EASTERN SIBERIA-

UNDERPOPULATED TREASURE HOUSE By KLAUS MEHNERT

Two yeal's ago, .:11 Deccmbu J9-11. wc published (Ill arlide e1l1itled "1'/le BollJhcu~ik,,' Clumcu ifI ,s;bcr~ill." wllich pruellle

7'he foUulcil1g P<1(t Jt arc Ihe rcs'lln of yean, of cnrtful usscmlJiing of material (Illd cOlltaill, II'C beMr.·vc. much III"t Iw" hilhertu fwt bcen gcnerally 4:1IOU'II, 1'lIey il1dude, for instaflCe, n",meroWl place tUltllC.' of u'hiell bllt fnc pt'vplc lIal'e ct~r heard a"d wliich. II VtrChelU8. an of lh(l greaUBt ceanomic alld military impcrl

Ea"Um Siberia i.x Owl part of Ihe Sor:ie.l Ullion u'hicll liu 10 tile W8t of a liflC ro./wit/v from Ihe tvc.stll1'n border of 1'ann.,. 1'ut'a-slightly 10 Ihe 'eesl of (md a{musl 71aralltl to 90· casterll 10llgitlld -10 II,,; Arc/'ie Oceem. III our di

HE word Siberia, especially Eastern harmony with Nature. like that of the Siberia, is not, in very good odor wolves and foxes of Siberia. Then came T in the world. Those foreigners who the great uphea\'al. According to a have seen it them elves-u ually from legend of the Yakuts (the large"t of the the window (If the 'frans-Siberian Rail­ Ea.',t.ern Siberian tribes) told ill the work way-hardly ever contribute towa,rd Si­ of S.A. Tokarev, published in Moscow in beria'A reputation by what they have to )940, it happened about as follows. tell. On their journey they see little that remains in their memory as having THE STORY OF CillEF TYNQYN heen beautiful. Perhaps the crossing of Many JUen worked for the Yakut the Yenisei at KraRnoyarsk. or the hit chief Tyngyn, whose grazing lands were along the southel'll end of Lake Baikal. un the River Lena. One da.y Tyngyn On the whole, the jow'uey is monotonous. noticed among them two men of un­ 'I'1I08e in the train sec untended forests, known origin. They did not look like pour settlements, wretchedlv ('Iothed Yakuts. Their eyes were deep set and peuple. blue; their noses high Rnd sharp; their Moreover, grim memories assail those faces covered with hair: their heaua who are historicallY minded. Since time Ilhaven. They did not know the language immemorial, num~rous native tribes of of the Y n.kuts. TyngYIl was friendly the most va.ried racial descent had lived toward them. After two years the here in primitive barbarism alld poverty. strangers asked t.he chief for two cow­ They had adapted themselves to their hides. Tyngyn gave them to them. environment and, moving around with Then they laid the hides on the ground their herds of reindeer and continually and explained that they wished to be at war among themselves, they led a given the ground covered by the hides. nomadic existence which wn~ yet in Tyngyn said: "Very well, Take it!" THE XXth CENTURY

Now the strangers cut up the hides neglect their herds and fields in order to into thongs 88 thin 88 threa.ds. Wit.h hunt the dwindling prey and consequently these thongs they surrounded a large sank into ever deepening misery. As the area and marked off the borders with fur reserves were depleted, the conquerors post~. Then they disappeared, llnd the moved further and furt.her east to open Yakuts soon forgot them. But. in the up untapped regions and to subject new following spring the strangers returned, tribes. In their desperation, the Eastern not alone but with many others. On Siberian tribes rose in countless revolts the ground that had been given to against their oppressors, only to be them they built many houses and a bloodily quelled every time. fortress. Now Tyngyn was seized with alarm. He I18sembled his warriors and GOLD .o\ND EXTLE decided to drive out the trangers. When the wealth in furs started to These, however, replied to the arrows dwindle, a new object of exploitation was of the Yakuts with loud thunder, discovered: precious metalB. In 1704 the and at e\·ery l'ltroke of thunder first pOlmd and a half of silver was one Yakut fell. Many Yakuts died. smelted in Nerchinsk. Later, gold was Even Tyngyn and his SOllB. Those who found, and soon after that the high cus­ survived fled into the forests or sur­ toms income from the lucrative trade rendered to the strangers. with China was added. Much of the }'vas A~D DEATH riches which now began to fllIW fruIII Popular legends are inclined to look at Eastcru ~iber·ia to European Rusliia never hi tor)' through ro:c-colored gla '$es. just got fmt her than thc rockets of the a in the course of time the memory of ofticials n.od merchants on the way. the individual eliminates what il'l painful. Whcn Prince (:agarin was appointed the The act ual conqueRussia were required. The quantity and The first Russian conquerors came to quality of men who went voluntarily to the Yenisei in 16 HI. At tha,t time. Siberia were at that time low. "Men furs were among the most important who ventured out into almost trackless items of export of the ltussian Empire, Eastern Siberia were adventurers, who which had Little else to olIer \'0 the re·t wanted to get rich quick but had no of the world. Thus it was Siberia's desire for steady work. So the state originally vaHt wealth in furs which lured made use of slave labor. The stream of the Russians to the conquest of that exiles, the first of whom had a.lready territory. The natives were employed been sent out in the sL~teenth century 1 as fur collectors. While unrestricted a few years u.fter the conquest of Siberia. killing rapidly diminished the number of ha.d begun, swelled from decade to decade. fur-bearing lLllimals, increasing fur trib­ Among them were personal enemies of utes were demanded from the natives, the Tsar; political opponents of the because the number of Russians who regime; members of such foreign- pop­ wished thus to enrich themselves grew ulations, hostile toward the Russians, steadily. The natives were forced to as the Poles, tens of thousands of,whom J,;.\STJ,;RN SllJERlA-UNDERPOPULATED TRJ,;ASURE HOUSE 21 took the bitter road to Siberia in the moral welfare of the people but solely nineteenth century; members of religious the desire for an added instrument of sects which did not agree in every detail terror and for more slaves for the devel­ with the Orthodox Church; and ordinary opment of Siberia. which hud cuused the criminals. Two classical works, Dosto­ law to he promulgated. For she dis­ yevaky's House of Death and Siberia and covered all the men who had been exiled the Exile System, written by the American to Siberia for allegedly infringing this George Kennan in 1891, draw a realistic law herded together in one camp in a picture of this system. Later, all that few overcrowded barracks. was described by these two men in the nineteenth century was completely 0\7er­ THE GOOD SIDE shadowed by the deeds of the Bolsheviks Yet Siheria has its good sides. In of the twentieth centmy. The Bol­ fact, its notorious characteriHtie, its sheviks have, in t,he last twenty-five climate, is much better than it is reputed years. sent ten times as ma.ny people to be. It ill true that Eastern Siberia is into , iberian exile as were sent by the the coldest part of the earth, much colder Tsars in four hundred years. than the North Pole (Verkhoyansk has CHEAP LABOR the lowest annual temperature measured anywhere in the world). But, with all 10 1()3;j, I visited a Siberian concentra­ their cold, the winters of Siberia are tion camp whose inmates worked in a usually clear and windless, though some­ coal district that had just been opened times broken by blizzards, Ilnd the cold up. A few year:; previously, at the t,ime is easier to endure because it is quite dry. of the destl'Uction of the free peasantry, The l:HImmers are short but \'(~ry called "de-kulakization," when the tirst intense, with all Nature's energy of eighty thousand people--men. women. growth concentrated intu a short period. and children-were unloatleu from Then the (,OlUltr} is con'red by an cattle truck,.l, nothing but a few buildings intoxicating carpet of flowcr:>. "In Si­ for the (~PU guards stood here. Winter beria t.here are two seasons: July and came long before the exiles hat! finished winter," runs a not entirely ullj ustified building their bUlTlLcks. and muny of ::>aying. The most disagreeable conse­ them, cspecially children, fell victim to quence of the Siberian cold is that much the cold. But other exiles followeu. At of the ground is frozen deeply, so that, the time when I visited the camp. 130,000 when in sUlllmer the topmost layer thaws, people were \'egetating there. most of the water calUlot flow oil through the them exiles. AmI every day trainloads frozen underground layers. This is thl' of coal were disput(·hed to th(' neighboring rcason for the manv nHlrHhc8 which, in are district. northern ~iberia, pe~mit only the tundra In 1!.J34 the Soviet Government, which wit.h its stunted t.rees instead of forests, until then had granted the population and which are the breeding place for full License in lllatters of sex, unexpectccUy clouds of mosquitoes. It is preferable to promulgated a law against homosexuality travel in winter, when everything is which led immediately to a wa\'e of frozen hard. Near the Arctic coast there arrest,s. Among the numerous people are no trees whatever, and the only arrested in Moscow there was also a available fuel is driftwood. Russian murri('d to an American woman. The nature of t.he Russian fit.s Itim well By dint of grcat energy alHI courage, for Eastern Siberia. He loves its vast­ she succeeded a year later in vifliting her ness. It meaus freedom to him and husband for a few days at his concentra­ satisfies the anarchistic trait which is to tion camp in Eastern Sib('rill. where he be fOlJnci t,o It greater or lesser degree in and the other prisoners were employed in many Rus ians. It is this vastness which building roads. She was able to convince has attracted Siberia's sounde t elements, herself that it wa,'l not anxicty for the the peasants. Siberia offered them a 22 twofold freedom: while serfdom, from division, its size, and its population is which the majority of the peasants had essent,ial. Table I has been compiled by suffered for centuries, was not abolished us exclusively from Soviet material pub­ in European Russia until 1861, Siberia lished in the years 1939 to 1942. Since had never known peasant serfdom (al­ the figures were taken from various though the natives were until recently Soviet publications, they do not always the slaves of their Russian conquerors, agree entirely. This fact will hardly and the exiles are to this day the slaves diminish the skepticism generally felt of the state). This was the reason for toward Soviet figures. But there are no many an independent-minded serf to Bee other figures available. The population to Siberia. Even after the abolishment figures are those of the last census carried of serfdom, Siberia lured many to emigrate out ill the USSR in 1939. We shall have there; for it offered wide spaces and more to say later about the changes in freedom of action to the Russian peasant population since then. living in the agricultural overpopulation of Eurupean RUBsia and in the oppressive In the course of the twenty-si.x years restriction of his village community. since the Bolshevist regime caDle into Especially after the completion of the power, the administrative division of Trans-Siberian Railway, the peasant the Soviet Union has undergone many emigra.t.ion to Siberia increased consider­ changes. At one time the reason was the ably. It was, however, Western Siberia desire to include the largest possible which benefited chiefly, as only few of the areas in one administration; the next peasants moved further east. time it was, on the contrary, the desire to reduce the size of each unit; the third During the first few generations after time it was the intention to strengthen the conquest, those who came from the Russian influence over the national Russia were almost exclusi"ely men. minorities; the fourth time it was the The result was a frequent mixing of necessity of harmonizing the administra­ blood with the Siberian tribes. The tive division with the new economic de­ more Siberia was opened up, the more velopment of the country. women arrived. That the Siberian wom­ en of today are not without charm can The administrative borders of Eastern be seen from the fact that, of 7,500 Siberia shown in our map are in force American soldiers who marched into today and are based on the ukases of the Siberia after the Revolution, 500 married Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October there. 20, 19:38, and May 26, 1939. (By these ukases the Khabarovsk OLlast disap­ The greatest advantage of Eastern peared, its major part being included in Siberia, however, became known only the Khabarovsk Kl"ai and the rest in the recently: its vast wealth of valuable Prirnorsk Krai.) minerals. Under the last Tsars, and especially under the Bolsheviks, numerous expeditions have explored Eastern Siberia COUNTLESS N.o\TION.U,ITIES in its remotest corners. And, a.Ithough its resources are, even today, by no Eastern Siberia represents an ethno­ means fully known and probably also graphical mixture of the first water, as partia.lly kept secret by the Soviets, some forty to ninety nationalities-de­ there can be no doubt that Eastern pending on the viewpoint of the statisti­ Siberia is one of the richest territories cian-live within its borders. These of the earth. What stage of its devel­ nationalities consist of three main opment has it reached by now? groups:

AREA. AND POPULATION (I) Members of native tribets} (2) Immigranta from other and t,heir parts of East Asia For a study of the eastern Soviet (3) Immigrant41 from Euro­ de6C8Dd8.D t I; Union, a knowledge of its administrative pean RUl'lIia EASTER.N SIBERIA-UNDER.POPULATED TREASURE HOlTSI-: 23

TABU: I The Admlnlstratlve Division of Eastern Siberia

Size In PO/loJatlon ____ca_p_ltuJs_..,- 1 Number of Area 1,000 "'I.Im•. Urban Rur&) I Total Name IpOPulatlon Rayons I Towns

.lU"aMooylllBll Kral ...... 2,U3.8 551,419 1,388,583 1,940,002 Krasnoyarsk 100,000 57 II lnc:1. Khak...... Aut. Oblast...... 58.11 - - I :,t;O,f55:) Abakan 17,000 - - Taimyr Nat. OkruK ..... 742.11 - - - Dudlnka 30,000 - - Evenn Nat. OkruR ...... 56-&.3 - - I - Tura - - - Irlrntlll< Oblllllt ...... 899.6 &61,676 725,020 1,286,llOO Irkutok 243,400 30 10 11Ie1. Us),-Orda Burya),- Monllol Nat,. Okrull .... 18.1 - - Vst·Onla - - - Buryat-Monllol ASSR ...... I 331.4 163,42-5 3;:;'7451 5"2,170 Ulan·Udo 129,417 18 - ChIta Oblast ...... 720.0 510,900 648,578 1,159,47l:l Chit:> 102,600 31 7 11Ic1. Allhlll!lk Durl'of- I lIongol Nat. O~'TIlg .... 27.8 - - - ARJ.insk - - - Yakut AS8R ...... I 3,030.9 78,667 321,8i7 400,&"4 YakulAk 2L,OOO 38 7

Incl. Aldan Okrug , .... " 338.2 - -- Aldan.k 50.000 - - KhabalQv!k .Kmi ...... 2,~i:!.O 647,900 783,000 1,430,875 Khabarovsk 109,400 56 J3 Incl. JcwW. Aut. Obl""t ... .. 36.8 - - 108,419 131robld)"" !'lO,OOO - - .-'mllT Oblo.t ...... 213.8 - - - llla/lOvt'!\hchcnsk r,8,800 - - KlUDChatka Oblas! ...... 1,153.3 - - 100,000 , PrtropDYll)\"8k 20.000 - - Incl. J{oryak Nat. Okrul; .. 310.8 --- Palana - - - Chukot Nal.. Okrull.. 660.6 - - - Anadyr.k - - - Lower Amur Oblast ...... 549.11 - - - I l'ilkola)'cvsk - - - Sllkhalin Oblost ...... •. 40.7 - - 100,000 Alcxandronk - - - Prlrnonlk Krnl ...... 200.6 464,000 443,000 907.220 , VladivOlitok 200,400 26 7 - Incl. Ul!8uriillk Oblast ...... 109.0 - - - VoroollUov 100.000 I -

9,90~.3 .~7 Tntal ...... ·.1 :l,977,1lB7' 4,688,803 1 7,666,98S I----::l.56

The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) consists at present of one SFSR (Soviet Federated Socialist Republic) anti fliteoll SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic>!), part of which are now occupied by Gor­ man troops. Unless t,hese republics happell'to be very small, like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, they I\fO dividod into a number of provinces. The la.rgest of the repuhlil's. the Hussian S....SR. has 51 subdivi· sions which may be called pro\·inccs. The Russians call t,hese provinces either krai or obl.ast. The word /era; is applied to some of the provinces situated on the border of the Soviet Union. Those of the provo inces in 1\ republic whieh ure inhabited by a national minorit,y are called ASSR (Autonomous Soviot Socialist Republic). The Russian Sl'SR (RSFSR). for inst'lInee, hM 6 km':s, 30 oblasta, t\!l(1 lil ASSR. In addition to this. mllOY provinces contain special administrative units inhabited by nat,ionlll minorities. The hugost of these are called autonomous oblasta, the smaller ones national okrttg or only okr'llg. The smallest administrative division is tho rayon (called aimak in Buryat.Mongolia), of which there are 11.1· together 3.287. All of Eastern Siberia discu86ed in this article belongs to the RSFSR. The two eastern· most provinces-Khllbarovsk nud Primorsk-are often referred to collectively as the "Soviet lo'ar Eost."

As a COI1l:icquence of t.he colonization Table II policy of the RW5sian Empi.re, some na.tive Some Tribes of Eastern Siberia tribes, especially in the northern regions, have died out almost completely, some of YakutR (Yaht ASSn) . 300,000 Buryats (n.TOtmd Lake Baikal) . 280,000 them bcing represented now by only a KJlakl\BSOs (south of Krasno)'ILrsk) . 150,000 few-so to speak-muscum pieces. An Tunguses or Evenks (Evenks Nat-. exception is formed by thc Yakuts. Okrug and Amur) . 40,000 Chukchi (Chukot Nat. Okrug) . 1:1,000 Other trib~s, however, which had an Koryaks (Koryak Nat. Okrug) . 8.000 opportunity of receiving new blood from Lamuts (Okhot,sk Sea cunoSt) . 6.800 Golds (Amur) . 5.500 across the borders of the Russian Empire, Kamchadals (Kamchatka) . 4,500 have maintained considerable numbers. GilyakB (Amur) . 4.400 Table II presents a list of those tribcs for Uds (east of Khabarovsk) . 1.500 Alouts (islands off Kamchatka) . 350 which we possess population figures. Manegres (Amur) ,., . 59 These figures a,re not reliable, but they Yukaghirs (Kolyma region) . 45 serve to give an approximate idea of the Ainus (Sakhalin) . 31 native inhabitants of Siberia. Total: 814.185 THE XXth CEN'f.lTRY

In all, there are somewhat less than a However, this reproa~h holds good million natives living in Eastern Siberia. chiefly for the government of the Tsars. Immigrants from the rest of East Asia The Bolsheviks were early to recognize are headed by Koreans. whose number is the necessity of filling the rich treasure stated to be 190.000. They are followed house of Ea tern Siberia with people, by Chinese, with about 50.000. The especially as the presence there of troops number of Japanese is negligible. of four great powers after the Revolution Thus in I!l39 the Asiatic population of had shown them that they were not the Eastern Siberia amounted to 80me 1.2 only ones to be interested in Eastern million people. The remaining 0t millions Siberia. Above aU they wished to pop­ were immigrants from European Russia. ula.te the Khabarovsk and Primorsk Krais because of their strategical im­ MlORATlON portance and devoterl special Etttention Th history of Siheria during the last to this task during the thirties. fOllr hundred years is the history of its HOW MANY PEOPL~ TODAY? more or less voluntary settlement by people from European Russia, at first by The population of the Soviet Far Ru ians and Ukrainians, later also by East was doubled from 1926 to 1939, i.e., Pole' anti Jcw and, during 'oviet times, in thirteen years the increase in popula­ by all other peoples living under the Red tion was about as much a the total flag. l\iillions came ELl exiles. But, by population had amounted to after almost mean of nUI11("rous ukases, t he Russian three hundred years of T~arist regime. gO\'crJUuents have also tried to encourage Table III voluntary migration to Siberia. Increase In the Population of What WftS the re ult.? When we bear the Soviet Far East in mind thut Eastern Siberia, with its (Kllabarov k and Primorsk Krai) almost IU million quare kilometers, is 1926 1,2U,"33 considera bly larger than Austrulia with 1928 1,354.200 1929 1,44:1,500 its barely million squa.rc kilomcters and 1930 1.478.000 7 million inhabitants. we lllURt arrive at the 1939 2,338,095 con ·Iu. ion that the reproa.ch rai"OfI against Sin('e the cen us of 1939 almost five Great Britain of having insufficiently popu­ years have passed about which no statis­ lated hel' colonial areas also applies to the tics have become available. In the pre­ Ru ..ian policy of set.t1ing Eastern Siberia. war years of 1f1:l9 and 1940, immigration proceeded at probably the sUllie rate as EASTERN SIBrRIA <.luring the thirtieR. With the outbreak of'war, however, a.lmormul COJHJitioJls set in. It is to be assuJJled that, when the Soviets evacuated large areas of European * Russia after July 22, 1fI41, parts of the ~ pitiable crowds of evaeuees reached the easternmost regions of the USSR. But in ,riew of the tremendous demands made CHINA ~•• on the entire Soviet system of transporta­ UUUUU JAPAN tion and the necessity of carrying out a UUUUt considerable part of the eva.cuatioD8 on uuuuu II foot, it seems a foregone conclusion that lUlUU... the major part of the evacuees got stuck UHUHtA before reaching Eastern Siberia, if they UUUUt did not, indeed, perish on the way. At the same time a part of the male popula­ Relative area anu donsity of populo.. tion in E8lJt Asia. Each figure tion of Eastern Siberia. has been sent to represents 7. million inhabitanta the front against Germany. EASTE:£tN SLUER[A-(rNDI:~R[,OPULATED TREASURE HOUIH: 26

As it i8 important for the evaluation by the course of the war so far, the attitude of the present situation of the Soviet of the Ukra.inian parts of the population Union to have an idea of the total number toward the Bolshevist regime has been of people in Eastern Siberia., we have more negl\tive than that of the Great attempted to cal.culate it approximately, Russiaml. Consequently. the Soviets can by taking into con ideration all ava.ilable rely on the lTkrainians of Eastern Sil>eria materia,l on evacuation. immigration, to' a lesser extent than on the Great mobilization, new construction. etc. We Hussians, have come to the conclusion that today it mu t amount to about 8! million TOW:,\S A:S-D MOD.:S 0.- TRAVEL people. From this figure we mu"St deduct There is 110 nocessitv for a detailed ab ut olle million natives whose use to discussion of t;iheria's' geogmphy here, th Government for labor and military since that has not changed and can purposes is limited. In the case of the therefore be looked up e\Oen in old geo­ remaining 7. millions there is another graphical works or encyclopedias. But, problem that IllU t be considered. as worki:! about Siberia published only a few yean; ago arc. in view of the mpid TiLE •KCtAL."UK lSStT E devc!opllH·nt of this (,oIUltry, alren.dy largely ohsolete. we have aSHeJllbled all A large percentage of the Slavic pop­ available rl'cent infurmat ion on the towns ulation of Eastern Siberia, especially of of Eastern Siberia in Appendix I of this tho Far East, consists not of Great issue. A study of thi::l ApPl'ndix will aid our RU8Sians but of Ukrainians. This hl readers in the understanding of t.he djs­ explained by the hjstory of its settlement. Cllssion of Eastern Siberian jlroblemll. After the peasant revolts ill the over­ At the saJlle tiJlle we ('ItII the attelltion populated agricultural areas of European of our rNHlcr" to our Illap (I'. 7i). drawn Ru sin. of 1891/92, which were caused by according tu must recent advict's. since famines and cholera, the Government some of the information contained ill it­ decided to urge and promote migration for exampll', a.bout roads /lnd air lin('~-i:; to 'iberia. Since in those davs there not ment,ioned spet'ifieally ill t.he t exl. WItS 110 Trans-SiLerian Hailwa.y yet, part of the migration took pln.ce by ~hip from When Sibl'ria !Jecame Bolshevist, Ea:lt­ Od sa to Vladivostok. Odessa is in thl' ern :::ii beria's net work of comllllwications Ukraine, and it was a. natural conNcquence was hardly developed at all. hi:> !Jack­ l~ail that the number of Ukrainians thus Lone wa,; the Trans-t;ibel'ian way. moved to the Russian Far East was wh'J'''e l'CI,'lernmost part \\'a~ para.lIeled comparatively high, Even after the by the Chinese Eustern I{,uilwlty running building of the railway. the proportion of through H.ussian-contrullcd northern Man­ kraillians remained large. churia. Bcsides these there were a few short branch railwa.vs. a few roads. ll,nd It is a well-known fact" however, that a certain amount of 'shipping on the main stati tics of nationalities are among the 'rivers. From one Five Year Plan to the mo. t djsputed problems, Rince it is illl­ next.. the :::io\'iets have been moving the pONsible to find un objective standard for center of gravity of their eeollomic them, AccurdjnlT to Ukrainian sourceH. development further and furtll('r to the the Slavic population of Eastern Siberia east and htwe sacrificed LiJliolUl of ruhles consists of one third Ukrainians and two and hllndmds of thousands of concentra­ thirds Greut RusNian.; and of the roughly tion-camp inmatN\ for the opening up o( 2t million Ukrainian;.;, ahout ha./f are Eastern Riheria. As a result, economic said to be living in the Soviet Far East., life is no longer lillli ted to a na.rrow strip especially in Primorsk Krai; Greut. Rus­ along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Ea t­ sian authors, Oll the ot her hand. assume tlfll Si!Jeria i,; now covered by a network much lower figures of only a few Iltllldred of railways, motor roads, shipping, and thousand Uhainians. We mention this air lines which, although still wide­ problem because, as has also been shown me::;hed. is becoming denser every yenr. 26 THE XXtb CENTURY

Apart from some widely scattered short somoJak/Soviet Harbor, have been com­ railways as, for example, the one that pleted. There are no reports, however, carries the oil from Okha to tJle coast of about the large intermediate section. Sakhalin, and in addition to several Of the four railways planned to connect branch lines conneoting the Amur with tbe BAM with the Trans-Siberian Rail­ the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Soviets way, the westernmost, Cheremkhovo/ have developed two vast milway projects, I1imsk, and the easternmost, Volochayev­ the BAM and the Northeast Asia Railway. ka (near Khabarovsk)/Komsomolsk/Onda. have also been completed, while no report.s WHY IHmo THF~ BAM? OIl the lines Tygda/Zeya./Dambuki and With tho outbre/1k of the Manchurian Katon/Vst Nunan are available. In view incidCJlt in 1931 ami the e\'ent ual loss of of the fact that the Tsarist regime huilt the Chinese Eu-stern Railway, the Soviet the Chinese Eastern Railway in three Union had only one remaining railway in years and the comparatively difficult Eastern Siberia, the Amur Railway, run­ Arnur Railway Ul ten, there is no reason ning from Karyml:!k (near Chitu.) to why the Soviet regime, workiug a~ it Vladivostok by a large detow· to the north does with great.er efficiency and especially and in da.ngerous proximity to the border with greater rutbles8uess, should not have former! by the Amur and Ussuri Rivers. been able to complete the BAM Ul the When the Trn.ns-Siberion R/1i1way waF; nine and a half years that have elapsed being constructed. northern Manchuria since Moloto\' madc his speech. The seemed firmly in Rmir-ian handl:!. HelH:e difficult,ies uf torra.in to Le ovorcolllo in the railway Wn1'l uuilt along the shorte1'lt. the construct-ion of the BAM are no rout,e from Kmr-l1oyarsk to Vll1llivostok, greater than those which the Tsarist i.e., al"Ound the .fJlath cnd of Lake Baiknl engulcers had t-o surmount a.long the and on via Manehouli and Harbin (1891­ Amur. 190~1). The Amur Railway wa' not con­ AMERASIAN PROJECT structed until 1907 to 1917 and \Vag not built so much for through traffic to The second huge project in the sphero 'Jadivostok as for local requirementl of of railway construction is the Northeast the Russi/ill Arum t{'rritory. Since tJlO Asia Railway, which is to be linked up los of northern Manchuria by the SSR, with the Alaska Railway planned by the however, the direct route to the lower USA. American capitalistR already had Amnr no longer runs south but north ideas of an America-Asia railway through of Lake Baikul. Moreover, it, became Alaska and Siberia i/l the last cent.urv. desirable for the Soviets to possess a These plans foundered, not. only on t.1~e railway less close to the border. Out of resistance of t.he TSlwist Guvernment, all these considerations wcre born the but also on the lack of a need for such plans for the lla.ikal/Amur Magistrale a railway. Tuday t.he situation h~Ul (BAM), which were announced by Molotov. changed. The Soviet Government is ac­ in FebrlJar.) 1934 in t,he following words: t ively developing northeastern Asia and Among aU new railwliY contstructions, tho may possibly have t.he desire to create a gnmdioecn of the BAM. with ita length of 1.400 railway connection with allied America kilometers. lltandll out. It will serve to incluuo into ooonomjc lifo a \'ast territory which hll.ll which, moreover, Moscow hopes, is moving hitherto belen iUllcoossiblo t,o human beings. toward Bolshevism. The projected route of the BAM is Ea.rly in 1940, Professor V. N. Obraz­ shown on our map. But the Soviet tsov. a member of the Supreme So\;et of Union's policy of secrecy has sucreeded the USSR. declared that the completion in hiding from the world t.he progress of a railway connecting the Trans-Siberia.n made in the construction of this railway. Railway with the Bering Strait could be It can be stat.ed with some certainty that counted on by 1950. This sounds rather the west.ernmost part, Taishet/Ust Kut, optimistic, and it is not known here and balf of the easternmost part, Kom- whether the preliminary work for the EASTERN SmERIA-UNDERPOPULATED TREASURE HOUSE

constrnction of this railway has been rivers are frozell over for a large part of begun yet. The planned route is marked the year, a.s can be seen from Table 1V. on our map. The topographical difficul­ Although large propeller-driven sleighs ties inherent in the construction of such have been built for winter traffic on the a. railway should be less than those of rivers, they cannut replace the paralyzed the BAM. The valleys of the Lena and shipping. The rivers flowing into the the Kolyma favor the construction of a Pacific or its parts benefit from the railway, and it is only between these milder climate of this ocean and· are two river systems that a mountain range frozen over for a shorter period. haa to be crossed. It is well known Table IV that. the construction of the Murmansk Railway, which is 1,450 kilometers long Freezing Over of the Siberian Riven and part of which runs north of the Arctic Circle, did not offer great technical Front '1'0 difficulties and could he completed within Yenisoi at Krasno)"ursk End of Od. End of April less than two years during the Great at Dudinka Be". of O"L. Middle of June War. Lena at its mouth l'lIiddlo of Sf'pt. llog. of July Kolyma. lWADS AND RIVERS ut AlIlbu.rcliik Middle of Sopt. Middle of July Anadyr Beg. uf NO\·. Beg. of June The· most important roads of Eastern Kamchatka Middl" uf No,·. Beg. of May Amur Middle of Nov. Dog. of Ma~' Siberia are the motor roads Bolshoi NeverfYakutsk, which connects the val­ There arc 110 figures whatever available leys of the Amur and the Lena; Okhotsk/ un the nmnber of river uoat:,; ill Eastern Yalrutsk, which forms the shortest con­ Siberia. However, the long periods dur­ nection between the Sea of Okhotsk and ing which these riven; are frozell are the Lena River, which flows into the enough to indicate that tht>i..r role in the Arctic Ocean; and Magadan/Ambarcbik economic and military fields shuuld not (at the mouth of the Kolyma). A Soviet be overestimated. report that has become known recently Secondly, the Siberian rivers arc com­ speaks of a steady stream of hundreds of paratively shallow. The mighty Yenisei, three- and fi ve-ton trucks and passenger for example, can be entered only by busses on this latter road and sta,tes that freighters up to 3,500 gross regllitered the approximately 750 kilometers between tons. As normal river ships wa,:;te too Magadan and Seimichan are covered in much tinlC getting off sand Lanka, the fifteen hour". Soviets have nuw taken to using glissers, The early Russian conquerors of :::liberia flat-bottomed boats driven by air pro­ were quick to recognize the possibilities pellers. offered them by the huge river systems The third difficulty in Siueria's river in this country of dense forests and shipping is tu ue found in the fact that swamps. By making use of those trib­ almost all the great rivers of Siberia How utarieH of the three giant rivers OU, into the Arctic Ocea.u, which in turn is Ycllisei, and Lena which flow parallel tu also navigable only during a few short the equator, they were able to go by months in summer. Wit,hin thc"e limits boat from the Urals to the Pacific, a imposed by nature, the Soviets are process in wltich they only had to carry trying to derive the greatest possible their boa.ts fol' a. few kilometers when benefi ts frulU the Siberiall tiytiLelU uf crossing f.rom one river system to the rivers. next. This river network of Siberia, seemingly 80 ideal when looked at on a OCJ<:AN A...l'JD AIR map, nevertheless suffers from three great The handicap of freezing al80 imposes drawbacks. restrictions on maritime transportation. First of all,. Eastern Siberia is the Although the Bering Sea and the ..sea of coldest part of the world, so that the Okhotsk do not freeze quite as long as 2A THE XXtb CEN1URY the Arctic Ocean, they, too, have only the first Five Year Plan, and only a very limited periods of navigation. During modest economic life with minor in­ winter a. further handicap is added by dustries had developed in a narrow strip the polar night. (Nevertheless, the Soviets on both sides of the Trans-Siberian Rail­ seem to have succeeded in maintaining way. It is significant tha,t 10 per cent year-round shipping connections between of the total expenditure of the third Five Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk and be­ Year Plan of the USSR went to the tween Vladivostok and Magadan.) For industrialization of the Soviet Far East, that reason the short period of navigation i.e., of Khabarovsk and Primorsk Krais in midsummer with its midnight sun is alone, although not even Ii per cent of made usc of all the morc intensively; and the USSR's population live there. To the scientific geographical and meteoro­ Russians who knew only pre-Bolshevist logical exploration of the Arctic, which Siberia it sounds almost like a fairy tale has been vigorously carried on since the when they are told that automobiles, early thirties, has turned navigation of tractors, turbines, motors, submarines, the Arctic Ocean from the extraordinary locomotives, and machines of aJi kinds, adventure it still represented fifteen years are being manufactured today in Eastern ago into an almost commonplace activity. Siberia. German sources have estimated that The basis of this economic development at present some 260,000 tons of goods (details of which will be found in Ap­ call be shipped every year to Siberia pendix Ill) is the vast wealth of Eastern from the USA via the Arctic Ocean, Siberia in important minerals of aU where the presence of the first German kinds, especiaUy in iron and other metals. submarines was reported a few weeks The power needed for their smelting is ago. supplied chiefly by the rich coal deposits distributed throughout Eastern Siberia. Air lines, as far as they are known to In future, Eastern Siberia's water power us, are shown on our map. No figures is to be added to its coal as a producer on the quantity of freight and number of electricity. of passengers carried by them have been published. Eastern Siberia.'s vuJlleraLle spot is its comparative lack of oil. Although PARADOX EXPLAINED northern Sakhalin contains oil deposits, which have been exploited for decades, The paradox between the miserable and a large oil i.ndustry, they have standard of living of the population and the disadvantage of being located the vast industrial development brought on a distant, exposed iRJanrl. Hence the about by the three Five Year Plans Soviets are making every effort to dis­ (1928-1942), a paradox which struck cover oil on the mainland. The best everyone who lived in the Soviet Union, deposits found so far are on Khatanga is to he explained more than anything Bay and at Cape Nordvik (both on the else by the fact that the emphasis of Arctic coast) and suffer from poor com­ economic development is placed almost munications. Others have been found exclusively on heavy industry. Thus the along the tributaries of the Lena between growth of production did not benefit the Olekminsk and Yakutsk, at Palana (on individual Soviet citizen in the form of the west coast of Kamchatka), and at consumption goods or foodstuffs but only Boga.diryovka (on the west coast). Oil the heavy-industrial basis of the country is also produced from a kind of coal and subsequently its war industry. called bogkhed by the R.ussians and This also applies to Eastern Siberia, found in large quantities in the neigh­ only that there the paradox is even more borhood of Irkutsk. Yet there still striking. For, in contrast to the rest of remains a considerable deficit. Besides RU88ia, there had hardly been any in­ Sakhalin, refineries are located at Irkutsk, dustry at all in Eastern Siberia before Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok. EASTERN SIBERIA-UNDERPOPULATED TREASURE HOUSE 29

All of Eastern Siberia, with the excep­ dustries, such as coal and iron, and a. tion of its northern part, is covered with rapidly growing light industry which had forests. As a result of the marshy floor to rely for its raw materials (e.g., cotton) of most of the forests and because of the and for its machines almost exclusively lack of proper care, the timber cannot 011 imports from abroad. As late as be compared to that of countriCl,j with during the thirties, I found on visiting highly developed forestry such as Ger­ Soviet industrial plant&-including some many. But in quantity it represents one that had just been compIeted-that, of the main riches of Siberia and is among with few exception', they were equipped the most important export producUl. only with foreign machines, mo tly of Most of the timber consists of pine. larch, Cerman origin. spruce, Hilver fir, /lnd cedar. lrkuUlK All this has been changed. The Soviet, OblllSt is the leading timber area of the have built up a giant machine indu try USSR. 75 per cent of the Buryat­ which enable them today to conduct a Mongol ASSR and 80 per cent of the technical war with quantities of war Yakut ASSR are covered with forest. machines which even a few years ago There arc lumber mills to be found all would have becn inconceivable. After oyor ElUltern Siberia. the USA and Germany, t,he USSR now hold third pln.ce a regard the quantity XONl-'ERROUS METALS AND qOLD although not the quality of its machine Eal'ltcrn iberia is especially rich in indu try. As a. result of the Soviet nonferrous metals, which play an im­ Government's tendency to move the portant role in the mauufacture of arma­ center of gra.vity of Soviet economics ments. As 8uch metal as zinc and lead ea,'ltward, Eastern ,-'iberia ha.s come in arc usually found near silvcr and gold for a very large part of thc newly created deposit.':i, many of whieh ha\'e been machine industry. Today. Easteru ::ii­ known fur centuries. it was comparatively heria is already ill 11 position to sati~fy ea. y to discover them. Yet new deposits its most important economic and militllry arc constant Iy being sought for. As requirements with ma.chinery manufac­ recently a August :20. 1943, Tass reported tured tbere. from Moscow that in HH3 the Peuple's The same holds good for the Ru,.:sian Commissariat for Nonferrous Meta.ls had chemical indmJtrv. It. too. was in its sent out a. hundred geological expeditions infancy hefore the Revolution; also de­ to Asia.tic Russia, in particular to Kraano­ pendent on su pplies from abroad, GO per yarsk Krui, Ya.kutia, and the Kolyma cent waR located in ~t. Petersuurg and River. I() per ccnt in Mo cow, East of the Gold mining has developed into a hU'ge­ Urals there was no chemical induf'try scale industry during the last few decades. whate\"'"er. E\'on umler t,he Bolsheviks, While new deposits are constantly being the chemical industry was slow ill start­ opened lip, improved machincry and ing. But the third .Five Year Plan metbodR are Iwing introduced at tho old (HJ3~/42) waf' largely devoted to the nn£"H. Among the gold-producing areas developm{'nt of t11is industry. lIml here of the, 'u\'iet Union, tho Yakut A 'SR again a con. iderable part of the newly takcs firf't place, Chita Oblu·t second, built plant.s were erected in Ea ·tern ami Kra,'

MAN COMES LAST increase in the production of consumer During all the years in which they goods. All that has taken place' is a have been in power, the Bolsheviks have shifting, and the increased production is always reckoned first with coal, Iron, offset by a sharply increased demand tractors, and tanks and only secondarily and the absence of an influx of goods with human beings. But even the Soviet from other parts of the country. Hence Government could, of course, in the long the announcement of the Soviet President run, not afford to let its population of Khabarovsk Krai on February 2, 1943, perish for want of goods of daily use; and that the Soviet Far East had been able so it was forced to provide for a minimum in 1942 to cover all its requirements in ?f existence. In order to relieve its groan­ consumer goods should be accepted with mg system of communications, the Soviet great reserve. Government decided to decentralize light BREAD AND MACHINES induso'y and agriculture, so as to pro­ duce consumer goods at the place where T~e tr.ansforming of the peaMant pop­ they were needed. ulatIOn mto a rural proletariat and its Up to the end of the twenties, Eastern combining in large-scale agricultural enter­ Siberia was dependent on imports from prises, the kolklwzes and 8ovkhozes, have other parts of Russia as regards consumer facilitated the opening up of new agri­ goods. There was practically no Eastern cultural areas. Production was increased by thc raising of cold-resistant varieties Siberian light industry, and agricultw'e in Russia was concentrated in the fertile of grain and by the introduction of crops formerly unknown there, such as the , black earth' region~ of southern Euro­ pean Russia, in comparison to which the sugar beet. The Soviets sought to over­ come the shortage in man power by the rest of Russia offered far more difficult working conrlitions. This latter fact extensive use of machines. It is also easier to replace men mobilized for applied more than anywhere else to Eastern Siberia. Its terrain is largely military purposes by women in large enterprises than on small farms. mountainous, and its climate harsh. There are few places here which do not On the other hand, this development have at least 180 days in the year with placed agriculture in a dangerous de­ an average temperature below freezing pendence on machines and fuel. Since point. The ground is frozen, the rainfall the outbreak of war, with factories build­ scanty, and for the most part it is im­ ing tanks instead of tractors and with possible to grow winter grain. every drop of oil going to the army, this To make Eastern Siberia as independent has led to grave reversals and to the a,s possible in goods of daily use, the return to primitive methods of agricul­ development of light industries had to ture. Nc\·crthcleRs, the cultivated arca be forced. Moreover, the demand for and the total production had increased their products had grown as a result of considerably up to the outbreak of the the urbanization of its iuhabita,nts. Large war, as can be seen in detail in our numbers of people from rural districts, Appendix II. Since then, however, as in­ where they provide themselves with every­ dicated by the numerous complaints by thing including food, clothes, and shoes, the Eastern Siberian radio stations ad­ can only be transplanted into towns dressed to the rural population, a retro­ as industrial workers if they are supplied gressive development has set in as a with industrially produced consumer result of the war. goods. The artisan class, which had The figures in Appendix II show among formerly produced a large part of the other things that the area of gram' cul­ urban requirements, had also practically tivation has increased three times. If disappeared. Thus it would be wrong we assume the grain harvest to have to assume an improvement in the pop­ grown proportionately, it wonld have ulation's standard of living from the amounted to 1,280,000 tons of gram in EASTERN SmERIA-UNDERPOPULATED TREASURE HOUSE 31

1941. However, in view of the fact that great practioal importance, although they the output per hectare may have been help to provide the scanty population of increased through more intensified cul­ the polar regions with fresh food. tivation, we shall give the Soviets the As regards fishing, Eastern Siberia benefit of the doubt and nssume an out­ produces more than it needs itself. It put of Ii million tons of gra.in per year. has numerous canning factories. From How does this production of grain the rich fishing grounds of the E88tern