Second Session 23 January 1922, 11A.M

Second Session 23 January 1922, 11a.m.

Chairman: Comrade Safarov.

Chairman. The Second Session of the Congress of the Toilers of the Far East is hereby declared opened. We will now have to elect a Mandate Commission, and confirm the agenda and the rules of procedure.

Shumyatsky.1 The representative of the Mongolian delegation has presented the following list of delegates for the Mandate Commission. The principle is as follows: Representation from every delegation and from the Executive Com- mittee of the Comintern. Altogether, the following list has been presented:

1. Nogi [Taguchi Unzo]. 2. Roy [M.N. Roy] 3. Sun. 4. Won. 5. Tsoy [Cho’e].2 6. Zadbayev. 7. Kim. 8. Buyan-Namkhu [Sonombaljiryn Buyannemekh]. 9. Yurin.3 10. Trilisser.4 11. Voytinsky [Voitinsky].5 12. Dalin.6 13. Shumyatsky.

1 If Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky (1886–1938) is remembered at all today, it is as the Soviet film industry head who persecuted Sergei Eisenstein. But in 1922, Shumyatsky was the most powerful man in Siberia, regional representative of the Party and the Soviet government, chairman of the Siberian military district, and director of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern. He had previously served as prime minister of the Far Eastern Republic. Zhang Guotao regarded Shumyatsky as a high-handed, virtual dictator who lived a privileged life- style in the midst of mass hunger, and dubbed him the ‘King of Siberia’. Shumyatsky was appointed rector of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in 1926. In 1930, he was put in charge of Soyuz Kino. History has judged him harshly for his treatment of Eis- enstein, Kuleshov, and other formalist directors. But avant-garde films were unpopular with Soviet audiences and signature techniques of formalism, such as montage, were losing their relevance with the onset of sound. Shumyatsky planned to build a Soviet Hollywood near Odessa and make films with mass appeal, but he was unable to meet production targets. After the expensive failure of Bezhin Meadow (ironically directed by Eisenstein), he was accused of sabotage and shot in June 1938. See Zhang Guotao 1971, Vol. 1, Part 4, pp. 171–209; see also Taylor 1991. 2 Probably Ch’oe Koryŏ who was a delegate from the First Korean Brigade of the Red Army and one of the leaders of the Irkutsk faction of Korean Communists. 3 M.I. Yurin undertook what was probably the first Soviet (more accurately, quasi-Soviet) dip- lomatic mission to China, on behalf of the Far Eastern Republic, in August 1920. See Wilbur and How 1989, p. 22. 4 Mikhail Trilisser (1883–1940) joined the RSDLP in 1901. He was exiled to Siberia and after the 1917 revolution was active in Irkutsk and helped establish the Far Eastern Republic in 1920. In

Chairman. As there are no other proposals, I will take the vote on the list of members for the Mandate Commission. Those in favour of the list of the Man- date Commission will kindly raise their delegate’s card. Those against? The list is accepted.

Comrade Katayama has now a proposition to make concerning the order of the day.

Katayama. I propose the agenda as follows:

Agenda. 1. International situation and results of the Washington Conference. (Report by Zinoviev). 2. Reports from each country. 3. Position of the Communists in the national and colonial question and collaboration of Communists with national-revolutionary parties. 4. Manifesto.

Chairman. Are there any objections to the agenda as proposed? Are there any other propositions to the agenda? No?Then we will consider the agenda as proposed adopted. We will now decide on the rules of procedure. The Presidium proposes the following rules:

Rules of procedure. 1. Time allowed for reports, 1 hour. 2. Time allowed for concluding words, 30 minutes. 3. Time allowed for general discussions, first time 15 minutes; second time, 10 minutes and third time 5 minutes. 4. Orators speaking for or against a motion, 10 minutes. 5. Questions on reports must be presented in writing and only while [the] report is being made.

1921, he joined the Cheka and later rose to a leading position in the OGPU. He was arrested and executed in 1940. 5 Grigori Voitinsky (1893–1953) played a key role in establishing the Chinese Communist Party. As an emissary of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern he met with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in 1920. The party held its first congress in 1921. 6 Sergei Dalin (1902–85) was a Soviet expert on China. He was sent to China in 1922 and again in 1926. Dalin wrote several books, including Sketches of the Chinese Revolution, published in 1927. He was imprisoned in 1936 and released in 1956.