise, co-
optation, power, and praise. Institutionally, he expanded the OGPU’s
power, reach, and size. The po liti cal police helped Stalin claim an undis-
puted, nearly opposition- free position in the CP by 1930. Afterward that,
he would run it with an iron fist.^1