Nearly 172,000 Koryo-saram (also called "Koryoin" or "Soviet Koreans") were forcibly transferred from the Russian Far East to unpopulated areas of the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR in 1937 by the NKVD on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Molotov. 124 trains were used to resettle them to Central Asia. The reason was to stem "the infiltration of Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Krai", as Koreans were at the time subjects of the Empire of Japan, which was the Soviet Union's rival. It has been described as part of Stalin's policy of "frontier cleansing". Estimates based on population statistics suggest that between 16,500 and 50,000 deported Koreans died from starvation, exposure, and difficulties adapting to their new environment in exile.
After Nikita Khrushchev became the Soviet premier in 1953 and undertook a process of de-Stalinization, he condemned Stalin's ethnic deportations, but did not mention Soviet Koreans among these exiled nationalities. The exiled Koreans remained living in Central Asia, integrating into the Kazakh and Uzbek society, and the new generations gradually lost their culture and language. This was the first ethnic deportation of an entire Soviet people, a method that was repeated during the population transfer in the Soviet Union during and after World War II when millions of people belonging to other ethnic groups were forcibly resettled. Modern historians and scholars view this deportation as an example of a racist policy in the USSR and ethnic cleansing, common of Stalinism, as well as a crime against humanity.
Background
Emigration from the Joseon kingdom of Korea to the neighboring Primorsky Krai (ceded to Russia from China in the Amur Annexation) was recorded in the early 1860s. By the 1880s, 5,300 Koreans, distributed in 761 families, were living in 28 Cossack villages. Under the terms of a Russo-Korean treaty signed on 25 June 1884, all Koreans living in the Far East up until that date were granted citizenship and land in the Russian Empire, but all others who would arrive after 1884 were not allowed to stay longer than two years. Even the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 did not halt migration to Russia; after 1917, many Koreans were fleeing the Japanese occupation of Korea. They mostly settled in the Posyet, Suchan and Suyfun districts. Korean migrants who had moved to Russia referred to themselves as the Koryo Saram. By the 1920s, over 100,000 Koreans lived in the Primorsky Krai. Russian peasants encouraged the migration, since leasing lands to the Koreans was profitable. Around that time, 45,000 Koreans (30%) were granted citizenship, but in 1922, 83.4% of all Soviet Korean households were landless.
On 22 November 1922, the Soviet Union annexed the Far Eastern Republic, claiming all the populace there as their citizens, including Koreans residing there. With the newly established Soviet rule, circumstances began to change. In order to discourage further immigration, 700 to 800 Koreans were deported from Okhotsk to the Empire of Japan in 1925. That same year, a proposed Korean ASSR, which would give Koreans autonomy, was rejected by Soviet officials. The 1926 Soviet Census enumerated 169,000 Koreans, 77,000 Chinese and 1,000 Japanese in the Far East Region. During the collectivization and the Dekulakization campaigns in the 1930s, more Koreans were deported from the Soviet Far East.
Due to lingering sentiments from the Russo-Japanese War and contemporary disdain for imperialist Japan, Soviet officials became increasingly suspicious of the Soviet Koreans, fearing they could remain loyal subjects of the Empire and be used by Japan for espionage or "counter-revolutionary propaganda". They also feared that an increasing presence of Koreans in the U.S.S.R. could be used by Japan to justify expansion of the boundaries of Korea.
Between 1928 and 1932, anti-Korean and anti-Chinese violence increased in the Soviet Far East, causing 50,000 Korean emigrants to flee to Manchuria and Korea. On 13 April 1928, a Soviet decree was passed stipulating that Koreans should be removed away from the vulnerable Soviet-Korean border, from Vladivostok to the Khabarovsk Oblast, and to settle Slavs in their place, mostly demobilized Red Army soldiers. An official plan intended to resettle 88,000 Koreans without citizenship north of Khabarovsk, except those who "proved their complete loyalty and devotion to Soviet power".
Resolution No. 1428-326cc: Planning the forced relocation On 17 July 1937, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union issued a resolution declaring all frontiers "special defense zones", and several ethnic minorities in those border areas were considered threats to Soviet security, including Germans, Poles and Koreans. Soviet newspaper Pravda accused Koreans of being agents of Japan, while the Soviet government closed the borders and initiated a "frontier zone cleansing".
On 21 August 1937, the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union adopted the decree No. 1428-326сс which ordered the deportation of the Soviet Koreans from the Far East, and determined that the process should be completed by 1 January 1938. The decree was signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Molotov and Secretary of the Central Committee Joseph Stalin. The decree stated:
The Council of People's Commissars and CC of the VCP (b) hereby order: To prevent the penetration of Japanese espionage to the Far East region undertake the following acts:
deport all Korean population from the border regions of the far east... and relocate it to the south—Kazakhstan region, areas near Aral Sea, Uzbek SSR deportation will begin immediately and will finish by January 1, 1938 allow Koreans subject to relocation to take movable property, livestock compensate the cost of abandoned movable and real property and crops increase the frontier troops by three thousand soldiers to secure the border in the Korean relocation region
The official justification for resolution 1428-326cc was that it had been planned with the aim to "prevent the infiltration of Japanese spies into the Far East", without trying to determine how to distinguish those who were spies from those who were loyal to the state, as Stalin considered many Soviet minorities a possible fifth column. As of 29 August 1937, all Korean border guards were recalled. On 5 September 1937, 12 million roubles were urgently sent to the Far East Executive Committee to assist them in implementing this operation.
Deportation
Even though the decree was issued in August, the Soviet officials delayed its implementation for 20 days in order to wait for the Koreans to complete the harvest. On 1 September 1937, the first group consisting out of 11,807 Koreans were deported. Koreans had to leave their movable property behind and receive "exchange receipts", but these were rushed and filled out in a way that they were not considered binding legal documents. The Soviet authorities charged the deported Koreans 5 roubles for each day of their journey. Those Koreans who did not resist the resettlement were awarded with 370 roubles. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, would go from house to house, knock on the doors, and inform the people inside that they must gather all their belongings, personal documents, and all food they can find at home in less than half an hour and follow them. They were not given prior notice where they were being deported to.
By the end of September, 74,500 Koreans were evicted from Spassk-Dalny, Posyet, Grodekovo, Birobidzhan and other places. In the second phase of the deportation, starting from 27 September 1937, the Soviet authorities expanded their search to encompass Koreans from Vladivostok, the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Chita Oblast and Khabarovsk Kray. The deportees were transported by railway in 124 trains. During this operation, 7,000 Soviet Chinese were also deported together with Soviet Koreans. In case of mixed marriages, if the husband was Korean, the entire family was subject to deportation. Only if the husband was non-Korean and the wife Korean was the family exempt from this order. NKVD officers were allowed to stay in the abandoned houses of the Koreans. Five to six families (25 to 30 people) were sent to each compartment of a cargo train. Their journey lasted between 30 and 40 days. The sanitation inside these trains was of poor quality. Deported Koreans had to eat, cook, sleep and excrete inside these wagons.
A correspondence sent by the NKVD official Nikolay Yezhov, dated 25 October 1937, indicated that the deportation was complete, having removed 36,442 Korean families. The only remaining Koreans, 700 settlers in Kamchatka and Okhotsk, were supposed to be deported by 1 November 1937. The correspondence also reveals that 2,500 Koreans were arrested during this operation; presumably, they were all shot because they protested moving out of their homes.
In total, 171,781 persons were deported. They were sent on a journey in trains to the special settlements in the Kazakh and Uzbek SSR. At least 500 Koreans died as a direct result of this transfer. The corpses of the deportees who died from starvation were left behind at one of the many train stations. Instead of the planned seven, the Koreans were dispersed between 44 regions. 37,321 people were sent to the Tashkent region; 9,147 to the Samarkand region; 8,214 to the Fergana region; 5,799 to the Khwarazm region; 972 to the Namangan region, etc. Overall, 18,300 Korean households were deported to the Uzbek SSR, and 20,141 households to the Kazakh SSR. Some were resettled for a second time, as was the case of 570 Korean families who were evicted from the Kazakh SSR to the Astrakhan District to be given jobs in the fishing industry. Ultimately, approximately 100,000 Koreans were sent to the Kazakh SSR and more than 70,000 to Uzbek SSR.
In 1940, a further number of Koreans were resettled, this time from the Murmansk region to the Altai Krai. A decree signed by the chief of the Soviet secret police Lavrentiy Beria ordered that 675 families containing 1,743 people, including Germans, Poles, Chinese and Koreans, should be removed from the border regions. On 10 January 1943, a State Defense Committee resolution stipulated that 8,000 Koreans should be demobilized from the Red Army and sent to labour battalions with other Koreans in Central Asia. Sporadic deportations of any remaining Koreans continued all until 1946.
Entire districts in the Far Eastern Region were left empty. Red Army officials obtained the best buildings left behind. Even though the Soviet government planned to settle 17,100 families in their place, only 3,700 families moved there by 1939.
Experience in exile Arrival and distribution in kolkhozes
The deportees were allowed to take livestock with them and received some compensation (on average 6,000 roubles per family) for property left behind. Upon arrival at their destination, some deportees were sent to barracks under a 24/7 supervision of armed guards. The Soviet government was often negligent towards this process of resettlement. In one instance, 4,000 Koreans arrived by train to Kostanay on 31 December 1937. Due to the winter temperatures, they spent almost a week inside the passenger car "before there was any sign of activity from local authorities". The people were dispersed in whatever buildings were at their disposal, including abandoned hospitals, prisons and warehouses.