Chinese Eastern Railway and Russian Minority Groups in Manchuria

Abstract

The history of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) railway, which has drawn the attention of scholars almost since the time of its construction, is inseparable from the story of the complicated and tangled relations between one majority group — Chinese — and two large minority groups, White émigrés and Soviet citizens who resided in Manchuria and whose lives were largely related to the CER. These relations are largely ignored by the scholars of the CER, in which the focus is on various diplomatic aspects and the CER is considered to be a key actor in international relations of the countries and whose interests were related to Manchuria. Therefore, this article explores the complicated and tangled relations between Chinese, White émigrés, and Soviet citizens who resided in Manchuria in 1920s — 1930s and whose lives were largely related to the Chinese Eastern Railway. This very aspect, the existence of two minority groups (CER’s soviet staff and White émigrés) who shared the same linguistic, cultural, and ethnic background, but who, on the other hand, were political antagonists, makes the Manchurian case especially unique and interesting. This paper argues that common ethnic identity prevailed over ideological discord. This discord was neutralized by life which they lived together surrounded by culturally, linguistically, and ethnically different majority.