AND ON THE PACIFIC OCEAN, THEY FINISHED THEIR HIKE

Peter Balakshin. Final in China.

- M.: State Public Historical Library, 2013. - vol. 1. - 528 p. - vol. 2 – - 494 p.

The end of the Civil War did not bring peace to the emigrants. For the Russian diaspora, there were many problems associated with settling in the foreign-language and foreign-cultural environment of the countries of dispersion. However, he did not bring peace to many exiles. Thus, the remnants of Admiral Kolchak's army – General Dieterichs ' Zemstvo army-retreated to China and faced local civil strife and a permanent civil war dating back to the fall of the monarchy in 1911.

The White Guards became involved in these conflicts. Someone went to the landsknecht to this or that field commander. Some, on the contrary, sought to pursue their own policies. Thus, General Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, during a difficult campaign, liberated Outer Mongolia from the Chinese, restoring the country's independence.

Peter Balakshin's book (1898-1990) recreates the history of "Russian China". Balakshin, a veteran of the First World War and the Civil War, once lived in Shanghai. Then he moved to the United States, where he engaged in literary (including publishing) activities. During the Korean War, he served in the U.S. Army and participated in subsequent peace negotiations. It was then that Balakshin conceived the idea of writing a history of Russian emigration in China. However, the collection of materials (both in the famous Bakhmetyevsky and Hoover archives or the Library of Congress, and in the less well-known Museum-Archive of Russian Culture in San Francisco) and the actual work on "Finale..." were delayed. As a result, the two-volume study, published by the writer at his own expense (the cost of books cost about 3 thousand dollars), was published in 1958-1959.

Balakshin writes about the birth of the Russian colony in China. Even before the revolution, the construction of the China-Eastern Railway (CER) and the increase in trade turnover led to the emergence of corresponding enclaves in Manchuria. For example, the territories adjacent to the CER were governed by the laws of the Russian Empire. It would seem that the presence of a "Russian" infrastructure with a weak central government gives refugees certain advantages over the discriminatory position of emigrants in such "fragments" of the empire as Poland or Lithuania during the Antanas Smetona regime. However, in reality, as already mentioned, the local turmoil also affected the refugees. However, Balakshin draws attention to another reason that now sounds completely politically incorrect: "White emigration in China was deprived of the possibility of normal assimilation. A fair-skinned person is always a stranger in Asia."

Soon, Japanese intervention was added to the Chinese turmoil. In 1931, Tokyo occupied Manchuria, creating the puppet state of Manchukuo, and in 1937, after the incident at the Marco Polo Bridge (Lugou) near Beijing, he launched a full-scale aggression.

Naturally, Russian refugees deprived of diplomatic protection turned out to be a bargaining chip for any of the warring parties, especially since the customs of war were already not observed (the Nanking massacre of 1937).

The researcher adds to these problems and dangers the infiltration of the Russian diaspora by agents of the Soviet special services (the murder of ataman Alexander Dutov in Suidun).

After the defeat of Japan in 1945, the infiltration of the Chekists, as Balakshin figuratively put it, was replaced by the "red stream", which turned into a hunt for emigrants. The bulk of the refugees were hurriedly leaving the country gripped by a new civil war. The flow increased after it became clear that the defeat of China's anti-communist forces was inevitable. The refugees were placed in the Philippine archipelago on the island of Tubabao. Tent camp, heat. Travel restrictions… A new war has begun, now with the elements. Typhoons raced over the island, bending steel rails…

Balakshin's work is not an apology for innocent victims. In one of the letters, the scientist was indignant: "As these notorious "white knights", "uncompromising fighters against communism" were among the first to rush into the Soviet embrace. Most of them before that easily moved from one intelligence service to another... they could do whatever they wanted to the masses, and they did it all with impunity."

But that doesn't make it any easier. After all, there was no peace for the rest of the refugees. For them, the war ended only in the spring of 1953, when the last exiles left the Philippines.

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