Page 2 of 2 Koreans left high and dry
By Andrei Lankov
At the same time, they believed that acceptance of Soviet citizenship would
deprive them of the opportunity to go home eventually - and they still assumed
that this would happen. Waves of rumors about repatriation came and went. These
were created by such events as the San Francisco Treaty in 1951, the end of the
Korean War in 1953, the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration in 1956.
The latter event indeed led to some migration, albeit limited. The repatriation
of the Japanese in 1945-1948 was not complete, a handful of them (644, as of
July 1953) remained on the island, and after 1956 the Soviet authorities
allowed them to move to Japan if they wished. Many of these people were
Japanese women who in
the late 1940s chose to stay with their Korean husbands. Now, they were allowed
to go to Japan, taking their husbands and children. As a result, 294 ethnic
Koreans (excluding children) went to Japan in 1956-57 as immediate relatives of
the Japanese repatriates.
Meanwhile, the North Korean authorities increased their presence on the island.
In the late 1950s, the North Korean consulate, located in Vladivostok, in
Nakhodka (Vladivostok, as a major naval base, was then off-limits for
foreigners) began to conduct intense propaganda operations among the Sakhalin
Koreans, persuading them to accept North Korean citizenship.
It seems the North Korean efforts were encouraged by a major political success
they scored in the mid-1950s in Japan. The ethnic Koreans of Japan (like
Sakhalin Koreans, overwhelmingly colonial-era migrants from South Korea)
largely chose North Korean citizenship and for a while remained surprisingly
loyal to Kim Il-sung's regime. For all practical purposes, Soren (or
Ch'ongruyon) the pro-Pyongyang association of the ethnic Koreans in Japan,
became a powerful state-within-state.
The Soren cadres were treated as equals even by the most influential Japanese
politicians, while the young zealots ensured that no dissent would develop
inside this secretive organization (physical attacks and even assassinations of
Soren's opponents were common in Japan in the 1960s).
For a while, the same scheme seemingly worked in Sakhalin. The nationalist
message initially sold well. Documents of the late 1950s show that Sakhalin
Koreans preferred to take North Korean, not Soviet, citizenship. For example,
in 1958, the police surveyed the local Korean population (excluding recent
arrivals from North Korea and those who had already chosen Soviet citizenship),
asking them which citizenship they would prefer. According to the survey, 9,836
said they would rather remain persons without citizenship, 6,346 opted for
North Korean passports, and merely 1,008 expressed their wish to become Soviet
citizens.
In 1957-58, North Korean diplomats started a semi-legal movement of the
so-called "study groups" which were to become the foundation for the future
Soren-like organization in the Soviet Union. At first, the groups looked
innocuous enough: they taught "correct Korean language" (that is, Pyongyang
dialect), Korean history as understood by North Korean official historians, and
the North Korean version of Leninism, soon to be known as Juche (the
word itself did not become common until 1965).
Needless to say, "the superhuman wisdom" of Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader,
became an important topic. However, in the late 1950s, relations between Moscow
and Pyongyang soured, and the groups' activities took a new turn. To the great
dismay of the Soviet authorities, the groups soon began to acquire the features
of clandestine organizations. Some pro-Soviet Koreans were removed from the
groups, and occasional violence against dissenters also began.
The Soviet Union of the 1960s, being an authoritarian state, was quite
different from Japan, where Soren could succeed. The Soviet authorities would
not tolerate such activity on their soil, especially when it was directed by
agents of the regime they then often saw as pro-Chinese. In the early 1960s,
the "study groups" movement was suppressed.
It was not a difficult job; after 1960, North Korea lost much of its initial
appeal in the eyes of Sakhalin Koreans (indeed, it soon became one of the
least-popular foreign countries). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, some 4,000
Sakhalin Koreans, persuaded by speeches of North Korean diplomats and colorful
pictures of glossy propaganda magazines, applied for "repatriation" to North
Korea.
Some of them assumed that such a move would bring them closer to their homes
(promises of university admission for the younger generation also played a
role). Very soon those people realized how huge their mistake was. Once they
confronted North Korean realities, they came to see their life at Sakhalin as a
paradise lost.
They discovered that despite being somewhat discriminated inhabitants of a poor
backwater region in the Soviet Union, they still enjoyed a better material life
(and also greater personal freedom) than was the norm in Kim's North Korea.
They also discovered that there was no way back.
Some people attempted to escape from North Korea, but only a few succeeded.
There are three known cases of Sakhalin Koreans who went to North Korea and
then managed to flee across the Soviet border (one of them later became a
prominent journalist in Moscow). Others managed to smuggle letters with
nightmarish descriptions of daily life in North Korea.
The word spread, making North Korea a decisively unpopular destination. As an
old Korean told Asia Times Online, "Frankly, we were not proud of being Korean
until the late 1980s. Everybody then thought of North Korea as a sole Korea,
and people here, in Sakhalin, knew very well what an awful place it is. Things
changed only when South Korea came to be known here."
Under such circumstances, an increasing number of Sakhalin Koreans began to
consider Soviet citizenship. Since hopes of a return home were diminishing,
this clearly was the least unacceptable option. It would liberate them from
many troublesome restrictions, and would also open many career paths. (Although
some unstated discrimination would remain: with few exceptions, only persons
born as Soviet citizens could be promoted to the most prestigious jobs.)
Still, naturalization was challenging for those who had earlier made a mistake
of accepting North Korean citizenship. To be naturalized, those people had to
first produce a paper from the North Korean consulate which would confirm that
the candidate had relinquished his or her North Korean citizenship. However,
North Korean authorities never issued such certificates.
Finally, the Soviet agencies began to accept applications if the applicant
could prove that he or she had made reasonable efforts to contact the North
Korean consulate and notify them about renunciation of the North Korean
citizenship (usually, it was sufficient to send a North Korean passport to the
Nakhodka consulate by registered mail and then wait for six months).
Naturalization intensified in the 1970s and was almost complete by the time of
the Soviet collapse. Nonetheless, the 1970s were a turbulent decade for the
Korean community: it found itself in the middle of a political storm.
PART 2: A political crisis erupts
Andrei Lankov is an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul,
and adjunct research fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian
Studies, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State
University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea.
He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia.
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