On September 19, 1937, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (6) adopted a resolution on the fate of former employees of the Chinese-Eastern Railway who worked abroad and voluntarily returned to their homeland. More than 25 thousand Soviet citizens were declared Japanese spies and enemies of the people. In operational documents they were called Harbinians. All of them went through interrogation and torture in the offices of the NKVD. As a result, over the course of two years, a huge number of people were shot - railway workers and their family members. One third of those who arrived survived, they received long terms in the camps.
The village that became a metropolis
The Sino-Eastern Railway was part of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In 1891, when the construction of the Transsib began, the designers proposed two options: along the Amur River and across the territory of China. The first path ensured the economic development of the Russian territories of the Far East, but the second was much shorter. As a result, the tsarist government decided to build both branches, but give preference to the one that passed through China. It was put into operation in 1903 (another route started working in 1916). The railway connected Chita with Vladivostok and Port Arthur, its management was in Harbin - a Chinese village that later turned into a metropolis.
After the Civil War, Harbin became one of the centers of Russian emigration. The road was controlled for some time by representatives of the White movement, then the Chinese seized it. In 1924, the USSR and China agreed on joint exploitation. Under the agreement, only citizens of the USSR or China could work at the Chinese Eastern Railway, so many emigrants living in Harbin began to apply for the appropriate citizenship. According to official data, in 1927, 11304 citizens of the USSR, 1547 Russians with Chinese passports, and 12886 Chinese worked at the CER.
Deal with Japan
In 1929, the Chinese side made an attempt to take control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. The road was seized, about 2,000 Soviet workers were arrested, some were executed. At the same time, the railroad workers, who are citizens of the USSR, actively opposed aggression and fought against the invaders, sincerely believing that they were protecting Soviet interests.
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A few months later, units of the special Far Eastern army put things in order on the CER, the road again came under general control.
In September 1931, Japanese troops invaded Northern Manchuria and occupied Harbin. The city became part of the puppet state of Manchukuo. To get out of the situation with the least losses, the Soviet side sold the Chinese Eastern Railway to Japan. The agreement was signed on March 23, 1935, and the deal amounted to 140 million yen.
According to the agreement with Japan, all workers who are citizens of the USSR were to return to their homeland. According to the data of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, in 1935 alone, 21,343 people left Harbin. Most of them were given jobs in the Soviet railway system.
At the direction of the leader
Among the repatriates were those who served the railway even before the revolution, as well as refugees who arrived with the remnants of the White Army, and representatives of the USSR sent to work on the CER.
The evacuation from China was carried out in a hurry, but orderly. Those who left were given lifting cars, special cars were allocated for them, they were allowed to take livestock with them. At the places of departure and arrival, rallies were organized, and they wrote about the arrivals in Soviet newspapers. As a result of a powerful agitation campaign, the overwhelming majority of workers of the CER of Russian origin left for the USSR.
But two years later, the situation in the country changed: the Great Terror began. Former repatriates became his victims. Archival documents irrefutably testify: the action of the Chekists directed against them, called the Harbin operation, was carried out in order to kill tens of thousands of people in a planned manner.
The Soviet leadership viewed Japan as a potential enemy. In February 1936, the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Georgy Prokofiev, in a circular letter, offered to carefully check all former employees of the CER for possible cooperation with foreign intelligence. At the March plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on March 3, 1937, Stalin made a speech about the wrecking work of agents of foreign states. A total spy mania began in the country: adults and children were actively looking for enemy saboteurs.
On May 4, 1937, the Pravda newspaper published an article about the intrigues of Japanese intelligence. The text was sent to Stalin for approval. The leader of the peoples personally wrote a paragraph, giving an example of recruiting an unnamed employee of the CER. The plot was completely untrue, but Stalin wanted to emphasize the importance of the fight against spies and saboteurs.
The veiled aspiration of the country's leader was quickly captured by the Chekists. On September 19, the head of the NKVD Nikolai Yezhov sent a letter to the Politburo concerning the Harbinites. On the same day, the communist leadership passed a decree on former employees of the Sino-Eastern Railway. And already the next day this decision was reflected in the operational order No. 00593, signed by Yezhov (currently this document is kept in the archives of the FSB of the Russian Federation). it openly said: in the USSR, there are up to 25 thousand Harbin residents who should be arrested. All those found to be wrecking and anti-Soviet activities are subject to execution. The rest (that is, those whose guilt cannot be proved) should be given at least 10 years in prison. The procedure for conviction is extrajudicial, according to the lists, which must be approved by the so-called "two" - the commission,consisting of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Nikolai Yezhov and the USSR Prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky.
The harsh sentences were determined long before the trial. Tens of thousands of people in an order should be deleted from life.
570 protocols
Order No. 00593 determined the timing of the Harbin operation - from October 1 to December 25, 1937. A general certificate was drawn up on the arrested repatriates every ten days. Taking into account their relatives and friends, the number of cases opened increased significantly. The NKVD officers worked tirelessly. For the convenience of their work, 13 categories of Harbinians were identified: for example, persons who have ever served in foreign companies, or former owners of small enterprises. A separate point of accusation was participation in public and youth organizations: "Christian Union of Young People", "Russian Student Society", "Brotherhood of Russian Truth", "Union of Musketeers" - they were recognized as active anti-Soviet, although these communities had nothing to do with politics. Those who graduated from the Harbin courses "Prague" and "International" were also subject to execution.trained drivers and mechanics - these educational institutions were declared spy schools.
The security officers were in a hurry to fulfill the party's assignment. It is known that due to haste, overlaps often occurred. For example, already in the 1950s, after the rehabilitation of the residents of Harbin, an outrageous episode became known. In Moscow, a group of NKVD officers came to arrest a Chinese citizen of the USSR who had arrived from Harbin. But the Chekists confused the address - instead of the Dangauer clavicle they ended up in the Dangauer Sloboda. It turned out that some Chinese also lived there. He was arrested and after a while shot, although he had nothing to do with the Chinese Eastern Railway at all.
Those arrested were subjected to torture and humiliation, beating out the necessary evidence from them. The State Archives of the Russian Federation contains confessions of former employees of the Third Department of the NKVD Directorate of the Moscow Region about how their colleague, an operative, junior lieutenant of state security Shlikht (Feodosia Alekseevna Ershova) beat arrested Harbinians with a rubber stick cut from a horse-drawn tire with a belt, as well as … The detainees were not allowed to sleep for a long time, interrogations, when one investigator replaced another, continued for days - until the person confessed to a non-existent job for Japanese intelligence and betrayed his "accomplices."
The "two" consisting of Yezhov and Vyshinsky approved 570 protocols. The total number of arrested residents of Harbin was 32,754 people, of whom 21,194 were sentenced to capital punishment, the rest received long terms in forced labor camps.
Secret order
In the late 1950s, almost all residents of Harbin were rehabilitated and found not guilty. At the same time, the Chekists gave deliberately false answers to requests from relatives. According to the secret order No. 108ss of the chairman of the KGB, Vladimir Semichastny, members of the families of the executed were issued certificates that the convicts had died in places of imprisonment. These measures were explained by the fact that "during the period of repression, a large number of people were unjustifiably convicted, therefore, the message about the real fate of the repressed could be used by hostile elements to the detriment of the interests of the Soviet state."
After the defeat of the Japanese army, the CER was handed over to China free of charge (the final documents were signed in 1952, the total cost of the tracks, as well as service enterprises, schools and cultural centers was estimated at $ 600 million). The history of the Russian railway in the Celestial Empire is over.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №15