The Fate of the China Russians: Exclusion, Agency, Divided Redemption

• In Event: Internalizing the Impact of Exile: Migration Experience, Liberation, and Identity Change

Abstract

In early 1949 Mao Zedong's peasant armies were poised to capture China in what has been known ever since in Communist parlance as “The Liberation.” Russian emigres who had lived in the cities of Northern China for over a generation were concerned that the Communist takeover might mean arrest and forced repatriation to Stalin and the Soviet Union. (In fact, this would happen and thousands would be shot or imprisoned.)
In order to liberate themselves from the threat of “the liberation,” tens of thousands of Russian emigres moved south to Shanghai to be evacuated to a holding camp in the jungle in the Philippines. A small group of engineers and Boy Scouts, all trained at Harbin, would provide the necessary pioneering skills to survive this tropical challenge. After redefining themselves as neither Communist (Red) nor Jews, the White Russians would be divided between Australia and the San Francisco area, where they would thrive for a generation and then die out. In this case, liberation was followed by assimilation.

Author

• David Wolff, Hokkaido U (Japan)