ABSTRACT
By the spring of 1929, the Chinese Communists were weak, the Guomindang had unified North and South China-on paper at least-and Sino-Soviet relations were becoming increasingly tense. The Politburo began to receive disturbing reports from Harbin indicating that the Manchurian warlord Zhang Xueliang was threatening to seize the Chinese Eastern Railway, which the Soviet Union had originally promised to return to China “without compensation” but had then retained through using secret diplomacy; as early as spring 1926, Trotsky hadwarned that the Soviet government’s retention of the railway would lead to disaster. In early May 1929, a police raid on the Soviet consulate in Harbin pro-
duced many damaging documents-purporting to prove the Soviet goal of overthrowing the Chinese government-and the consul and his staff were arrested and held in jail for six hours. Zhang Xueliang used this event as an excuse to take over the railway. These events led to greater Sino-Soviet tensions that culminated during August in an undeclared war in Manchuria. Amassing ground, air, and riverine forces, the Soviet Red Army invaded China and decisively defeated the Chinese army. As a result of this victory, the USSR reclaimed possession of the Tsarist railway concession in northern Manchuria. The Sino-Soviet War had many unintended consequences in the Soviet
Union and China. It confirmed that the Soviet government had given up on the China revolution and had adopted an aggressive policy to retain its imperialist possessions. This, in turn, meant that the Chinese Communist Party was forced to support Soviet “Red Imperialism” over China’s own sovereign claim to Manchuria, a hotly disputed position that even led to the expulsion of Chen Duxiu from the CCP as an accused Trotskyite. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Stalin used the war to eliminate the Right Opposition. He also called for a “Great Leap Forward” in collectivization; many rich peasants, known as kulaks, were deported to Siberia to help prop up Soviet security in underpopulated regions adjoining Manchuria. In line with the decision to exile his opponents, Stalin also ordered the creation of prison camps, the first of what would soon be popularly known as the “gulag archipelago.”
