China Far East Railway
From Academic Kids
Template:Mergefrom The China Far East Railway (a.k.a. Chinese Eastern Railway, CER) was a railway connecting China and the Russian Far East. Russians know this railway as Template:Lang, or Template:Lang (Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga, KVZhD). English-speakers referred to key strategic portions of this line as the Manchurian Railway.
The administration of the CER took place from Harbin. Complete end-to-end rail connection first occurred in 1916 with the completion of the 600-plus-mile long line south of Lake Baikal, which required the construction of hundreds of bridges. Services prior to that trans-shipped by ferry along the lake using a special ferry-cum-icebreaker.
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History of the line
Construction of the CER started in July 1897 along the line Tarskaya - Hilar - Harbin - Nikolsk-Ussuriski. Officially, traffic on the line started in November 1901, but regular passenger traffic from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok across the Trans-Siberian railway started in July 1903.
Manchuria.png
During the Russo-Japanese War (1904 - 1905), Imperial Russia lost both the Liaodong and the railway to Japan, which took over most of the Southern branch (also known as the Southern Manchurian Railway and as Changchun to the Japanese) by conquest during the fighting. This line serviced the stretch from Harbin to the strategic port cities west of the Korea Bay Dalney (Dalian/Darien) and Lüshun/Port Arthur. In an ironic turnabout, the Soviet Government insisted on control of this region after World War II before the communist forces won in China. (See below)
During 1917-1924 (Russian Civil War) the Russian part of the CER came under the administration of the White Army.
After 1924 the USSR and China administered the Northern CER jointly, while Japan maintained conrol of the southern spurline, one of its spoils of the Russo-Japanese War, a large part of which consisted of fighting for control of this line.
In 1935 the USSR had to sell all its rights in the CER to the Manzhouguo government.
From August 1945 the CER again came under the joint control of the USSR and China. Somewhat reversing their stinging losses in 1904-1905, after World War II the Soviet Government insisted on occupying the Liaodong Peninsula but allowed joint control over the Southern branch; all this together received the name of the "Chinese Changchun Railway" (Russian: Кита́йская Чанчу́ньская желе́зная доро́га).
In 1952 the Soviet Union transferred (free of charge) all its rights to the Chinese Changchun Railway to the People's Republic of China.
KVZhDists (Russian Harbinites)
People in the Soviet Union used the terms KVZhDist and Harbinets (Harbinite, "person from Harbin") for any person connected in one way or another to the KVZhD.
After 1935, many Harbinites returned to the Soviet Union. Nearly all of them came under arrest during the Great Purge (1936 - 1938), charged with espionage and counter-revolutionary activity according to the NKVD Order no. 00593 of September 20, 1937. According to the data collected by the Memorial Society, Soviet authorities arrested 48,133 KVZhDists and shot 30,992 of them.
Russian Harbinites had an unpleasant time under the Manzhouguo régime (1932 - ) and later under the Japanese occupation. In 1945, after the Soviet Army had occupied Harbin, the Soviets sent to labor camps all those Russian Harbinites whom they identified as White Guardists or who had collaborated with the Japanese authorities.
After 1952, the Soviet Union initiated a second wave of repatriation of Russian Harbinites, and by the mid-1960s virtually all of them had left Harbin; this time no repressions took place.
References
- Mara Moustafine. Secrets and Spies: The Harbin Files. A Vintage Book series, Random House, Australia Pty Ltd, 468 pp.
- F.R. Sedwick, (R.F.A.), The Russo-Japanese War, 1909, The Macmillan Company, N.Y., 192 pp.
- Colliers (Ed.), The Russo-Japanese War, 1904, P.F. Collier & Son, New York, 128 pp.
Wikisource
External link
- Chinese Eastern Railroad Zone (http://www.worldstatesmen.org/China_Foreign_colonies.html)ru:Китайско-Восточная железная дорога
