ABSTRACT
After the arrival of the railway engineers in 1898, Russian influence in Harbin was indisputable and highly visible for several decades. The city was initially run directly by the Russian Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) management, but in the years 1907–17 its status changed to that of an “open city,” with the Russians still playing the leading role. After the 1917 Russian revolution, Harbin remained dominated by its White Russian community for yet another decade (1917–26), while at the same time experiencing growing Soviet influence in the years following the 1924 Sino-Soviet treaty concerning the CER. The gradual dilution of Russian power in Harbin thus followed a complicated course: purely Russian rule gave way to a growing international presence, and after 1917 the Russian factor was itself split into “white” and “red” forces.
