Regional Aspects of Russian-Chinese Relations

Chinese Communities in Western Siberia in 1920s - 1930s: Socio-political Dimensions//Actual Questions of Russian-Chinese Relations: Past and Present (Barnaul, 1999), pp. 24-33

By Vladimir Boyko

(An abstract)

This paper aims to outline the origins and main dimensions of Chinese immigrant communities which were established in Russian heartland - Western Siberia - through interwar period (1920s - 1930s). It argues, that Chinese - primarily male groups - had managed to be adapted peacefully, though temporarily, into local environment due their particular mental and social features - they were often occupying free labor and demographic lacunae, determined by men losses of WWI/Russian civil war) and devastation of economy/infrastructure. The growth of authoritarian tendencies under Stalinist regime in Soviet Union, economic shortcomings and ethnical cleanses of 1930s closed the agenda of Chinese presence at Western Siberian, as well the whole Soviet scene - actually all persons of Chinese origin were accused as an "outside"(that is Japan's) collaborates, assassinated or, at best, forwarded to concentration camps, - just few survived it. Chinese in Western Siberia represented very particular socio-demographic and ethnical phenomenon, remarkably distinctive from another similar, Russian Far East or worldwide, immigrant communities.

The article is based on data drawn from local Siberian, regional and district, archives and is a part of more broad project on Chinese/other immigrant communities by Oriental origin in Asiatic Russia and is purposed to advance the study of this multi-faceted phenomena of critical historical and current relevance.