On the early stage of the Soviet repatriation policy towards Xinjiang

Abstract

The article examines the early stage of formation of the Soviet repatriation policy in relation to immigrants from Russia who received asylum at various times in the Kulja district of the Chinese province of Xinjiang. In the result of political cataclysms — social revolutions and civil war, at the beginning of the XIX century, a significant number of refugees from Russia concentrated on the territory of frontier areas of Xinjiang. Those people were considered as a source of threat to the Soviet government. One of the ways to eliminate this source of threat was their repatriation to homeland, in which the Chinese authorities were also interested, since they did not want well-trained soldiers of the former Russian Empire to stay on their territory. The need to repatriate immigrants from Russia was also due to the need for human resources, which were so necessary for economic recovery of the country after the devastating civil war. The article analyzes basic principles of the Soviet repatriation policy, which were formed within the framework of the Bolshevik ideology and interests of the Soviet State. These principles were improved in the following decades of existence of the Soviet power. By the time of the mass repatriation of Soviet citizens from Xinjiang in the 1950–1960s, a process of their return to historical homeland was carried out in a planned form, in coordination with the Chinese side.