The Struggle for Power and Leadership in the Far Eastern Frontierin 1917–1922: Northeast China as a Recipient Regionof the Russian White Movement
Olga Zalesskaia
Introduction
Northeast China (Dongbei, Manchuria) is the regional entity in the People’s Republic of China,
directly bordering Russia’s Far East territories. In its current state, this region comprises Heilongjiang,
Jilin and Liaoning provinces. For more than 150 years, a unique historical experience of intercivilizational contacts has been accumulated here. And in general, the entire historical process ofdevelopment of the Russian Far East is inextricably linked with Northeast China.
This interrelation and interdependence was revealed vividly in the first half of the twentiethcentury, when the East Asian subsystem of international relations underwent serious transformations.
The Xinhai Revolution, China’s political fragmentation, Japan’s pan-Asian plans, revolutionary andsocialist transformations in the Russian Far East, and rapid global political change, irreversiblytransformed the historical and geographical field of the Far Eastern region, integrated it under new
conditions into the Asia-Pacific subsystem, and permanently changed it. Northeast China played themost direct role in these transformations, acting as a military springboard, or as a “gathering force”
territory, but always as a field of close interaction between two civilizations (Russian Orthodox andConfucian) during a period of socio-economic and political transformations, and at the same time as
an exceptionally significant part of the Far Eastern frontier
The concept of “frontier,” was first introduced into scientific circulation by the American
historian Frederick Turner (1861–1932) in 1893. The concept of “frontier” gradually began to acquirea broader historical, geopolitical and cultural significance. Today, the concept of “frontier” is used tocharacterize the contact zone between countries, peoples and cultures; it is understood as a transitional
border zone in which interaction between two or more different cultures or political structures occurs.
Unlike the dividing linear border, the frontier is understood primarily as a connecting transitional zoneof interaction between two or more cultures and/or political structures.1 This is always a very dynamic,
variable zone, the most important sign of which is the state of unstable equilibrium (including military-* Olga Zalesskaia is Professor and Dean of International Faculty, Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University(Blagoveshchensk, Russia). She can be contacted at: olgazalesskaya@gmail.com
Rieber, “Meniayushchiesia kontseptsii i konstruktsii frontira: sravnitel’no-istoricheskii podkhod”[Changing Concepts and Designs of the Frontier: A Comparative Historical Approach] in Novaia imperskaia
istoriia postsovetskogo prostranstva [A New Imperial History of the Post-Soviet Space], eds. I.V.Gerasimov,
S.V.Glebov, A.P. Kaplunovsky (Kazan: Center for the Study of Nationalism and Empire, 2004), 199.

1 Alfred

DOI: 10.14943/ebr.10.1.91

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >political instability). Thus, the state structure and political regimes within the frontier have a direct
impact on its essence and characteristics.2
In the Far East, such a zone of interaction is located in the border areas of two neighboring
countries, Russia and China. It can be defined as the Far Eastern frontier, and, because of its importance,needs scrupulous study, reflection and synthesis.
The historical process of Russian-Chinese border cooperation in the Far East began in thesecond half of the nineteenth century. After the signing of the Aigun and Beijing Treaties, the active
settlement of the south territories of the Russian Far East began by settlers from the western regions of
Russia, and the settlement of the Northeast China territories began by Chinese people from the central
regions of China. The invasion of the imperialist powers in China and its transformation into a semicolonial country led to the emergence of a layer of Chinese coolies who went to work outside their
homeland and comprised a significant part of Chinese migration. In the typology suggested by WilliamPetersen, this migration of coolies is defined as “impelled migration.”3 In the period 1851–1925, around
1.9 million Chinese coolies moved out of China under labor contracts. 4 Chinese migration to theRussian Far East became a part of the general flow of Chinese migrants seeking a better life abroad.
The Russian Far East was the third most attractive region in the world (after Southeast Asia andAmerica) for Chinese migrants.
Meanwhile, since the early 1880s, an active development and settlement of the Far Eastern
territories was occurring. In 1858–1882, about twelve thousand peasants arrived in the Amur Region,and then in 1883–1900, 83.5 thousand (seven times more) arrived. The main reason for this movementof people was the issuing (since 1889) by the state of a relocation loan and a home improvement loan
to immigrants.5
In the geopolitical space of the Far East, during the process of agricultural, industrial andtransport development of the border areas of both countries, the convergence of two civilizations andthe process of Russian-Chinese inter-civilization interaction had begun. At the same time, the largest
contact zone of this interaction, the Far Eastern frontier, had been formed here. This was due to the
exceptional geopolitical and geographical proximity of the regions of these two countries.
At the same time, in the emerging Far Eastern frontier, a serious geopolitical rivalry of theimperialist powers unfolded. In the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the main
objectives of Russian policy in the Far East were the organization of regional defense and the expansionof influence to the south — consolidation in China and Korea. Russia, like Japan, considered Northeast
China a giant market, a source of raw materials, a sphere of capital investment and an opportunity for
2 Lucien Febvre, “Frontier: The Word and the Concept” in A New Kind of History from the Writings of Lucien

Febvre, ed. P. Burke (London: Routledge; Kegan Paul, 1973), 208–218.
3 William Petersen, “A General Typology of Migration,” American Sociological Review 23:3 (1958): 262.
4 Zhang Jian, “Jindai shijie jingji jiaowang dachao zhong de qiyue huagong” [Chinese Contract Workers in the
Stream of World Economic Ties of Modern Era], Bagui Qiaoshi [Overseas Chinese Journal of Bagui] 4 (1998):38.
5 Istoriia Amurskoi oblasti s drevneishikh vremen do nachala XX veka: 150 let Amurskoi oblasti [The History of
the Amur Region from Ancient Times to the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century: 150 Years of the Amur Region](Blagoveshchensk: RIO Publishing House, 2008), 298–290.

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the exploitation of cheap labor. Russia’s active foreign policy in Manchuria, the “Chinese straightening”
of the Trans-Siberian Railway (which the Chinese Eastern Railway became), the seizure of the
Liaodong Peninsula and favorable strategic positions for the Russian fleet — all this caused a fierce
rivalry with the rapidly developing Japan.
Half-reform after the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and the First
Russian Revolution of 1905–1907 did not change the growing systemic crisis of the state and society.
Nine years after Portsmouth, Russia re-entered a war, which contributed to the collapse of themonarchical and post-February 1917 political regimes.
The First World War made significant adjustments to the population processes in the Far East.
Firstly, it caused a sharp decline in the influx of peasant migrants and workers: in 1914, 14.2 thousand
peasants and Cossacks and 34.3 thousand workers arrived in the Far East and then in 1915, 2.5 thousand
and 5.7 thousand, respectively, arrived. Secondly, a significant outflow of the Russian population began.
This outflow was associated with military mobilization. Thirdly, in connection with the suspension of
the law of June 21, 1910, which limited immigration from neighboring Asian countries, the influx from
China and Korea began to increase, and as a result, in 1916, about 150 thousand foreigners were
officially registered in the Far East (their share in the composition of the population increased to
14.8%).6 In the Russian Far East, new types of migration were emerging: refugees from war-affectedareas and prisoners of war.
The ruling political elite of Russia, the top military and financial circles, failed to recognize
the depth of the crisis, so they paid cruelly in the upcoming Civil War. In 1917–1922, during the yearsof revolutionary transformations, civil war and intervention in the Russian Far East, a territory withcertain characteristics formed in a border zone of interaction. Its main patterns — Russian emigration(both its peaceful part and the armed White Guard units), the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), borderand migration services, smuggling, honghuzi, etc. — had led to the existence of a special diffuse andpermeable world, where different cultures, ethnic groups, historical memory, etc. mixed.
In this article, the process of struggle of various political groups for power and leadership in
the Far Eastern frontier is considered. The article focuses on the historical process of the emergenceand deployment of the White Movement in Northeast China in 1917–1922 during the revolutionarytransformations, civil war and intervention in the Russian Far East. In this work, the author claims that
Northeast China became a kind of recipient region, and a host for the White forces. This, in turn, wasdue to the formation of a pattern of White emigration in this territory. The author characterizes in detailthe activities of the White Movement leaders in the formation of these detachments, the position of theChinese authorities and their participation in the formation of White Guard armed organizations. To
support these arguments, the author studies the struggle for leadership in the White Movement and theformation of the White Guard detachments in Northeast China by leaders of the White forces. The
article examines the historical background of these processes, the changes in the political status of the

6 Dal’nii Vostok Rossii v period revoliutsii 1917 goda i grazhdanskoi voiny [The Russian Far East during the

Revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War] (Vladivostok: Dalnauka Publishing House, 2003), 58–59.

93Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >White Movement leaders and Russian emigrants as participants of these detachments.
The chronological framework of the study is 1917–1922, which was a period of vigorous
struggle by White movement political groups and their active consolidation of armed forces. After theend of the civil war in the Far East, this struggle continued into the 1920s and 1930s. However, theWhite Movement had already become the losing party, and despite the continued provocations andattacks on Soviet territory, the White Movement geographically finally established itself in Northeast
China. As a result, the Far Eastern frontier ceased to play such a significant role for the White leaders
as it had in 1917–1922.
The struggle for leadership in Northeast China is analyzed through Russian-Chineseinteraction in the Far East contact zone, where all the conditions for this interaction were formed, andthe relations of the Russian and Chinese population had historically evolved for several decades. The
article also describes in detail the using of the Honghuzi by different political groups during the struggle
for power. The article was written using a significant amount of unpublished materials from Russian
central and regional archives and Chinese sources.
Formation of New Patterns
1917–1922 was a special period in the relations between the two countries. By this time, acommunication pattern of interaction had already formed in the geopolitical space of the Far Eastern
frontier. The attractor of this pattern was the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) and the city of Harbin,
where Russians concentrated as representatives and translators of Russian culture.
The emigration of Russians to Harbin and to the cities of Northeast China began with theconstruction and commissioning of the CER. This Railway was the project of a Russian colonial
initiative in China and rivaled such gigantic projects as the Trans-Canadian and the Great Northern(U.S.) railways. Due to its construction, Manchuria changed from a largely unsettled wilderness into
an area of rapid industrialization. It was, nevertheless, “competitive colonialism,” since, although
Russia initially invested its capital and labor here, in the following years (almost half a century) both
China and Japan took active steps to develop this territory and manage the roads.7
To a large extent, the intensification of China’s colonization policy in Manchuria at the
beginning of the twentieth century was associated with the construction of the CER. In 1907, thepopulation in Northeast China was 16.8 million people, in 1912 it was 19.7 million, and in 1917 it was
21.1 million. Previously unused lands were actively plowed up. In 1911, in Heilongjiang province 29.3
million mu8 of land was under the plow; in 1912, 31.5 million mu; and in 1917, 38.6 million mu.9 In
general, for China the issue of the CER was “one of the three most significant threats” to its sovereignty,

7 David Wolff, To the Harbin Station: The Liberal Alternative in Russian Manchuria, 1898–1914 (Stanford:

Stanford University Press, 1999), 2.
8 1 mu = 0.0667 hectare.
9 KongJingwei, Dongbei jingji shi [Economic History of Northeast China] (Chengdu: Sichuan People’s
Publishing House, 1986), 135–137.

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along with the issue of Russian concessions in China and the issue of Outer Mongolia.10 The territory
along the Chinese East Railway was allocated to a special zone — the CER exclusion zone, where theRussians carried out administrative, judicial, and security functions.
The Russians initiated the creation of Harbin, which had not previously existed on the worldmap, and which became the key point of the CER and then the largest city in Northeast China. In 1913,
in Harbin, including the suburbs, there were about 110 thousand people. The population of Harbin andits suburbs was represented by 53 nationalities, among them Russians (50.1%) and Chinese (34.3%)
prevailed. Until 1917, the emigration of Russians to Northeast China was of an economic nature, they
comprised mainly owners and agents of industrial and commercial enterprises, serving workers of the
CER and their families (the wages of Russians on the CER were much higher than the wages of Chinese
nationals). The head of the CER from 1902 was General Dmitry Horvath.11
Meanwhile, the socio-economic and political situation in China was very difficult. The Xinhai
Revolution of 1911–1913, and the end of dynastic rule in China, led to the division of the country into
North and South. In the North, in the provinces bordering on the Russian Far East, the period of politicaldomination of the Beiyang (northern) militarists began. It was formally a constitutional regime, and infact a regime of eastern despotism, where the “small” and “medium despotisms” of subnational scale— regional and provincial — prospered. Successive military-political groups controlled the activitiesof the state institutions in Chinese society. This was a completely new phenomenon in Chinese history:
Chinese generals never before had possessed such military and political power at the same time, andtheir actions for the first time were not aimed at changing the dynasty, but rather at creating a new“dynastyless” state formation.12 The Beiyang militarism regime in Northeast China existed until thelate 1920s.
At the same time, in 1917–1922 Northeast China become a refuge for Russian emigrants, aswell as a base for the formation of White Guard units. The emigration wave of Russians to Manchuriaof the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was replaced by waves of political emigration bymembers of the Russian nobility, bureaucracy, bourgeoisie, burghers and peasants who did not accept
the revolution; and by waves of the former White Guard soldiers and officers who were defeated intheir opposition to the Red troops.
The number of Russians in Northeast China during the civil war in the Far East can only be
estimated because of the primitiveness of the registration system, problems with passports and work
permits. Most researchers believe that more than 200 thousand Russians were living in Manchuria inthe early 1920s. Therefore, according to Chinese sources, in 1922 the number of Russian emigrants in

10 Shen Zhihua, Zhong Su guanxi shi gang: 1917–1991 nian Zhong Su guanxi ruogan wenti zai tantao [A Brief

History of Sino-Soviet Relationship: A Further Discussion on Several Issues Concerning Sino-Soviet Relations in
1917–1991] (Beijing: Publishing House of Social and Scientific Documentation, 2011), 11.
11 Olga Zalesskaia, Rossiisko-kitaiskie prigranichnye otnosheniia na Dal’nem Vostoke (1917–1924) [RussianChinese Border Relations in the Far East] (Blagoveshchensk: BSPU Publishing House, 2002), 102.
12 Edward A. McCord, “Warlordism in Early Republican China”, in A Military History of China, eds. David. A.
Graff and Robin Higham (Colorado: Westview Press, 2002), 175–177.

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >Harbin was 155 thousand people, and in the whole Heilongjiang province more than 200 thousand
Russian emigrants.13
Thus, by the early 1920s in Northeast China, a pattern of Russian emigration presence wasformed, creating a special contact zone of intercultural interaction of the Russian and Chinese people.
The CER and Harbin became the matrices of this interaction, and, at the same time, were greatly
influenced (in economic, political, cultural sense) by the pattern formed in the Far Eastern frontier. The
mass resettlement of Russians to Northeast China (some of whom were lumpens, swindlers, andthieves) made local Chinese authorities worry. Every day, Chinese newspapers published the figures of
Russians newly arriving in Northeast China. As a result, in only one day, on November 18, 1919, 1,018
refugees arrived in Harbin.14 The increase in the number of emigrants in Harbin contributed not only
to the influx of Russian capital into the city’s economy, but also had a direct impact on the increased
number of thefts, small street robberies, counterfeiting, etc.
In 1920, the Chinese administration tightened the rules for Russian emigrants. It became
increasingly difficult for Russians to find accommodation, to move from apartment to apartment, fromhotel to hotel. The decree of President of the Republic of China Xu Shichang on September 23, 1920,
ceased the activities of N.A. Kudashev, the Russian envoy in Beijing, and of the Russian consuls in
China. Russian emigrants in China were deprived of all their rights and privileges and passed into
complete subordination to the Chinese authorities. Criminal cases of Russian citizens in China andlawsuits between Russians and citizens of the Republic of China were submitted to the jurisdiction of
the Chinese courts and the Chinese Ministry of Justice.15
On October 30, 1920, the Council of Ministers of the Republic of China approved the “Rulesof administrative subordination of Russian citizens living in China.” According to these rules, Russian
citizens were now obliged to obey Chinese laws. For trips inside the country, Russian citizens residing
in China had to apply to the office of the foreign affairs commissioner for issuing a security list, andhad to state the purpose, place and time of travel in the application.16
The Chinese authorities abolished the Russian security guard. Chinese troops started guarding
the CER. On January 1921, the Russian postal service was liquidated in China. The Chinese authorities
closed all Russian post offices in the CER Zone, their place was taken by Chinese post offices. The
CER Zone was included in the general postal network of the Republic of China. On March 5, 1921, theAdministration of the civilian section of the CER was liquidated; on March 17 of the same year, officework in Russian was discontinued.17 On May 7, 1922, it was announced that all Russian firms should
13 Shi Fang, Liu Shuang, Gao Ling, Haerbin Eqiao shi [History of Russian Emigration in Harbin] (Harbin:

Heilongjiang People’s Publishing House, 2011), 48.
14 Huang Dingtian, Zhong Su guanxi tongshi [General history of Sino-Russian Relations] (Beijing, People's
Publishing House, 2013), 167.
15 Zhong Su guojia guanxi shi ziliao huibian [Collection of Materials on the History of Sino-Soviet Interstate
Relations in 1917 – 1924] (Beijing: China Social and Science Publishing House, 1993), 135.
16 Sbornik dokumentov,otnosiashchikhsia k KVZHD [Collection of Documents relating to the Chinese Eastern
Railway] (Harbin: Harbin Publishing house, 1922), 296–297.
17 Georgiy Melikhov, Rossiiskaia emigratsiia v Kitae (1917–1924) [Russian Emigration in China (1917–1924)](Moscow: Science Publishing House, 1997), 84, 97, 102–103.

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add Chinese text on the signboards indicating the type of enterprise. This was motivated by theinconvenience encountered during the audit of commercial enterprises, and the fact that the propertyof all Russians in the CER Zone was under the protection of the Chinese authorities.18
In its turn, the Soviet government deprived of citizenship all former Russian citizens who had
lived abroad for more than five years, i.e., from pre-revolutionary time. Those who left Russia afterNovember 7, 1917 without the permission of the Soviet government were also deprived of theircitizenship, as well as those who voluntarily fought against Soviet power, and those who lived abroad
without documents issued by the Soviet government. The Russian envoy in Beijing N.A. Kudashev,
the Russian general consuls in Shanghai, Mukden, Harbin, the members of these diplomatic missions
were dismissed without the right to subsequently hold any public office and without the right to have apension.19
Russian emigrants, arriving in China, started a new life — often without means of subsistence,
and without knowing the language. Some returned to Russia, where repression and labor camps were
waiting for them; others, separated from their homeland, took to drink, and/or committed suicide; stillothers tried to adapt to difficult living conditions in a foreign country.
The emigrants from Russia who came to China needed to find work and housing in a newplace. In Northeast China, in contrast to Europe, before October 1917 many Russian enterprises werealready created — forest concessions, sugar and meat processing plants, coal mines, etc. Russian
emigrants, having got a job at Russian enterprises, did not experience difficulties in communication,
but limited jobs forced them to look for work in the Chinese labor market, where they could notcompete with Chinese workers who were willing to work for a very low salary. Ignorance of theChinese language also complicated job searching. Therefore, a huge number of emigrants lived indifficult material conditions, having odd jobs. This was one of the factors that determined theparticipation of a part of Russian emigrants as mercenaries for Chinese militarists and in the White
Guard troops.
The historical process of the existence of Russian emigration pattern in Northeast China took
place under conditions of constant Russian-Chinese interaction in this contact zone. Russians andChinese lived and worked together. Part of the Chinese population received Russian general andprofessional education. Chinese youth studied at universities in Harbin together with Russian youth.
The creation of centers of Russian culture in Manchuria contributed to the modernization anddevelopment of Chinese culture and science. At the same time, in contrast to Russian emigrants in
European countries, which demographically and culturally dissolved gradually among the local
population, the Russian diaspora in Northeast China was neither acculturated nor assimilated by
Chinese civilization until the late of 1940s. So, it was a unique phenomenon in the historical andgeographical field of the Far Eastern frontier.

18 Dal’nevostochnoe vremia [Far Eastern Time], May 10, 1922.
19 Olga Zalesskaia, Rossiisko-kitaiskie prigranichnye otnosheniia, 105.

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >Power Struggle between Different Political Forces
The October Revolution, in contrast to the February Revolution, marked a new stage in
Russian-Chinese relations. On November 1917, the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs sent Liu
Jingren, the Chinese envoy in Russia, a proposal to create a Russian-Chinese mixed commission toregulate CER issues, and on December 12, 1917, the Harbin Council (Soviet) of Workers and Soldiers
Deputies declared itself the only power body in the CER Zone. These projects and military adventures
were negatively perceived by the Beijing government and Chinese society. Commissar of theProvisional Government on the CER General Dmitry Horvath asked the Chinese authorities for help.
On December 24, 1917, the Chinese authorities presented the Council with an ultimatum on expulsion
from Harbin of the revolutionary guards and on the dissolution of the Council.20 The 618th and 559th
Russian security guards in Harbin, which supported the Council, were disarmed, and the soldiers weredeported from Manchuria.
After the unsuccessful attempt of the Harbin Soviet to establish its power in the CER Zone,
Horvath made efforts to preserve his authority and prevent the CER from being transferred to Soviet
Russia. The Russian envoy in Beijing, N.A. Kudashev, reported to Admiral A.V. Kolchak: “Horvathconsiders it necessary to form a board of the CER, which would be able, somehow, to fulfill its Russianinterests.”21 In the Far Eastern region, meanwhile, the intervention of the imperialist powers began: on
November 1917, the U.S. cruiser USS Brooklyn arrived at the port of Vladivostok, and in January 1918,
Japanese and British warships entered the Golden Horn Bay.
On December 27, 1917, the Russian Government abolished the Russian-Asian Bank, which
was one of the parties signing the contract for the construction of the CER in 1896. At the meeting of
the new board of the Russian-Asian Bank in Paris on January 15, 1918, a project of formation for the
new board of the Chinese Eastern Railway in Beijing was adopted. A new board of CER was established,headed by the chairman and governor of Jilin Province, Guo Zongxi. Horvath was appointed as a vicechairman. The board also consisted of A.V. Kolchak, A.I. Putilov, L.A. Ustrugov, V.S. Yezersky, N.A.
Konovalov, and Z.V. Slauta.
At the beginning of 1918, the “Far Eastern Committee for the Defense of the Motherland andthe Constituent Assembly” was created in Harbin, headed by V.I. Alexandrov, a lawyer, and joined by
Horvath. On February 10, 1918, the Committee announced the beginning of the formation of the “FarEastern Corps of Defense of the Motherland and the Constituent Assembly,” which should have becomea shock force against Soviet power in the Far East. The “Conditions for Chinese volunteers entering
the formation of auxiliary units at the 1st Special Detachment of the Far Eastern Homeland Defense
Corps and the Constituent Assembly of the Russian State”22 were developed. The auxiliary units were
20 Zhong E guanxi shiliao (1917–1919): Zhongdong tielu [Documents on Sino-Russian Relations (1917–1919):

China Eastern Railway] (Beijing: Institute of Modern History, Academica Sinica, 1960), 6–8.
21 Kolchak Aleksandr Vasil’evich – poslednie dni zhizni [Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich — The Last Days of Life](Barnaul: Altay Publishing House, 1991), 168.
22 Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [StateArchive of Russian Federation](Hereafter, GARF), fond R540 (Shtab Okhrannoi strazhi KVZHD. Harbin. 1919), inv.1, file 3, 7.

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created for the protection of warehouses, persons in custody, and for escorting trains with cargo.23 On
April 4, 1918, General M.M. Pleshkov, the commander of the “Far Eastern Committee for the Defenseof the Motherland and the Constituent Assembly,” sent Horvath a request to ask the Chinese
government for permission to recruit Republic of China citizens to these auxiliary units. By the
beginning of 1918, on the territory of Northeast China, White Guard detachments of Russian emigrants
and Chinese citizens were formed in Harbin, at Manchuria Station and at Suifenhe Station.
The vigorous activities of the Russian generals in the CER Zone caused concern among the
local Chinese authorities and the Beijing government. The Governor of Heilongjiang Province, Bao
Guiqing, on January 9, 1918, signed an order prohibiting the population to store weapons at home;
weapons held by organizations and institutions were subject to strict registration. 24 The Beijing
government, in its turn, refused to give consent to the admission of Chinese citizens as soldiers — they
could only be hired as workers (kuli). However, in April 1918, 27 Russian officers were sent from
Harbin to the CER stations to hire Chinese soldiers. They were supposed to recruit six squadrons eachof 160 soldiers with a monthly salary of 80 rubles per soldier. This action provoked a sharp protest
from the Beijing government, and at the end of April 1918, Horvath suspended recruitment.25
However, Ataman Georgiy Semenov refused to obey Horvath’s orders, despite his status asabsolute leader of the White Movement in the Far East. The Special Manchurian Detachment (SMD)
was formed by Semenov at the beginning of 1918 and had become a significant force. In the SMD(among the Russians, the Buryats, the Mongols, the Serbs and the Japanese), the Chinese also served
under the leadership of dual officers: Russian officers commanded during hostilities, and Chinese
officers were engaged in the internal routine during the periods between battles. The total number ofChinese in Semenov’s compounds was 1,300 soldiers.26 Semenov believed that, “large ... military units
from different nationalities would secure the armed forces from simultaneous political collapse. Suchorganization made it possible to use the national antagonism that had long existed between the Mongols
and the Chinese.”27 In Semenov’s order for SMD, “On awarding persons who excelled in cases against
the Bolsheviks,” dated June 25, 1918, among the 82 soldiers awarded with St. George’s crosses andmedals were 47 Chinese citizens, 35 of which were privates, seven junior and senior noncommissioned
officers, four platoon commanders, and one sergeant.28
Refusing to obey anyone, Semenov and his units freely moved in the territory of Northeast
China, freely crossing the Russian-Chinese border. There was evidence of his robberies of Chinese
traders. So, on January 1918, he detained more than 70 traveling salesmen of the “Anyuy” and23 Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of Russian Federation](Hereafter, GARF), fond R-

540 (Shtab Okhrannoi strazhi KVZHD. Harbin. 1919), inv.1, file 3, 7.
24 Heilongjiang sheng zhi [Heilongjiang Province Review], Volume 2 (Harbin: Heilongjiang People`s Publishing
House, 1992), 388.
25 GARF, fond R-540., inv.1, file 3, 9–10, 16, 19–20.
26 Georgiy Melikhov, Rossiiskaia emigratsiia v Kitae, 28, 38.
27 Ataman Semenov O sebe (Vospominaniia, mysli i vyvody) [Ataman Semenov About Myself (Memories, Thoughts
and Conclusions)] (Moscow: AST Publishing house, 1999), 142.
28 Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Zabaikal’skogo kraia [State Archive of the Trans-Baikal Territory][Hereafter, GAZK],
fond 329 (Redaktsiia gazety “Izvestiia”), inv.1, file 63, 16–18.

99Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >“Yuchende” Harbin firms and confiscated all their cash.29 The attempts to disarm Semenov by Chinese
local authorities and Chinese militarist generals were unsuccessful. General Horvath tried to remove
Semenov from Northeast China but failed. Unable to disarm Semenov in Manchuria, Chinese local
authorities agreed not to release him into Russian territory until April 5, 1918, but in fact the Chinese
administration did not control Semenov’s actions absolutely. During the negotiations at Matsievskaya
Station, on April 6, 1918, the representatives of the authorities of Northeast China — Assistant Chiefof Staff under the Directorate of the Governor General of Heilongjiang Province, General Hong
Luanming and Colonel, Senior Adjutant Baizu Yi — stated to Soviet leaders of Siberia that they were
neutral towards Semenov`s detachments. The 20-day guarantee not to release Semenov’s units fromthe borders of China ended, and the Chinese delegation refused to give a secondary guarantee of thiskind.
In April–May 1918, Semenov’s units that had formed in Manchuria began to invade theterritory of Primorye and Transbaikalia. In May 1918, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of
the Soviet government G.V. Chicherin sent a note to the Chinese commission in Petrograd, in which heprotested against the provision of operational bases to the White Guard units and to the Japanesecommand to attack Soviet Russia territory.30 The Beijing government did not reply to this note.
At the end of July 1918, after defeats in battles with the Red Army detachments, the Semenov
detachments fled back to Northeast China again. Commander of the Trans-Baikal Front S.G. Lazobegan negotiations with the Chinese authorities about the disarmament of Semenov. The Chinese
authorities had concerns that if Semenov’s detachments were disbanded, the Lazo troops might invade
Manchuria. Therefore, the signing of the agreement would be broken.31
Meanwhile, on August 15, 1918, Japan began to transfer seven divisions of the Kwantung
Army, which consisted of 84 thousand soldiers, to North Manchuria.32 Japanese troops were locatedalong the line of the Chinese Eastern Railway from Harbin to Manchuria Station. The entry of Japanese
troops was so sudden that the Beijing government did not have time to warn the local authorities of
Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces. It provoked numerous protests from the provincial governors. At theend of August, however, the head of the Anhui military clique Duan Qirui appealed to the authoritiesof the Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces with the statement to establish “warm and harmonious relations
with the Japanese troops.”33

29 Heilongjiang sheng zhi, 388.
30 Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR [Documents of the USSR Foreign Policy], Volume 1 (Moscow: State Political

Publishing House, 1957), 340.
31 Ataman Semenov O sebe, 166.
32 Sow-theng Leong, Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Relations: 1917–1926 (Canberra: Australian National University
Press, 1976), 55.
33 Sow-theng Leong, Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Relations: 1917–1926 (Canberra: Australian National University
Press, 1976), 57.

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In September 1918, the entry of Japanese troops into Transbaikalia began, their numbers
reaching 40 thousand soldiers.34 Japanese troops took control of the central section of the Siberian
Railway, while the White Guard detachments of Ataman Semenov occupied Chita town.
During the civil war and intervention in the Far East, Northeast China became a haven forleaders of various political parties and organizations. At the beginning of March 1918, members of theProvisional Government of Autonomous Siberia (PGAS), elected by the Siberian Regional Duma, fledfrom Tomsk and arrived in Harbin. On January 26, 1918, the executive committee of the Tomsk Soviet
declared the Duma dissolved. The chairman of the PGAS and at the same time the Minister ofAgriculture, P. Derber, went to Harbin. Although Horvath did not welcome the appearance of Derberin Harbin, he, nevertheless, provided the wagon for accommodation of the RGAS members at Harbin
Station.
All the attempts of the Derber government to obtain official recognition from the commandersof the interventionist forces ended in failure. At the end of March 1918, the Allies of the White
Movement came to the conclusion that the government of Derber was unable to lead the fight against
the Bolsheviks in the Far East. The capture of power by PGAS in Vladivostok on June 29, 1918 (withthe help of Czechoslovakian legionnaries), did not influence the decision of the Allies to put General
Horvath and Admiral A.V. Kolchak in charge of the White Movement in the Far East. Horvath, in his
appeal on July 9, 1918, as the “only remaining representative of the Provisional Government,”
proclaimed himself the Temporary Ruler and announced the formation of a Business Cabinet, headed
by V.S. Orientin, a former member of the third and fourth State Duma. “I decided to take full stateauthority until the restoration of order, with the assistance of the people, in Russia and until theconvening of a freely elected Constituent Assembly, which would establish the form of government of
the Russian state,” Horvath explained in his declaration.35 On July 10, 1918, during a meeting of the
PGAS Council of Ministers under the chairmanship of P. Derber, the decision to “unite all the forcesof democracy in the fight against the looming dictatorship of General Horvath” was made.36
The power struggle continued until September 1918, when the chairman of the Council of
Ministers of the Provisional Siberian Government, P.V. Vologodsky, arrived in Vladivostok. After longnegotiations, Horvath declared his submission to Vologodsky, accepting the position of authorized
Siberian Government in Vladivostok. On September 23, 1918, a Directory of five men was created in
Ufa (N.D. Avksentyev, V.M. Zenzinov, V.G. Boldyrev, V.A. Vinogradov, and P.V. Vologodskii),
proclaiming itself the “Provisional Government of All Russia.” The main tasks of the Ufa Directory
were: the struggle for the overthrow of Soviet power, the annulment of the Brest peace and thecontinuation of the war against Germany, together with the Allies. The Provisional Government ofAutonomous Siberia was self-abolished. In October 1918, the Directory moved to Omsk.

34 Stanislav Grigortsevich, Amerikanskaia i iaponskaia interventsiia na sovetskom Dal’nem Vostoke i ee razgrom(1918–1922 gg.) (Moscow: State Political Publishing House, 1957), 25.
35 Delo ne poluchilo blagosloveniia Boga: Publitsistika i memuary beklyh [The Affair Did Not Receive the Blessingof God: The Memoirs of White Leaders] (Khabarovsk: Khabarovsk Publishing House, 1992), 13.
36 GARF fond R-175, (Sovet ministrov Vremennogo pravitel’stva avtonomnoi Sibiri) inv.1, file 11, 1.

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >In the middle of October 1918, Admiral Kolchak arrived in Omsk. On November 4, he wasgiven the post of military and maritime minister of the Directory Government. On the night ofNovember 18, 1918, a coup took place in Omsk to establish a military dictatorship. The leading figuresof the Directory were arrested, and A.V. Kolchak got the post of Supreme Ruler of the Government of
All Russia. Horvath became the High Commissioner of this Government in the Far East.
After the coup of November 18, 1918, the power of Admiral A.V. Kolchak as the Supreme
Ruler and the Commander-in-Chief was recognized by all the provisional governments that had been
formed in 1918 on the territory of the Far East. Only Ataman Semenov refused to obey, expressing his
desire to know the position and the goals of the new government first. In response, Semenov received
Order No. 61 from Omsk, which stated that he was dismissed from all posts and from the command of
the White Cossack troops in Transbaikalia for disobeying the Supreme Ruler. Further attempts by A.V.
Kolchak to bring Semenov’s troops under control were met with resistance by the Ataman, who was
supported by Japanese troops, threatening Kolchak with a complete break in relations in the case force
was used against Semenov. The conflict was settled only in the spring of 1919, when the order toremove Semenov from all posts was canceled.37
Using Semenov`s Cossack troops, Japan attempted to realize the plan of the formation of the“Great Mongolian State” — a union of Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Barga (part of China) andBuryat-Mongolia (part of Russia) under the Japanese protectorate. In 1919, Semenov organized a PanMongolian government at Dauria Station. However, after the fall of the Omsk government in 1920,
Barga again came under Chinese rule.
Formation and Activities of the White Guard Detachments in Northeast China
In the autumn of 1919, the units of the Red Army inflicted a series of serious defeats on
Kolchak. On November 14, 1919, Omsk was taken by Red troops.
Under the apparent weakness of the Kolchak regime in Siberia and the Far East, the activities
of moderate socialist parties were intensifying. In November 1919, in Irkutsk, the Political Center, abody of the “Temporary Revolutionary Government” was formed. In December 1919 – January 1920,
the Political Center took an active part in organizing the overthrow of Kolchak government. The
Political Center, aiming to stabilize the situation in the region, put forward the idea of forming anautonomous democratic buffer state entity. On January 21, 1920, the idea of a “buffer” was approved
by V.I. Lenin. On April 6, 1920, a congress of workers in the Baikal region proclaimed the formationof the Far Eastern Republic (FER). Formally, the FER was an independent state, but the leadership by
Dalbureau provided on its territory corresponded to the program settings of the Soviet Russian party
leadership.
In the spring of 1920, the power of the FER extended only to the territory of the Baikal region.
The actual unification of Transbaikalia, the Baikal region and the Amur region as parts of the FER
occurred at the end of October 1920. In general, the FER existed until the end of 1922, when in the37 “Delo ne poluchilo blagosloveniia Boga:” Publitsistika i memuary belykh, 63–66.

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autumn of 1922, with the liberation of Primorye from invaders and White Guards, the civil war in the
Far East ended.
Meanwhile, anti-Bolshevik forces carried out successful attempts to seize power. After thecoup of May 26, 1921, in Primorye, power was transferred to the “Provisional Amur Government”
under the chairmanship of S.D. Merkulov. The Merkulov government decided to create an internal
front by forming white insurgent detachments numbering from 100 to 400 soldiers, and their task was
to organize an uprising on the territory of the FER and insurrection in the CER Zone, and consolidation
with the insurgent population. The first attack of the White Guards was prepared by the middle of July
1921.
To organize an uprising on the Far Eastern Republic territory, the Merkulov`s government
appointed its representatives to the regions bordering the FER. In the spring of 1921, the Amur Military
Organization operated on the territory of the Far Eastern frontier. Its leading centers were both inChinese and Russian territories —there was the center in Sakhalyan (Heihe, China) under the leadershipof General Serbinovich and there was the center in Blagoveshchensk (Russia) under the leadership ofPrince Mayevsky. The actions of both organizations were strictly coordinated with each other. Actingwith the full support of Chinese authorities and Japanese command, the Amur Military Organization
was provided with funds by the Merkulov government and the monarchical organization of General
Baryshnikov in Harbin. The members of the Military Organization, through Chinese merchants, had
contacts with the White Movement in Blagoveshchensk, Trans-Baikal and Amur regions, and throughthe Japanese military missions in China. Their aim was the organization of a coup in the Amur region.
The detachments of the Amur Military Organization, which had an aim to attack Blagoveshchensk,
were located in Fujin, Sakhalyan and other Chinese cities. Its cells were organized also on the Russianside of Amur River from Lahasusu to Mohe. They published and distributed leaflets, brochures and the“Headquarter of the Amur Military Organization” newsletter. Subsequently, the armed intervention of
the White Army units in the Amur Region was prevented by officers of the Soviet State Political Bureau.
Subsequently, 38 leaders and members of the Amur Military Organization were arrested.38
According to the Provisional Amur Government decision for the organization of the White
Movement in the Transbaikalia region, dated May 23, 1922, I.F. Shilnikov, Major General of theTransbaikalian Cossack Army, was appointed as a representative of the Merkulov government inTransbaikalia. The headquarters of the Shilnikov organization was created, which consisted of fourmain divisions: recruiting, counterintelligence, operational, and sanitary. In August 1922, Semenov’s
General Zolotukhin and Officer Pogodaev (the latter was famous for his atrocities during Baron
Ungern’s time) arrived in Vladivostok to Shilnikov’s headquarters. To the beginning of the autumn of1922, about 3,000 people were recruited into Shilnikov`s White troops. The organization was financedby the Merkulov government and by Russian trade enterprises located in the CER Zone (Siberian

38 Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Khabarovskogo kraia [State Archive of Khabarovsk region], [Hereafgter, GAKHK]

fond P-44 (Dal’nevostochnaia (oblastnaia) kraevaia komissiia po sobraniiu i izucheniiu materialov po istorii
Oktiabr’skoi revoliutsii i istorii RKP(b) (Dal’istpart) inv.1, file 279, 19–20, 516.

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >Butter-making Artel, Ural-Siberian Company, etc.). There were also the branches of the organizationin Hailar under the leadership of General Matsievskii.
The headquarters of Shilnikov’s organization was also located in Harbin under the leadershipof Generals Baryshnikov, Pepeliaev, Pleshkov, Afanasyev, Petukhov, and others. On August 4, 1922
General Petukhov arrived in Mukden (he served Zhang Zuolin as the chief of the Russian artillery
detachment) and began the formation of the officer detachment. General Afanasyev, under the guise offorming the internal guard of the CER, was engaged in recruiting Semenov and Kappel troops who had
arrived from Primorye. General Pleshkov was also engaged in the formation of the White Armydetachments. In June 1922, a large batch of Remington rifles, 30,000 sets of uniforms and 3,000 saddles,
using Semenov`s money, were purchased from the American “Simpson.” According to the plan ofGeneral Pepeliaev (this plan was approved by the leaders of the White emigration), the beginning of
the white insurrection uprising under the slogans “For Orthodox Faith,” “For Russian National
Government and Fatherland” was scheduled for July 1922. The plan of the White Rebellion uprisingoutlined by Shilnikov’s headquarters was uncovered only because of the disclosure of the whiteorganization in Chita by the Soviet State Political Bureau.39
In 1919, Ataman Semenov made to the Chinese militarist Zhang Zuolin, the ruler of the Three
Northeastern Provinces of China (Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning), a proposal to create mixed
Russian-Chinese units. In 1921–1922, there were several thousand Russians in the units of Zhang
Zuolin, and they served there on the following conditions: officers lower than colonel for 60 dayans(Chinese silver dollars) monthly; and sub-ensigns for thirty dayans; privates for twenty dayans monthly.
In November 1922 in Zhang Zuolin’s units, an aviation squad was formed. The adviser on the formationof Zhang Zuolin’s cavalry was Semenov.40 On the basis of Japanese troops, Semenov`s detachments,
Zhang Zuolin and Russian anti-Bolshevik elements in Northeast China, it was decided to create a
League against Communism.
In the middle of April 1921, a meeting of the White Guard detachments leaders (G. M.
Semenov, R. Ungern, B.V. Annenkov, and others) was held in Beijing, at which it was decided to startsimultaneous intervention from Northeast China to Transbaikalia, Amur region, Siberia. In early June
1921, Semenov began to prepare for the transfer of his troops to Transbaikalia. But the United States,
fearing that Japan would use Semenov’s troops to capture the CER, managed to prevent the Beijing
government and Zhang Zuolin from transporting Semenov’s troops by the CER. On June 4, 1921, theChinese authorities in Harbin announced that if Semenov arrived in Harbin, he would be arrested. The
need for the arrest of Semenov was officially motivated by the fact that Semenov and his agents, taking
large amounts of money from Chinese nationals, did not pay for the goods.41
In a letter dated October 3, 1922, Zhang Shouzeng, the head of Binjiang district in Jilin
province, addressing to the special commissioner of the FER in the CER Zone, emphasized theneutrality of the headquarters of the CER security forces towards Russian political parties and

39 GAKhK, fond R-44, inv.1, file 279, 16, 19, 515, 519.
40 GAKhK, fond R-44, inv.1,, file 147, 33.
41 Dal’nevostochnaia Respublika [Far Eastern Republic], June 22, 1921.

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Olga Zalesskaiaorganizations. The ban of the Chinese authorities on the import of Russian weapons into the territoryof China was confirmed. Zhang Shouzeng wrote, on October 29, 1922, that a White Guard detachmentof more than 4,000 men who had arrived in Harbin from Vladivostok through Korea was disarmed by
Chinese authorities.42
However, such actions by the Chinese authorities were occasional. Detachments of the White
Guards, formed in Northeast China attacked Russian settlements and hid in Chinese territory. So, on
May 31, 1921, the group of White Guards numbering about twenty persons crossed the Amur Riverand attacked the guard post in the village of Verhne-Blagoveshchensk. On the night of June 1 of thesame year, the White Guards attacked the village of Korfovskii. With the assistance of Chinese soldiers,
weapons intended for the White Guard were smuggled across the Amur River from Russian territory
to the Chinese side. In Russian border villages, weapons for the White Guards were smuggled using
the money of the Chinese garrisons` officers.43 At the same time, the Chinese citizens, who came forseasonal work to the Far East, often worked as postmen for Russian officers in Manchuria and for theWhite Guard units on Russian territory.44
In 1922, the White Guard troops in Northeast China were formed by General I.F. Shilnikov at
Manchuria Station, by General E.G. Sychev in Heihe, and by General G.E. Macieus in Hailar. On
January 5, 1922, a detachment of Colonel Ilkov from Chinese territory raided the village ofNadezhdinskoe, where he took food from the farmers. On December 8, 1922, a detachment of Colonel
Shashkin, consisting of Cossacks from the village of Lonchakovo, hid in Chinese territory. On
December 15–16, White Guard detachments, numbering about 200, blew up railway bridges in the areaof the Viazemskii — Dormidontovka line of the Ussuriiskaia Railway, and then the White Guards hid
in Chinese territory. In September 1922, in the Chinese customs at Pogranichnaia Station, two wagons
loaded with medical supplies were detained. Rifles were found in the supplies of medicine. The
carriages were passed by order of Zhang Zuolin to allow all kinds of military cargo from Primorye toNortheast China.45
In Sakhalyan (Heihe — the Chinese city bordering Russia) the Chinese authorities allowed
the presence of representatives of Ataman Semenov; these representatives assisted in organizing theSychev detachment raids on Soviet territory. Sychev's groups regularly robbed smugglers and Chinesemerchants, as well as sold opium and printed fake banknotes; their counterfeiters workshop was locatedin one of the brothels of Heihe. On the Chinese territory, opposite the Russian Platono-Aleksandrovskii
village, there was the group of Colonel Ovechkin numbering sixty people; opposite the village of Iman
there was an armed group of up to twenty people belonging to Colonel Shiriaev.46 In the frontier zone
42 Haerbin lishi biannian [Chronics of the History of Harbin] (Harbin: Harbin People`s Publishing house, 1986),

120.
43 Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR [Documents of the USSR foreign policy], Volume 7 (Moscow: State Political
Publishing House, 1963), 116–124.
44 GAZK, fond P-81 (Zabajkal’skii gubernskii komitet RKP(b)), inv.1, file 231, 73.
45 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv [Russian State Military Archive], fond 221 (Upravlenie NarodnoOsvoboditel’noi armii Dal’nevostochnoi Respubliki), inv.2, file 41c, 10, 38.
46 Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii [Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation], fond100 (Referentura po Kitaiu), inv.3, file 10, Volume 2, 48.

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >bordering the Russian Amur province, Chinese authorities transferred the White Guards to barracks,
supplied them with weapons and cartridges and used their services as armed guards. The White Guard
organizations of Larionov (near Manchuria Station), Gordeev (in Hailar and Manchuria Station),
Kol’tsov (at Zhalaynor mines), Pereboev (at Zhalainor Station) and others freely acted in the Chinese
Eastern Railway Zone. At Pogranichnaia Station, the union of “non-party” workers and employees of
the CER issued certificates to the White Guards; and then the certificates were exchanged for Chinese
passports. Through the same union, the members of the white formations officially received weapons.
The passes for further movement on Chinese territory were issued to the White Guards in Sanchagou,
where White Guards also bought illegal weapons and then sent them to Harbin.47
Using Honghuzi Units in the Struggle for the Leadership
In the conditions of political instability, the population of the Russian Far East was attacked
not only by the White Guard detachments, but also by the Honghuzi groups that had raided Russia from
Northeast China. The participants of armed groups, which operated in Manchuria, from the middle ofthe nineteenth century until 1949, were called “Honghuzi” in Chinese — “red-bearded.” They were
mostly either impoverished migrants, or Chinese fleeing to Manchuria from hard labor.
The Chinese authorities widely used the Honghuzi for military service. As regular troops, theHonghuzi learned the art of war and, after deserting, often formed well-trained and well-organizedgroups. During the First World War, the Honghuzi troops were financed by Germany to destabilize thesituation in the Russian Far East; and were taught military skills by fleeing German prisoners. After
Anglo-Japanese forces captured the German naval base of Qingdao in November 1914, the previously
proposed plans were changed. The goal was now to carry out terror among the population in the Amur
region and in the CER Zone. The security services of the Amur Region were confident that the attacksof the Honghuzi against the Russian villages were possible because of the activities of Germanorganizations.48
During the civil war and intervention, the attacks of the Honghuzi to Russian territory
continued. On March 19, 1921, they robbed the Lenin mine in the Amur region, and on March 20, theyrobbed the Ivanovsky mine. 49 On May 7, Lebedev, the head of the Primorsky regional police,
mentioned that there were 600 Honghuzi at the Skidelsky mine. On June 21, 1921, one thousand
Honghuzi attacked the village of Andreevka; on June 23, 500 Honghuzi, near the Chernigovka village(Nikolsk-Ussuriysk District), attacked the local police.50 By October 1, 1921, the activities of Honghuzigroups were discovered in the area of Troitskaya village (240 miles down the Amur River from47 Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR [Documents of the USSR Foreign Policy], Volume 7, 118–122.
48 Tatiana Ikonnikova, Dal’nevostochnyi tyl Rossii v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny [Far Eastern Rear of Russia during

the First World War] (Khabarovsk: Khabarovsk Publishing House, 1999), 45–46.
49 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Dal’nego Vostoka [Russian State Historical Archive of the FarEast] [Hereafter, RGIA DV], fond R-4931, inv.1, file 59, 201, 203, 219.
50 RGIA DV, fond R-944 (Upravlenie vnutrennimi delami Priamurskogo zemskogo kraia), inv.1, file 3, 2, 7.

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Khabarovsk), as well as in the villages of Vinogradovka, Ozernaya, Beltsevo and Semenovka.51 On
December 27, 1921, a Honghuzi detachment of about 500 people attacked the village ofBlagoslovennoye in the Zavitinsky district of the Amur region. Twenty-three houses, a post office anda school were burned by the Honghuzi, 217 horses and seventeen cows were taken illegally to China.
On April 20, 1922, the border village of Vaganovo was devastated by Honghuzi. The number of
Honghuzi attacks to the stations and the trains of the CER increased as the Japanese command, trying
to prove the Chinese authorities’ inability to maintain order, set the Honghuzi the task of blowing up
Railway bridges, destroying the railway, and attacking the peaceful population. This problem wasrepeatedly discussed during the conversations between the Board of the CER and representatives of theChinese command. On August 21, 1921, a special mixed commission was formed to address thesegrave problems posed by the Honghuzi.52
The Japanese interventionists actively supported Honghuzi troops, supplying them withweapons, uniforms and money. After every attack by the Honghuzi, Japan reaffirmed the need for theJapanese troops to stay in Primorye to “restore order.” During a closed meeting of the Vladivostok city
government on September 22, 1922, a proposal by Japan to withdraw the Honghuzi from Primorye (oncondition that the Provisional Amur Government would support all of Japan’s activities) was
mentioned.53
The government of the FER attempted to use the Honghuzi for its own purposes. On August
16, 1920, during the meeting of the Primorsky Regional Committee of the RCP, “it was recognized that
it was possible to use Chinese organizations in the struggle we are carrying out in this land.” On January
25, 1921, a Chinese Communist Liu Qian (assumed name Fedorov) arrived from Blagoveshchensk to
Khabarovsk with a group of comrades. He began work to clarify the number of Chinese troops in the
Far East. He found that among the Honghuzi troops, totaling 20,000 men, operating along the CER
Zone right to Vladivostok, 1,600 fighters were ready to join the FER army. The Honghuzi Yun He, who
acted with his detachment of 1,700 soldiers in the area of Iman, also agreed to support the troops of theFER.54 Fedorov issued certificates of the Communist Party membership to all leaders of the Honghuzi,
who agreed to cooperate with the revolutionary forces.
Fedorov conducted negotiations with Honghuzi detachments until the summer, but noappreciable results were achieved. Honghuzi groups who received certificates of membership to theCommunist Party continued their robberies under communist slogans, so they lowered the authority of
the Communist Party among the Chinese people. For the centralized consolidation of the Honghuzi,
the commander of the Chinese battalion Sun Jiwu (assumed name “Yellow”), who fought in the summerof 1920 on the Ussuriisk front, was selected. The relevant work was carried out with him by the Amur

51 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’noi i politicheskoi istorii [Russian State Archive of Social and Political

History], fond R 372 (Dal’biuro Tsentral’nogo komiteta RKP(b))., inv.1, file 87, 247.
52 Istoricheskii obzor KVZHD [The Historical Review of the Chinese Eastern Railway (1896 – 1923)], Volume 1,

ed. E.H.Nilus (Harbin: CER Publishing House, 1923), 402.
53 RGIA DV, fond 159 (Vladivostokskaia gorodskaia duma), inv.1, file 46, 576.
54 GAKhK, fond P-361 , (Priamurskii oblastnoi komitet RKP(b)), inv.1, file 7, 33–35.

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >Department of the Soviet State Political Bureau,55 because on July 1921 he went to Jilin Province ofNortheast China with his detachment of up to 300 soldiers. Freely crossing the Russian-Chinese border,
he began to fight as a partisan on Russian territory, and in China he participated in brushes with White
Guard units, moving to Primorye and Amur region (in particular, with the brigade of General Sakharov).
On August 1922, his detachments joined the Korean detachments, and Sun Jiwu was elected as thechairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the partisan detachments of Jilin province.56 Most
commanders and ordinary soldiers of his detachment previously served as officers and soldiers in thearmy of Zhang Zuolin, or were Honghuzi. They were attracted to Sun Jiwu’s detachment because they
could submit application and receive 50–100 dayans from the detachment`s food committee, and sentmoney to their families suffering from financial difficulties. The partisans obtained food and money by
imposing a hard contribution on the population in the border cities and villages.
The total number of Chinese and Korean partisan detachments consolidated on the instructions
with the help of Dalbureau of the Central Committee of the RCP was 3,300 men. Their task was toensure the protection of communications on Chinese territory and on the right flank of the FER People
Army`s front when it attacked Vladivostok. To fulfill the intended goal, the command of the partisan
detachments of the Khabarovsk district established a constant connection with Sun Jiwu, provided him
with ammunition and machine guns, and coordinated military operations with him. The united partisan
detachments had their own headquarters, political units, household units, medical units, veterinary units,
machine-gun crews, separate rifle battalions (numbering 223 soldiers), and an artillery battery (17soldiers).57 The FER government concealed its involvement in the formation and activities of these
detachments. During the official negotiations with the authorities of Northeast China, the FER
government called the partisan detachments of Sun Jiwu as “Honghuzi detachments”, insisting on the
spontaneous nature of their formation and denying any contacts with these detachments, which,nevertheless, on October 1922 took active part in the final Primorsk operation and the assault on Spassk.
Conclusions
After the October Revolution, during the period of civil war and intervention in the Russian
Far East, Northeast China became a territory where the forces of the Russian counterrevolution wereconcentrated. This role of Northeast China, on the one hand, was predetermined by the presence of the
CER Zone, where the Russian population lived and the Russian administration functioned. On the other
hand, because of the dependence of the Beijing government and Zhang Zuolin (de facto the leader ofNortheast China) on the imperialist powers, the White Movement leaders were able to form their troops
in the territory of Northeast China. The presence of an anti-Bolshevik center here was one of thepeculiarities of the historical and geographical field of the Far Eastern frontier during the civil war and
55 GAKhK, fond P-361, inv.1, file 7, 29.
56 GAKhK, fond P-1722 (Shtab revoliutsionnykh partizanskikh otriadov Severnogo Kitaia), inv.1, file 7, 8–9.
57 GAKhK, fond P-44, inv.1, file 400, 1–4, 28–34.

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intervention. In fact, in the territory of one country (China) there had been an ongoing struggle forleadership to achieve the goals of this struggle in the territory of another country (Russia). By its very
nature, this struggle itself was caused by different political orientations of various groups and thepersonal ambitions of its leaders. Therefore, their global goal — victory over the Bolshevik regime —was not achieved.
Despite all attempts, the complete consolidation of military emigration in China, as well as inEurope, could not be implemented. The most important reasons for the unification process failures
were: the absence or lack of remarkable leaders who could lead the process; strong political disunity;
disappointment of a certain part of the former military in the ideals of the White movement, theirrecognition of the Soviet authorities and even cooperation with Soviet special agencies, financial
insolvency, etc.
The formation of the White Guard detachments and their activities became possible becauseof political instability and the split of China, which ended only in 1949 with the Communists came to
power and consolidated the country. China (namely, Northeast China) acted as the host country, as therecipient region, where not only the residence of Russian emigrants but also the creation of politicalparties and groups was allowed. The function of the recipient region of Northeast China became
possible due to the fact that the Russian diaspora began to form here at the beginning of the 20th century,and before October 1917, the centers of Russian culture were formed here. Over the next decades, it
promoted adaptation of Russian emigrants to living conditions in a foreign country. Moreover, before
the occupation of Northeast China by Japanese troops, there was an opportunity for free access ofeducation and creative growth, a brilliant galaxy of artists, musicians, writers and poets among theemigrants formed here. Despite the hard conditions of the political regime, which are incomparablewith the living conditions of Russian emigrants in European countries, relations between the
populations of the border areas of the Russian Far East and Northeast China, which had developed forseveral decades, contributed to overcoming inter-civilizational alienation and the formation of a special
area of ethnocultural interaction in the Far Eastern frontier.
It should be noted that the political activity of adherents of the White Movement in China wasin contradiction with the main thrust of the process of social adaptation in the host society. The processof social adaptation assumed the rejection of political activity and the continuation of the struggle
against the Bolshevik regime in Russia, orienting the individual to inclusion in the professional
production spheres of the regions of residence, and the acquisition of a stable legal status. The
willingness to adapt to new living conditions rather than continue the anti-Bolshevik struggle, which
was the meaning and structure-forming core of the White movement, led most of the former military
to abandon further participation in the anti-Soviet movement. Moreover, in Northeast China, where
there were elements of the Russian socio-cultural environment and Russian spheres of employment,
the most favorable conditions for the social adaptation of the former military had developed. On thecontrary, the so-called irreconcilable ones deliberately excluded themselves from the adaptation
process, including refusing to create a family and getting a “peaceful” profession.
After the end of the civil war and intervention, in the 1920s and 1930s, the activities of theWhite Movement leaders in Northeast China continued and developed, and the new White Guard

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Eurasia Border Review < Special Section >organizations were set up (by the end of the 1920s, there were more than 30 such organizations),
financed by the white immigrant diasporas of Europe and America. Despite the failure of the unification
process, military emigration throughout the entire period of the 1920s – early 1940s was the main forceof the anti-Bolshevik movement. Mercenaries among Russian emigrants continued to fight in thearmies of the Chinese militarists, and participated in the conflict on the CER in 1929. Northeast China
White emigration inherited a split in the White Movement in the Far Eastern frontier in 1917–1922. Asa losing party, emigration and its leaders tried to find whom to blame for their collapse, learn from it
and develop plans for further struggle with the Soviet regime. The withdrawal of a part of emigrants
from the pro-Japanese course propagating by some political leaders of Northeast China Whiteemigration later crystallized the patriotic wing of the Russian diaspora in Northeast China.

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