Free City Incident

Massacre of Svobodny
Part of Russian Civil War
Location Svobodny, Amur Oblast, Russia Result Far-Eastern Republic Victory Disbandment of the Communist Korean Guerilla Fighters
Belligerents
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Far-Eastern Republic	Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea All-Korean National Council Korean Military Revolutionary Council Jewish Civilians	White Guards
Commanders and leaders
Nestor Kalandarishvili	Oh Hamuk	Yevgeny Miller
Casualties and losses
600 and 1,000 civilians and combatants, 30,000 Koreans and 3,000-6,000 Jews killed.

The Massacre of Svobodny, also known as the Svobodny Uprising, and the Svobodny Pogrom, was a series of events that occurred in the town of Svobodny, Russia (now in the Amur Oblast region of Russia) in 1921. The uprising was a protest against the policies of the Soviet government and was led by a group of anti-communist rebels known as the White Guards. The Korean guerrillas also rose against the Far Eastern Republic and refused to accept the Red Army's command, but they were ultimately defeated. Both sides committed atrocities against the civilian population. Even the Jewish settlement was burned and massacred by the White Guards.

Background

In 1920, mass anti-Japanese uprisings took place, distinguished by exceptional cruelty on both sides. By the end of the autumn, the Japanese had pulled two divisions into the rebellious region, whose punitive campaign turned into genocide. In the face of the inevitable defeat, the Korean partisans began to retreat along the Russian border to the north and cross it in the Iman area, beyond which the territories of the Bolsheviks formed. Others have reached Amur altogether. The All-Korean National Council was establishing relations with the communists in Blagoveshchensk, and a battalion of Communist Koreans led by Commander Oh Hamuk was already standing in Svobodny.

Massacre

Uprising

The uprising began on January 13, 1921, when a group of White Guard rebels attacked the local Soviet government and military forces. The rebels took control of the town and declared the independence of the "Svobodny Republic." The Soviet government responded by sending in troops to suppress the rebellion, and on January 22, the town was retaken by the Soviets. During the fighting, both sides committed atrocities against the civilian population. It is estimated that between 600 and 1,000 people were killed, including civilians and combatants. The massacre became a rallying cry for anti-communist forces and was used as propaganda by the White Guard rebels.

Korean Massacre

On March 15, 1921, an All-Korean Partisan Congress was held in the village of Krasnoyarovo on the Zee, following which Korean detachments from all over the Far East began to gather here. The place of their deployment was Svobodny, Krasnoyarovo, and Mazanovo; the number reached 6,000 fighters, and for reasons of conspiracy, they called all this the Sakhalin partisan detachment. In parallel, the Korean Military Revolutionary Council was established, which the communists decided to form in Irkutsk. The Koreans were led by the Georgian red anarchist Nestor Kalandarishvili, who had a tremendous experience of guerrilla warfare in Siberia. That's where the problem began: most Koreans hoped to organize a liberation campaign against Seoul with the support of Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia, on the other hand, conducted the most complicated diplomatic bargaining with Japan for the occupied territories. An attack by Korean partisans would have given Japan a first-class casus belli. Therefore, the Koreans gathered in Svobodny to partially disarm them and integrate them into the Red Army.

The Koreans split into the "Shanghai" (Sakhalin) and "Irkutsk" parties; the situation was steadily heating up, and now the commanders of the Sakhalin detachment sent a letter to Kalandarishvili. The commanders threatened to withdraw from subordination and commit suicide. The next step was an attempt at an unauthorized march to the east, but it was also demonstrative; after reaching the Khingan Mountains, the Sakhalin detachment returned to Surazhevka. On June 28, 1921, the incident itself happened - an attempt to disarm the partisans on the orders of Kalandarishvili turned into street battles, in which hundreds of people were killed, and the wooden city burned down. The Korean guerrillas were defeated, and in the aftermath of the conflict, the "Shanghainese" lost more than 600 people killed, 917 were captured, and some of the prisoners were executed after the battle. In total, 30,000 Koreans were killed.

Jewish Pogrom

In the summer of 1921. It was initiated by the White Russian forces of General Yevgeny Miller and was directed against the town's Jewish population. During the pogrom, an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 Jews were massacred, and around 500 Jewish homes and businesses were looted and destroyed.

Legacy

There are multiple reasons why the massacre is relatively unknown. First, the event itself was overshadowed by the larger, more well-known Russian Civil War, a conflict between different factions vying for control of the newly formed Soviet Union. Also, the massacre occurred in an isolated region of the country, far from the major cities and centers of power. Furthermore, the story of the killings was suppressed for many years by the Soviet government, which did not want to acknowledge or discuss the event. Finally, the massacre was largely forgotten by the West, as it was overshadowed by other events of the time, such as World War I and the Russian Revolution.

See also

• Korean Independence Movement
• Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea
• Communism in Korea
• Russian Civil War
• Pogroms

Sources

• Kim, Y. (2019). Andante Cantabile. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.14418/wes01.1.2099
• Babichev I., "The Participation of Chinese and Korean Workers in the Civil War in the Far East," and Pak Boris Dmitrievich have many books on Korean relations with Soviet Russia.
• Pak B.D. “Koreans in Soviet Russia (1917 — late 30s)”. Irkutsk, 1995.
• Pak B.D. "The first envoy of the Comintern in the Far East"
• Pak B.D. "USSR, the Comintern and the Korean Liberation Movement, 1918-1925".