Russia in Manchuria

A Problem of Empire

Paul Dukes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780367752675
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000453041
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Landeskunde

Manchuria, the name given to China's North-eastern provinces by foreign powers, has been contested by China, Russia and Japan in particular over many centuries. This book surveys the history of Manchuria, focusing particularly on the Russian and Soviet perspective. It outlines early colonisation of the region and examines the importance of the Chinese Eastern Railway, a branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the remarkable railway city of Harbin for consolidating the Russian presence in the region and for developing the region's economy. It goes on to consider twentieth century developments, including the Japanese invasion and the puppet state of Manchukuo. Throughout, the book reflects on the nature of empire, especially Russian/Soviet imperialism and its similarities to and differences from other nations' imperial ventures.

1 Introduction to ManchuriaEarly empire

DOI: 10.4324/9781003161769-1

Introduction to Manchuria

‘The name Manchuria is a purely geographical term, and is unknown to both Chinese and Manchus,’ a Scottish missionary John Ross wrote in an article of 1895. However, he added: ‘There was a kingdom of Manchu established three centuries ago …, which gradually extended its sway over its smaller neighbours … [and] also included what is now known as the Russian Maritime Province to the north of Korea.’¹ Born in Gaelic-speaking Northern Scotland in 1842, but learning English as well, Ross completed his theological education in Glasgow and Edinburgh before travelling to China to pursue his vocation 30 years later. As part of his calling, he translated the New Testament into Korean, among other publications including his article of 1895.

In 1891, John Ross brought out a book with the title The Manchus: The Reigning Dynasty of China: Their Rule and Progress. In the Preface, he declared:

We have long inferred that China must from her nature, assume an attitude of suspicion and defiance towards Russia; and she has long succumbed under the humiliation of taxes levied on opium at the dictation, and under the compulsion of the British Government.²

But China was stirring from inertness, and in her own manner.

In a ‘Preliminary Dissertation on the Political Principles of China’ which followed, Ross observed: ‘It is to the commanding influence of thought that China owes her continuous history. It is because mental power is, and always has been more highly esteemed than physical force.’ He declared: ‘China will not, therefore, merely append Western forms of civilization, but is sure to gradually assimilate them to her own constitution.’ China was modernising her army, but ‘Chinese opposition to the laying of railways […] is like that to Christian missions, wholly and only political.’ Thus, he continued, ‘Until the Chinese government is convinced that western nations have no serious designs upon her freedom, we do not expect to see railways and other western mechanical and steam-power appliances largely employed.’ Ross suggested:

We ourselves are subjected to by designing or timid men to a periodical Russian scare, and surely the Chinese have much more reason to believe in the ability and the desire of western powers to injure her than we in that of Russia to maim us.³

It should not be forgotten, Ross averred, that

the Chinese were a cultured people more than twenty centuries before Scott opened our eyes to the grand moods and the gentle soothing voice of nature, and before the lake poets sang its praises to an all but sullen audience.

Moreover, they had developed printing, gunpowder (if only for fireworks) and the compass or ‘needle-fix-the-south,’ as well as spectacles and playing cards. They had taken embroidery with silk and the carving of ivory to a high level. Their agriculture was advanced, as well as their codification of laws. Their government was ‘absolute only for the wellbeing of the people,’ Ross emphasised, adding later that ‘absolute government, founded on and governed by democratical principles’ made ‘the Chinese people one of the most democratic in the world’ even if the government was based on divine right.⁴

Therefore, Ross considered,

We do not believe that Russia will now be ever able to conquer China, and we are certain that the Chinese people would suffer in most things and benefit in nothing by transference to the Russian rule.

The Chinese peasants, in his view, were happier and more cultured than their Russian counterparts. Nevertheless, Chinese dynasties became corrupt and rebels based their action on justice: ‘better the storm of revolution than quietude under the blighting cancer.’ The Chinese were more Whig than conservative in other words.⁵

Ross concluded his ‘Preliminary Dissertation on the Political Principles of China’ with the assertion: ‘Whether we will or no, China is rapidly becoming a great and powerful nation; but the reception of Christianity alone can make the Chinese a moral people, who will benefit the whole world.’⁶

The Rev. Ross next begins the Introduction to his monumental work with the observation:

As soon might we expect the water oozing from a mossy rock to become a mighty river, bearing on its bosom the peaceful fleets of all nations as the few ignorant descendants of the Tartar Aisin Gioro to become, by their own despicably insignificant resources, the legislators of a fourth of mankind, and the rulers of a fourth of mankind, and the rulers of the most populous empire under the sun.

If it was necessary that the movements of the Manchus should have been regulated by wise bravery, it was even more essential that reckless folly should misguide their no less brave opponents.⁷

(Ross rejected the comparison of the Manchu conquest of China with the British conquest of India because British troops in India were conscious of their own superiority, in weaponry in particular, and their opponents ‘equally conscious of their own inferiority.’)

The Manchus were also inspired by their sacred bird, the magpie, who makes a critical intervention in the story of the origins of Manchuria. Several centuries ago, Ross tells us, three heaven-descended maidens were bathing in a lake below the White Mountains when a magpie dropped a fruit on the skirt of the youngest who ate it before dressing and, as a consequence, bore a son who could speak from birth and was remarkable in a number of other ways. When he was full-grown, his mother told him that ‘he was born of Heaven, to set to rights the troubled nations,’ and having given him the name Aisin Gioro, which means Gold Dynasty, she ascended into Heaven.⁸

The remarkable nature of the young man was recognised by three local contending peoples, who elected him their joint ruler, whereupon he gave them the name ‘Manchu’ which means ‘pure.’

The myth was accompanied by history from the middle of the sixteenth century when an obscure chieftain named Nurhaci extended his power over most of what was to become known as Manchuria. Giving himself the title Ying-ming, which means ‘Brave and Illustrious,’ he turned his attention from 1618 to the conquest of China. Nurhaci died in 1626, but is usually credited with the founding of the Qing or ‘Pure’ dynasty (as in Manchu so in Mandarin according to Ross), even if his son actually established it in 1644.

After a survey of several versions of the consequences of eating the red fruit recorded from 1635 to 1739, the historian Lin Sun has commented:

Through analysis of the Manchu origin myth, the history of the Manchus can be traced as they moved from being conquerors to rulers of a vast empire. The myth that had originally served to underpin the unity of the ruling elite and to legitimate a dominant clan in order to prevent future divisions from the 1640s, disseminated among the wider group of Manchu, Mongol, and Han bannermen [Chinese clansmen], all of whom were invited to claim a Manchu identity based on the original myth.⁹

As he moved to begin the conquest of China, Nurhaci did not leave his native land completely behind him. Both he and his successors made formal visits for reasons varying from the mystical to the practical and maintained much of Manchuria (although they did not call it that) as a frontier region of their empire beyond the Great Wall. For several centuries, this included the Wild East, bandit country, a refuge for runaways, known in the West as Tartary. To protect their agricultural lands, from the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, the Manchu rulers had been building the Willow Palisades stretching for hundreds of miles, protected by a deep ditch and intermittent garrisons.

The myth of the birth of ‘Manchuria’ was not unlike that of many other societies throughout the world. Some would say that all humankind originated in the story of another young woman eating fruit, that we are all the children of Eve. But the Rev. Ross was almost certainly not among those who considered the Garden of Eden to be mythical. To take another outstanding example, Rome was said to have originated with Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf. Rome, of course, went on to become a great empire that was the model for the Western world, Russia in this case included. As Mary Beard points out,

since the Renaissance at least, many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury and beauty have been formed, and tested, in dialogue with the Romans and their writing.¹⁰

Great Britain and Russia both made use of the classical heritage as they expanded. A British player in the Great Game is said to have succinctly reported ‘peccavi’ which would be widely understood as ‘I have Sindh,’ while Russians at the highest level drew on their Greek heritage via the Second Rome, Byzantium, as they named emperors Alexander and Nicholas.

The body of Ross’s book on the Manchus need not detain us. It is a detailed narrative running to some seven hundred pages describing the manner in which their dynasty extended its hold throughout China. Suffice it to say that a major role is played by a series of individual leaders exhibiting what Ross had called ‘wise bravery.’

In his article on Manchuria, which, in the estimate of a leading authority, he saw ‘as playing a historically pivotal role in the geopolitics of Northeast Asia,’¹¹ Ross described the geography of what was known to the Chinese as the ‘Three Eastern Provinces’ (from south to north Fungtien, Kirin and Heilungkiang) just before they were transformed by the arrival of the railway. He attached a helpful map (Figure 1).

Figure 1 This map accompanies the article published in 1895 by John Ross that forms the basis of the Introduction in Chapter One. There is no indication of the construction of a railroad or of the city of Harbin. The Argun, Amur and Ussuri Rivers stand out as the frontier of Manchuria from west to east. (Photo: Aberdeen University)

From the port of Newchang by the adjoining Liaotung Peninsula, Ross observed, a magnificent, virtually unbroken plain stretched north-east to the Amur River with just an occasional hill. Higher ground could be found towards Mongolia to the west and adjacent to Korea to the east, where the Changbai Shan or Ever White Mountain, which appeared to be continually covered in snow because of the colour of its stone, rose to about 8000 feet. This height had been calculated by two recent travellers, Messrs James and Younghusband (whom we shall meet again at the end of the next chapter). The double range south of the town of Liaoyang called the Chienshan or the Thousand Peaks contained many Buddhist and even more Taoist monasteries.

The Ever White Mountain was a watershed for the Ussuri River which flowed directly north to form the boundary between Manchuria and the Russian Maritime Province and for the Sungari River which was a tributary of the mighty Amur River, which formed another boundary between Manchuria and China. The Russians had excluded the Chinese from the Amur, but for some years, a small Russian steamer had some years plied the Sungari as far as Kirin, the middle of the three provinces. The Yalu River separated Manchuria from Korea, while the Liao River flowed through the great plain of Manchuria to enter the sea about 20 miles from Newchang.¹²

April could be said to be the only spring month, for May quickly became summer. ‘So rapid is the growth under the bright sunshine and the penetrating power of the daily increasing heat,’ Ross remarked, ‘that wheat sown in the beginning of April is cut down in the end of June or the beginning of July.’ Up to the end of July, rain was rare and light, so clouds were regarded with special favour ‘not only as containing the promise of needed rain, but as a feature of beauty in the usually cloudless sky.’¹³ Towards the beginning of August, when the heat was greatest, the heaviest rains came. Floods could cause great havoc, with farmers sinking to their knees as they tried in vain to save some of their crops.

September was the normal harvest month, and then, a finer month than October in Manchuria would be difficult to find anywhere. But frost crept in at night towards the end of October and then applied its iron grip from November till March. Thus, after one month of spring, there were four and a half months of summer, one and a half of autumn and five of winter. At least ten months of the year were very dry.

The main crop was sorghum, a variety of millet. It resembled barley, and, boiled whole to be eaten often with beans or other vegetables, was far more nutritious than rice. Sorghum could be used for making spirit, as was almost all the barley grown. Wheat was widely cultivated. There were many kinds of beans, one of which (this was soy, although Ross does not name it) was valuable as the main item of export. Beans could also be crushed under a great wheel of granite weighing several tonnes to produce oil used in cooking or for light. Maize or Indian corn was also extensively grown. Tobacco and opium were largely exported, as was indigo. Vegetables, in particular a large cabbage and a bitter turnip, were consumed locally, often soaked in brine...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Epigraph: ‘Lines on Harbin’
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• A note on names
• 1 Introduction to Manchuria: Early empire
• 2 Empire before the railway, 1689–1892
• 3 The arrival of the railway and war with Japan, 1892–1906
• 4 To the First World War and Russian Revolution, 1906–18
• 5 Soviet Russia, Imperial Japan and the USA: Harbin, 1918–29
• 6 Conflict with China: Manchukuo and the Second World War, 1929–45
• 7 The Soviet invasion, the Chinese Revolution and the Korean War, 1945–56
• 8 Conclusion: Empire and after – Manchuria past, present, future
• Index