33年 5月 9日
The Paris Peace Accords had been settled to China's satisfaction for the most part. America came out with economic access to Europe and Britain retained North Africa. Behind the public negotiations, few realized that the generous terms and cordial consideration offered to the European allies were an exchange. When the new round of talks was held in Akmolinsk to discuss the future of the former Soviet republics, it was packed with parties representing ethnic minorities, Tsarist Russians, Muslim nationalists, Pan slavic republicans, and even some communists who were jailed by the Bolsheviks. People from across the former Soviet empire made their way to a dusty city in central Asia. Outside of the former USSR, only countries that had shared a border (Finland, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, Japan, the Republic of China and the Republic of Korea) could send a small number of observers. The United States and Switzerland were also invited but conspicuously absent were any of the European Allies. The reason given was that this was an internal affair for people's of the former Soviet Union.
Akmolinsk was chosen because it was moderately sized and not part of the Russian.SSR. The symbolic statement was that, for the areas of the USSR, Moscow or St. Petersburg.would no longer determine their future. It also served the practical effect of dislocating the established Soviet and exile power bases. Prospective delegates had to rely on the Chinese Occupation Authority to transport them to the city. Once there, the only accommodations were those built built by the Chinese army. Then, they would need official credentials to enter the conference itself. Finally, the conference was still wholly reliant on the Chinese to implement any policy formulated. To quote Sun Tzi, "the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible." The actors would all be Russians, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, etc. but it didn't matter because Akmolinsk would be a play produced, presented and directed by the Chinese state. If the Chinese didn't like someone's intended lines,they would never get on the stage.
The Byeolorussian SSR was devastated by the German invasion. Exact population figures were impossible to verify in the wake of three invading armies, but initial reports indicated that anywhere between one third and one half of the pre war populace was unaccounted for. Over a year later, most large cities remained ghost towns; whole neighborhoods abandoned, their former occupants fled or worse. The Russian state apparatus was thoroughly destroyed by the Nazis and the Chinese occupation authority had been desperate for a replacement.
The replacement came in the form of the Russian Orthodox Church. Long suppressed by the Soviet Authorities, the Germans had allowed it to prosper hoping to turn it into a nationalist organization. From 1941 to 1943, over 150 churches were opened or restored across the country. The Germans had overplayed their hand, however. In June of 1942, Bishop Panteilmon of Minsk was sacked by the German authorities after he refused to support the creation of a theologically autonomous church of Belarus. In August the Germans pressured church authorities to formally break ties; a bad miscalculation. Though tolerated by the authorities, the clergy was not pro German and the religious unity of the Orthodox Church was a principle that they would not compromise. The Germans tried to come down on the church following it's "rebellion;" but most of the SS and internal security forces were reordered to the rapidly approaching Chinese front before they could crack down. This left it as the only intact institution in the devastated SSR.
The Chinese Occupation Authority initially ignored it. However, it soon became apparent that the church had taken charge of most aspects of civic life. The priests set up networks to distribute food, clothing, coal and other household necessities. They built a registry for missing and displaced people. Abandoned buildings were restored by the church to house refugees. Wen Yi Lo, the newly appointed military governor of Belarus, decided very quickly to support the church effort rather than compete with it and the church aid organizations started receiving and distributing Chinese supplies to the general populace. It had initially been a non political decision, the church had an efficient network built up and it was faster to use theirs rather than build their own. The political consequences were fortunate but unintended.
The Chinese authorities had no real opinion about the theological unity of the Russian Orthodox Church. Western educated Chinese officials understood the Church heirarchy, but they had inherited a very secular attitude from their studies. For those without western educations, the issue of a church heirarchy was baffling. Chinese religious life was inherently polytheistic with temples to city gods, Daoist immortals, and Buddhist sages sharing the same temple block. Between temples of the same denomination, there was no formal heirarchy. A monk might be more esteemed if he came from a famous temple, like Emeishan, but the strict, almost military, system of ranks and appointments that characterized the Catholic and Orthodox churches was unknown to most Chinese. Thus the Chinese officially took no position about the subordination to Moscow or lack thereof of within the Russian Orthodox Church. (Though they definitely did take an interest in the patriarch at Moscow)
After a year, the church had emerged stronger with a good working relationship with the Chinese. The new bishop of Minsk, Benedict Bobkovsky in turn had made an official statement that the political future of Minsk and Belarus was not a religious issue. This later became the official of the Russian Orthodox church in most of the former Soviet territories. The Belarusian People's Republic (Belarusian: Белару́ская Наро́дная Рэспу́бліка) had returned from exile in the meantime. It had been set up in opposition to the Soviets in 1918, but had fallen in 1920 to the Red army. The government had fled, first to Poland, and then Paris, where it fragmented after the German invasion. During the war, it had remained anti German and anti Soviet. The newly elected president, Nikola Abramchyk, returned in November of 1943 and his organization was given permission to re enter the public life of Belarus.
They found themselves in an awkward place. The void in civil services left by the collapse of the Bolsheviks had been largely filled by the Church and the Chinese were reluctant to turn over any real authority. Children of exiles and veterans from the Czarist era were strangers to their countrymen. At Akmolinsk, the BPR was quick to push for full independence. Lacking a real internal mandate and with an ambivalent populace, the government no longer in exile relinquished claims on Poland and Latvia to get their support. The Church aid organizations were formally recognized by the constitution. (Non Orthodox and secular organizations could also enjoy the same government support in theory.) Bishop Benedict Bobkovsky was named Minister of Services, a de jure recognition of the Church's position.
The new state was thus the first to be granted independence. The BPR hoped it would be able to take over from the Chinese.
33年 5月 15日
Belarus was the catalyst for the representatives from the Ukraine to push for their own independence. When Operation Barbarossa started, the strongest German attacks were in the Ukraine and the Wehrmacht fought devastating battles that leveled cities like Kiev and Kharkov. The civilians had tried to flee, but there were few good options. West into German territory, North towards the stretched German lines, East towards the approaching Chinese front, or the few lucky souls who braved the Romanian navy patrols to board boats and sail south to neutral Turkey. No sooner had the Germans declared victory in the Ukraine, than the Chinese army came pouring across the Volga. The German army would lose millions of soldiers fighting to the death in Kharkov, Melitopol, and Odessa. Partisan groups fought with the Germans, the Soviets, the Chinese and eachother and the civilian economy and infrastructure collapsed.
By the time of Akmolinsk, hatred for the Soviet regime in particular and Russians in general had never been stronger. Stalin's purges and disastrous agricultural policies devastated the Ukraine; a situation that was not improved by the German invasion. The spirited defense of northern Russia as Ukraine collapsed had led to perception, perhaps correctly, that Stalin had sacrificed the Ukraine to defend Russian soil.
With very little native Ukrainian organization, exile groups from outside started arriving. The largest was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. It had spent most of its time in the interwar period fighting a guerrilla campaign of assassination and intimidation to support the Ukrainian population in Poland. It had even cooperated with German intelligence and been allowed to operate within German occupied territory. However, brutality by the Germans towards Ukrainians and their own increasing strength caused a German crackdown. At Akmolinsk, the OUN was forced to remove most of its anti Polish rhetoric and add to its platform the idea of settlers to repopulate the interior of the country. In practice, it meant that most of the Ukrainian population in Poland and elsewhere was encouraged to leave and move to the Ukrainian interior. It was supposed to be done through purely voluntary means; subsidies, inducements, land grants, but reports of intimidation by government officials were rife. Ukrainian exiles from Poland and Czechoslovakia were entering the country in droves.
With Polish support thus secured, the biggest stumbling block was gone and the nation gained independence. The new president would be Augustyn Voshyn, who had previously served a one day term as president of the brief Transcarpathian republic in Czechoslovakia.
33年 5月 19日
The location of the talks in Akmolinsk highlighted the importance that the Chinese placed on the future of central Asia. China's stated diplomatic claims rejected all "Russian encroachments upon Chinese sovereignty" in practical effect it meant that the border would be moved back to where it was in 1820, annexing half of the Kyrgyz and Tajik SSR's along with with 15% of Kazahk territory. That this territory would remain in Chinese hands was non negotiable. Beyond that, the debate was fierce.
Within the SSR's the hostility towards Russia was palpable, the brutal collectivization efforts of the early 30's had alienated most of the local population. In 1932, Kazahks had even killed their herds by the thousands to avoid handing them to the government. The first Congress of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan in 1937 triggered the final purge of the old Alsh Ordists. By the end of the year, a whole generation of journalists, teachers, intellectuals, historians, writers and poets had died for the crime of dedication to the Kazakh people. The purgers themselves were next. Before another year had passed, every member of the Kazakh buro of the 1937 congress was also arrested and charged with the "defamation and repression of party members." Ironically enough, the Soviets had increased the proportional representation of Kazakhs in the government as the purges had gone on. From 20% in 1930 to over 40% in 1939. The new generation of Kazakh officials, like Zhumabai Shaiakmethov, had risen within the Soviet system and, if they had any nationalist inclination, were very good at hiding it, as they were still outnumbered.
The Chinese invasion had changed all of that math. The Chinese advance through the area had been relatively bloodless, but nevertheless those Russians with the means to flee had left, effectively dismantling their portion of the Soviet state apparatus. The remaining Soviet officials were almost exclusively minorities. The native Russian population hadn't disappeared either, though it had also undergone a significant demographic shift. Before the war, Central Asia had been a dumping ground for political undesirables and millions of Russians had been marooned in the steppe following Stalin's purges. Those Russians left behind tended to be apolitical in the extreme with the exception of firmly anti Bolshevik feeling; the remains of the gulag archipelago that wanted little to do with Moscow. The same story had repeated across all of the central Asian autonomous republics. The absence of the Soviet army had caused most of the Russians with means to flee, leaving the ethnic parts of the local Soviet governments to fend for themselves. At first, some had floated the idea of splitting the SSR's into independent states.
For the smaller Autonomous SSRs like Chuvash and Mari el, this was terrifying. While Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, by virtue of their size and distance might be able to maintain their independence against Russia without outside help, there was no way the smaller ones could. They were closer to Moscow and they had sizable Russian populations. They all knew that the Chinese protective umbrella would disappear in time and that they would be the first targets for a revanchist Russia.
It started when officials from the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic were deciding what position to adopt at Akmolinsk. The republic was located on the Volga with a population of over half a million. Half of those were Germans descended from 19th century settlers invited by Catherine the Great. The German invasion in 1941 had caused Stalin to issue a Decree of Banishment which formally dissolved the Republic and ordered the forceful relocation of the entire population. The Chinese army had arrived before it could be really implemented but as a result the Volga German party apparatus became obsessed with securing themselves against Russian control.
The war had also caused many of the the local Russians to flee, leaving the area almost 3/4 German as opposed to 1/2. The Germans that had been relocated before the war with China had been moved to Kazakhstan and they also started to trickle back in. The former head of the commisariat for the republic (Sovnarkom), Alexander Heckman was one of these people. In Kazakhstan, he had started discussions with his Kazakh counterparts about mutual defense against post war Russia. The other republics northwest of Kazakhstan like Bashkortostan, Chuvash, Mari el, Mordovia, Tatarstan, and Udmutia sought similar deals. The Kazakhs were nervous that they would be drawn into the inter republic squabbles and were reluctant to sign off. They also feared that in the event of a war with Russia, the Russians could take each republic individually before any Kazakh reaction. As a solution, Heckman proposed a new federal state composed of the small republics. Initially, being part of Federated Central Asia (FCA) would only bind all of its constituent republics to mutual defense and provide for somewhat shared armed forces and limited economic cooperation.
But the project grew in the months leading to Akmolinsk. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan agreed first for limited mutual defense but more negotiations and hard lobbying by the small republics got them to agree to closer integration. The Chinese had made it clear that they would not brook open communism or bolshevism, but the new state reflected the men who built it. It was an issue of temperament and training. The men building this new state were all party apparatchiks; men trained by the Soviet system to govern in the soviet style. They had an intense belief in the power of government, in federalism, in large scale solutions and the ability for all nationalities to get along. The new state would be the Soviet system as it was always meant to be; a union of equals striving together for the betterment of all. As far as they were concerned, the faults of the old Soviet Union were mostly a result of the unnatural Russian dominance within that state.
The Chinese for their part were ecstatic. A strong FCA meant a shorter military commitment of their own troops. More importantly, the Chinese were annexing huge amounts of territory. Originally, the Kyrgyz and Tajik SSR's were to be cut in half and the remainders integrated into Uzbekistan. A big worry had been that China's annexed border people's would seek to join with newly independent ethnically based countries. FCA made it so that the annexed peoples of Osh had to choose between living in the Republic of China (a semi presidential republic) or the FCA (a soviet style federatition). The option of joining a Kyrgyz state was no longer on the table. Before Akmolinsk, FCA had been merely a popular idea but the Chinese had done everything they could as hosts to nurture it and it became a reality.
On the same day, another state was announced. This was the Siberian Union, though it did not include most of Siberia. The Russian Far East had disappeared; absorbed back into the Chinese state after an 80 year interlude. Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, 4 million Russians and half of the Tran Siberian railway had become Chinese. This left Irtusk and Yakutsk as the only significant cities east of Novossibirsk with a large Russian population. They were not going to stay part of Russia. The Chinese did not want to share a long border with Russia, running the risk of having the large Russian populations now inside their territory try to join with the mother country.
The Siberian Union's territory was essentially unpopulated. Outside of Yakutsk and Irkutsk the only urban centers left were the moraines left over after the gulag receded; islands of disaffected Russians in an empty Taiga. The inhabitants inside had been allowed to return to Russia proper. This was part and parcel of the Chinese social engineering for the new Russian state. The Chinese Occupation Authority controlled all civilian rail transport and it used the rails like one way valves to control the flow of people. Most people still had Soviet ID's with names, ethnicity, birthplace, party affiliation and all sorts of other information on them. It wasn't foolproof and it certainly wasn't fair, but over the past year and a half these cards had been used to funnel people towards certain areas by controlling which way tickets could be bought. Tickets out of Vladivostok or Irkutsk were essentially free for a Russian while a ticket going the other way was not. A Tatar travelling from Moscow would suddenly find that the train tickets were unavailable for a connection out of Tatarstan. In most areas, the effect was small, 3% more Uzbeks in Samarkand, 7% fewer Russians in Tashkent etc. but it had a massive effect on the former exile cities in the Russian Far East. Magadan, which had swelled to nearly 100,000 people as a result of forced labor goldmining, became a town of 4,000. Yakutsk found itself starved for supplies, the boats going down the Lena river laden with people while the they returned empty.
For the local Yakuts and Dolgans, still living traditional lives, the Chinese policies had little effect, but for the city dwellers it was hell. The Chinese rejected the Czarist and Soviet ideal of "taming" the vast North Asian interior. Those parts that could be tamed, that narrow band which was just barely suitable for modern urban living, had become part of China. The few cities North of the line had to understand that their very existence was unnatural. A fevered delusion of Europeans wanting cities where God had not meant them to be. The Soviets and the Czar before had fostered that dream; whispering lullabies and threats as they sent millions to die in an unforgiving tundra. The Chinese Occupation Authority was going to pull the blankets off. Wake up and get out of the bed or keep dreaming and freeze.
The New Siberian Union was the most purely Chinese constructed state at Akmolinsk. It was created to serve Chinese strategic aims by taking all the territory that China didn't want but that it didn't want Russia to have. It was a limited federation with a weak parliament and president. Sparsely populated and very rural, the locals had little impetus towards central government; a distrust further cemented by disastrous Stalin era collectivization. In the wake of Soviet defeat, government had reverted down to the level of the village and the tribe and the Chinese saw no reason to upset that. The only worry was that the state might not be strong enough to stand against Russia, but the Chinese put themselves in charge of guarding the border along the Ob river. .
33年 5月 28日
The states expected to get independence first at Akmolink did not. After being annexed by the Soviets in 1939, the Baltic countries had maintained strong governments in exile in addition to well developed networks among local partisans. They came to Akmolinsk prepared to act in concert to achieve their demands.
The demands were fairly simple. Within all three states, the myth created during the Baltic wars for independence had been shattered. For all their valiance, the Forest Brothers had been unable to stop the countries from being annexed by three different nations in the space of 3 years. During the interwar period, the Baltic republics had relied on extensive mobilization; getting a gun into every hand to make the most of their small populations. The realities of modern mechanized war meant that an invader could go from the border to Riga in the space of 6 hours. The small size of the countries had made mass mobilization obsolete.
Most of the Baltic SS soldiers had survived the war. Several had been instrumental in aiding the Chinese advance against the Germans. Even the ones who hadn't been sympathetic had still been captured alive with the German pockets in Talinn and Mazirbe in 1943. Most of them had received a general amnesty and some had resumed activities as partisan units. At first, they had been limited to rooting out Soviet and German collaborators. As the year went on, they started to operate in areas outside of the boundaries of the old republics. The Chinese were generally content to ignore their activities and by the time of the conference they had established control well east of their original borders.
At least, Latvia and Estonia had. Lithuania had been the least trusted by the Germans and had not had its own dedicated SS unit. The remains of the Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force were no match for the better organized Polish and Latvian partisans. An ill fated attempt to retake Vilnius, which had been lost to Poland in 1920, met with disaster when it was ambushed by the Polish partisans. The vicious house to house fighting had continued for several days before the Chinese army was able to impose a ceasefire and restore order. When Poland received independence at Paris, it was awarded the city. A situation which the Lithuanians still hoped to rectify.
At Akmolinsk, representatives from all three countries presented a united front. Estonia and Latvia wanted their new borders to be east of their old ones while Lithuania wanted Vilnius. The Poles were not having it. They refused to cede the city and pledged to fight anyone, even the Chinese Army, who tried to take it from them. The Estonians and Latvians stood behind the Lithuanians. Thus deadlocked none of the three were granted independence and the issue of borders for the two northernmost Baltic republics remained unresolved.
The deadlock was broken by Poland. Britain and the Western Allies were not present at Akmolinsk; a horse trade that they had made to get good deals in Paris. Part of that agreement was that Akmolinsk would not compromise any decisions made by the Paris Peace Conference. Poland made the case to the Chinese that since their borders were agreed on at Paris, Akmolinsk delegates could not alter them. It was a simple calculation of who was more important both for peace and as trading partner, and the Chinese knew what side their bread was buttered on. They thus informed the delegates from Lithuania that Vilnius was not under the purview of the current conference. Shorn of any hope of Chinese intercession, Estonia and Latvia withdrew their support, fearing that it would jeopardize their own chances for gains.
Lithuania relented. Estonia and Latvia both received all the land they had asked for. It was also setting a trend that the Russian delegates to the conference couldn't help noticing. Even in cases of clear precedent and existing treaty, Russia's territory was apparently fair game to anyone who wanted it. Success at the conference meant that Julu Uluots would be recognized as Estonia's official president a step up from "prime minister in the duties of the president." August Rei would become Prime minister in his stead. In Latvia, Pauls Kalins would come back from Akmolinsk a national hero and in a popular though unconstitutional move used his powers as president to appoint himself as Prime minister. Lithuania's government was in a much bigger crisis. They had gained nothing at Akmolinsk and thus no one party or person could claim a mandate when independence was granted. The pre war president, Antanas Smetona, was dead after a fire in his home in Cleveland that January. The Lithuanian constitution had been tailor made to support his rule and the succession was unclear. Prime minister Jupozas Maciusnas and president Linas Brodovskis had signed the the articles of independence with the Chinese but few expected their government to last.
Map showing acquired territories and Belarus.
33年 6月 6日
A month into the conference, the sins of the Soviet state and specifically the Russian role within them had become the dominant theme. In the winter of 1941, the German armies had been rampaging through the Ukraine and an increasingly paranoid Stalin drew up plans to deport millions of ethnic Kalmyks, Tartars, Chechens and other Caucasian minorities fearing that they would collaborate with the advancing Germans. Luckily, the Chinese armies had arrived before the deportations could begin in earnest, but the damage to the Soviet Union's image in these areas had been massive. That Stalin was technically Georgian was usually not mentioned and the Georgian delegation even went as far as declaring him a "traitor to the nation," just to make sure.
Before the war, Soviet policy had been to train native officials while keeping most of the senior leadership in Russian hands. When the Chinese came,only the higher level leadership had the means to flee leaving the low level officials to fend for themselves. Like Kazahkstan and the central Asia, this had pushed the native officials from a significant minority into a majority in most of the autonomous republics. Trumpeting a nationalist cause had become an easy way to allay Chinese suspicions of Soviet sympathy.
The nationalism took on particular traits. The first Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic collapsed in 1918 in the face of Turkish aggression when the constituent republics declared independence and began squabbling over territory. That disunity had left them easy pickings for the Red Army when it came through a year later. The same story had held true for the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus which had included Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia-Alania, Kabardino-Balkaria, Dagestan and part of Stavropol Krai. The lesson learned during the Russian Civil war had been hard. They had successfully fought off Denikin's Whites and welcomed the Bolsheviks but quickly realized that an independent spirit and admirable bravery was not an answer to the 70 to 1 population advantage the Russian enjoyed.
Ivane Tsitsishvili, writing in the Georgian newspaper Dro (დრო,) from Akmolinsk on May 5th said. "In unity lies strength; that we are different from Armenians or Azers or Kalmyks is undeniable but our commonality lies deeper. Our struggle is theirs and theirs is ours. We have shared the same yoke of Soviet repression. The future is a Georgian future, it is an Armenian future." The sentiment while not exactly popular was widely supported. 20 years of soviet rule, while not erasing the memory of the post revolution Caucasian wars, had put them in perspective. However much they hated each other, they had each been given a reason to hate the Russians more. The ideal that lay behind Federated Central Asia found fertile ground in the Caucasus.
The goal was that in the event of a Russian or Turkish attack, the entire region's military would have to fight together. To this end, the ethnic character of most units was diluted. Like FCA, Transcaucasia's government was composed of local ex Soviet officials. Though officially a democracy, it was to be democracy in the Soviet style. The new state of Transcaucasia would be a loose federal structure based on military and economic cooperation. Through diplomatic wrangling, the borders of Transcaucasia would connect with FCA in Astrakhan, completely cutting off the Caspian Sea from any future Russian state. Both states were also bound my mutual defense pact which pledged them to come to the other's aide if attacked by a third party whom they both shared a border with.
The Turks were surprisingly enthusiastic about the idea as well when it was presented. Turkish President Ismet Inonu had met with Kong Xiangxi secretly in Cyprus en route from Paris on February 27th, though the full details of the meeting were only discovered decades later. The two had discussed the issues related to independence within the Caucuses region with the intention of smoothing over future misunderstandings. President Inonu's concerns were twofold. First, he wanted to make sure that Turkey would not share a border with any future Russian state. Secondarily, he wanted assurances that China's implicit guarantee of the expected post soviet states would not extend to any attempt by Armenian nationalists to restore territory lost in 1920. The first position was shared by the Chinese as well, but Kong Xiangxi was reluctant to concede on the second without a similar promise that the Turkish state would not support the Georgians or Azers against the Armenians nor would it have claim to any territories previously conceded to the Soviet Union. Furthermore, president Inonu pledged to legally recognize any Caucasian state within one week of China.
In light of these mutual obligations, Transcaucasia served Turkish purposes rather well. The possible crisis of an independent Armenia with it's own military under Chinese protection was averted, a Russian border was avoided and the new state would too busy as it formalized its internal affairs to bother Turkey for some time.
33年 6月 16日
At Akmolinsk, the future of Russia was of paramount importance,but things had gone very poorly for the Russian delegation thus far. The first was the lack of unity within the Russians themselves. The Russian Legitimist Monarchist Party and Union of Mladorossy both advocated installing Grand Duke Vladimir Krillovich as Tsar and restoring Russia as a constitutional monarchy. Other groups like the Smenovekhovtsy and the remains of the Mesheviks that had fled to Europe were advocating for a parliamentary system with direct elections. The largest and most powerful Russian exile organization, the Russian All Military Union was split. Founded by exiled White Russian officers, it's only agreed upon platform had been the total defeat of the Bolsheviks. With that goal accomplished, the movement had fractured. Many supported a Russian monarchy but couldn't agree whether it should be constitutional or autocratic, Romanov or non-Romanov. Others supported the restoration of one of the many short lived provisional governments that had existed in the chaotic days of the Civil War. Making matters more complex was the still extant Bolshevik state apparatus, that by necessity must have at least some part in governing the new state. They in turn were opposed by the True Revolutionary group, which was composed of soviet officials and soldiers rescued from the Gulag.
Whether or not the deadlock had been intended by the Chinese state was debated hotly. Within China, the huge exiled Russian communities tended to be ex military or colonial officials who were stranded by the Russian Revolution. They had been tapped as a military resource by individual warlords during the chaotic 1920's and they had become an integral part of the Chinese Army during the war across Europe; serving as officers, translators and local administrators. As a political group they had the backing of the Chinese state, but no standing among the exiles who'd fled to Europe. E. Metzler, leader of the Emigrant's Union in Shanghai, described the reception that he received from the European diaspora in Akmolinsk. "To them, we are at best objects of pity; at worst, we are agents of the tartar menace. They are obsessed with restoring the majesty of the empire and seem resent us 'Asians' [Russians] because we did what they never could."
The fracturing of the Russian movement also hobbled them coming into Akmolinsk. The individual SSR's had the advantage of predefined territories and a commonality of experience following the Russian revolution, the exile groups among the Ukrainians, Estonians, Lithuanians etc. had been powerful but largely unified and had largely agreed upon proposals and borders before the conference. They also tended to unanimously support any proposal that would possibly weaken a future Russia. By contrast, the various Russians couldn't even agree on the extent of their territory. Had they pushed for recognition of the current Russian Federative Social Republic, they might have been able to get those borders, minus Outer Manchuria. But they weren't, most of the Russian delegation especially the ones who came from Europe, were not willing to concede any territory in the Far East. Both the Russian All Military Union and the National Alliance of Russian Soliditarists were united in not accepting any Chinese claims along the Manchurian border.
The exile community in China had made peace with this particular bit of redistricting. From their contacts within the state and the military, they knew that China considered the Far East a core strategic issue and would not budge, nor, and this was critical and much more important, would America or Britain be willing to exert pressure on the Chinese in support of the Russian Far East claims. Instead, the exiles within China sought to protect the integrity of the Russian state in the west.
The Shanghai, Harbin, and Beijing Russian emigrant committees had formally agreed upon a plan for the future Russian state. Officially the plan was called the "Ivanov plan" after it's drafter, a former Imperial Russian judge living in Shanghai, but it quickly gained a name among the European exiles as the "the surrender plan" or "the Chinese plan." It recognized the territorial transfer in the Far East, maintained Russian control over the entire russian federation and the smaller ssr's within, it even had the provision that in 10 years a plebiscite would be held in the new Russian majority areas of China to decide their future while recognizing the Chinese right to the territories for the time being. It was a play for time that hoped in ten years Russia might be better positioned to get international support and it's own leverage over China.
Unfortunately, they were largely unable to get the rest of the Russian delegation to accept it. The Ivanov plan was wholeheartedly rejected which meant that the Russian delegation had no coherent demands beyond not losing territory. Though they made up nearly 45% of the delegates, their internal divisions, with different groups abstaining and making deals independently, prevented them from stopping the slow dismembering of the Soviet Union. As the European and central Asian states, broke away one by one, the calls by the Russians within the conference grew more shrill and their demands more unrealistic. The creation of Siberia and Federated Central Asia saw renewed support for the Ivanov plan, but by then it was too late.
Ivan Ilyin, delegate for the All Russian Military Union wrote what many within the Russian delegation had begun to suspect.
Ivan Ilyin said:
"The Chinese, having secured their gains in the East, know they have done the Russian people a grievous injury. Their illegal war of conquest killed millions upon millions of men, women and children. While the life of a peasant or soldier is nothing to the Chinese with their countless masses, to the Russians it is a debt that must be repaid. We must never forget, that despite their victories, the Chinese still fear the Russian state. Having taken our dignity, our lives and our land, they now fear our vengeance. The independence of these so called states is nothing less than a venal and cowardly attempt to hobble us. The Russia they envision is enfeebled and frightened, surrounded by hostile enemies, and somehow still grateful for the force of Chinese arms that brought them their new and miserable existence."
He was not alone in his sentiment and the delegates at Akmolinsk started working on a plan to get statehood before any more territories were sheared. The new Russian state would be a Constitutional Republic under provisional president, Vladimir Steklov, a Shanghai member of the All military Union. The retreat from monarchism was a surprise but it made sense. The inclusion of a Czar had been one of biggest fault lines splitting up the Russians but the more conservative members were willing to relinquish if it meant preserving territory. There was also the question of securing outside help and internal support, and the reluctant conclusion was that both the Russian public and the world at large would be reluctant to support a new Romanov. Officially, the new state had to sign off on all the territorial changes made at Akmolinsk, but there was already muted talk of post conference redress, by "other means."
The Europeans were also nervous, and in the months that followed there would be wide consensus that the Akmolinsk Accords had been too punitive towards the Russians. Former president Kerensky, who did not attend the conference, addressing the National Press Club dinner on July 7th, 1944, said, "The events of Akmolinsk are proof of the Chinese plan to destroy any rival for their primacy in Asia and the west has merely traded a red menace for a yellow." while Roosevelt, in a telegram to the embattled Lord Halifax, "I think the situation in Russia demands vigilance. The temptation to right the wrongs via force of arms will be intense, but in so doing, I fear all that will be assured is their own utter destruction."
33年 6月 20日
The end of the war and independence of the post soviet states saw a massive exodus of skilled labor to China. In early 1942, a Chinese munitions factory owner named Zheng Yi Han was allowed to accompany the 18th division to inspect captured weapons and talk to enemy personnel for technical information. While there he met sergeant Hans Richtoff and offered him a proposition, he could move to China to run a newly built munitions factory or he could spend the next few months, or years languishing in a POW camp. This was the first recorded instance of what then became a unique trend.
The average Russian or German was far and above better educated and more likely to have experience in industry than most Chinese citizens. The rapid war time industrialization had created a devastating shortage of skilled labor and the Chinese industrialists couldn't find enough in China. So agents representing various Chinese companies and even later American and British ones that operated there, were empowered to offer lucrative employment to anyone in the occupied areas. An army of recruiters started following behind the front lines offering victims of war and poverty a chance at a better life if they were willing to relocate. Firms, wary of losing their expertise prepared offers to move families from Europe to China as an enticement to stay and many did.
The net effect of this "brain gain" from Europe was most keenly felt in the arms industries and academia. State sponsored factories and institutions had closer contacts with military authorities and thus could get their recruiters in first. The knock on effect was a freeing of more indigenous though less skilled labor to less intensive or war critical industries. Expensive skilled European workers were displacing semi skilled Chinese ones in significant numbers throughout the arms industry, especially in technical areas. Most members of the Guomindang supported the practice. T.V. Soong said it was an important stopgap to fuel China's industrial growth until Chinese secondary education infrastructure was able to produce the required workers. The second much more widely known, though less often stated reason was that most high level members of the Guomindang, including Kong Xiangxi and T.V. Soong, were heavily involved in speculation and manufacturing. Importing European expertise, even from enemy nations, was profitable and thus found no shortage of official support.
OK, that took a while. The next update will cover the Chinese domestic situation in the aftermath of the war.