Kirill Meretskov (6.0)

President of Soviet Manchuria

Kirill Meretskov was a Soviet military commander and Manchurian politician. He fought many victories in World War II and oversaw the Soviet occupation of Manchuria. He is responsible for the resettlement of Soviet refugees in Manchuria under Operation Red Fields and founded the Manchurian Soviet Socialist Republic. His authoritarian rule over Manchuria saw the region protected from much of the famine and devastation caused by the global climatic collapse, yet also saw the disenfranchisement of the Chinese majority at the hands of a ruling class of Russian-speaking emigrants from the Soviet Union.

## Biography

Meretskov was born to parents of Russian peasant stock in the village of Nazaryevo, near Moscow. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, and served as an office in the Russian Civil War. After attending the Military Academy, he held many command posts in the Red Army, from a cavalry division to military districts. He fought for the republican side in the Spanish Civil War.

Meretskov commanded Soviet forces in many battles during World War 2. He led the war effort against the Finns in the Winter War and later broke the siege of Leningrad. He was arrested in 1941 during the purge of the Red Army, although he was later released. It is thought that his pragmatic cynicism regarding Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy may have begun during this time of arrest.

### Soviet Occupation of Manchuria

In 1945, Meretskov was granted command of the 1st Far East Front during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. After a month-long campaign defeating the Japanese Kwangtung Army, he remained in command of the ongoing occupation. While the original Soviet invasion plan involved quickly turning over control of Manchuria to the Chinese Communist Party, the ongoing global climatic crisis delayed the date of turnover again and again.

It soon became clear that Manchuria was a key piece in the Soviet logistics network. With the lower Amur and Ussuri valleys being flooded by the sea, Manchuria became the Eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Thousands displaced by the flooding of the Amur and Ussuri valleys wound up crossing the border into Manchuria. While the climate change would surely open up new arable land in the North, Manchuria was one of the few fertile regions of Northeast Asia both untouched by the flooding and accessible by rail.

Thus, Meretskov launched Operation Red Fields, confiscating land from local Han and Manchu landlords and turning it over to Soviet refugees to farm in newly-set-up collective farms. The goal was to create a Manchuria which could both accomodate the waves of refugees from the North and East while being able to feed the Red Army occupation without food shipments from European Russia.

Of course, it was not only lands to the North and East that were affected by the flooding but also those to the South and West. Millions of displaced people from flooded Northern China began fleeing towards unflooded Manchuria. As increasing Manchuria's agricultural productivity enough to support millions of Soviet citizens was already a stretch, Meretskov gave the order to close the border with China proper and kill anyone who tried to cross.

It was ultimately this decision to close off Manchuria to Chinese refugees while keeping it open to Soviet refugees that earned Meretskov condemnation of his peers. First the Chinese Communist Party under Mao, followed by Red Korea and Red Japan, and much later the Far East regime in New Vladivostok would all condemn Meretskov as revisionist. Meretskov himself justified his establishment of a new Soviet ruling class in Manchuria as a pragmatic necessity for the survival of Communism in the Far East, dismissing his detractors as aloof idealists with little comprehension of the reality of the post-flood world.

During this time, as communications with Moscow became more difficult and then ceased altogether, Meretskov would find himself operating more and more on his own initiative. While Aleksandr Vasilevsky, busy rebuilding Vladivostok on higher ground, was officially Meretskov's commanding officer, the two men had begun to communicate more as equals. They engaged in a heated correspondence, with Vasilevsky questioning Meretskov's motives in organizing Operation Red Fields while expressing gratitude for the Manchurian supplies that were a crucial for Vasilevsky's rebuilding of the Far East.

In his last communications with Moscow, Meretskov would repeatedly push for a formal annexation of Manchuria into the Soviet Union. He made the case that Manchuria was the 'keystone of the East'. Its population, industrial base, and intact railway system were deemed necessary for the rebuilding and reintegration of Soviet territories from Irkutsk to Sakhalin. He also advocated for the formal devolution of governing powers from Moscow to a new Eastern Soviet Regional Government (to be headquartered in Harbin in Meretskov's proposals) to ensure the Soviet Far East would stay united until direct rule from Moscow could resume. Meretskov received no response to either proposal.

### Founding of the Manchurian SSR

By 1949, Meretskov was no longer willing to wait for permission from Moscow. On May 17, he unilaterally declared that the lands of former Manchukuo were now the Manchurian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Meretskov himself was now President. Those members of the Soviet Communist Party now resident in Manchuria were made members of a new Manchurian Communist Party, and Meretskov's rule was soon ratified by a vote of party members.

Undere Meretskov's leadership, the Manchurian Communist Party would remain an exclusive institution. Only those literate in Russia were permitted to apply for membership. While the intention was that the children of the Chinese majority would eventually become 'good Soviet citizens' through ideological Russian-language education, the reality was that Manchuria was too poor and the post-flood world was too desperate to educate many beyond the primary level.

Meretskov's intention was for the Manchurian SSR to eventually be integrated into a larger Eastern USSR and reunited with Moscow once communications were reestablished. However, few of Manchuria's neighbours shared Meretskov's vision, and Manchuria would slowly accept the reality of its status as a breakaway state. Meretskov's once-cordial relationship with Vasilevsky began to deteriorate as Vasilevsky condemned Meretskov's actions as insubordination.

### Meretskov's Manchuria

During Meretskov's rule in Manchuria, the region would quickly become one of the most prosperous parts of Northeast Asia. As the most industrialized part of Asia between Novosibirsk and Japan, Manchuria was already doing well before Meretskov. As China was consumed by floods and Japan by Civil War, Manchuria became an island of calm in a sea of chaos. With the clearing of the remainder of Manchuria's forests, it became a breadbasket, keeping its people well-fed and exporting food to the former Soviet Far East while China was faced with famine.

However, at the same time, Manchuria's state of minority rule was despised by many. At first, it was the Manchurian Resistance - made up of Japanese collaborators, Chinese nationalists, and anti-Communists of all ethnicities - which plagued Meretskov's rule. As the Resistance was quelled it was replaced as a threat by Zhang Xueliang's One China Party which desired to invade Manchuria to reunite it with China.

It was largely the threat of Zhang Xueliang that promoted Meretskov's heavy interest in mech technology. With only the Russian-speaking minority eligible to serve in the Red Army, Meretskov desperately needed a force multiplier if he was to take on Zhang. With a number of world-class Soviet Engineers among the refugees who had settled in Manchuria, the Harbin Mechanized Armoury was soon producing the best mechs in the region.