Table Of ContentTHE UNIVERSITY OP CHICAGO
SINO-RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
AND THE EFFECTS UPON CHINA, 1919-1929
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TC
THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
/
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
BY
PI CHON P'v-Y.' LOH
*1
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
JUNE, 1951
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. EARLY EFFORTS OF SOVIET RUSSIA TO SECURE
CHINESE RECOGNITION ............................ 1
Introduction
"New Diplomatic Magna Carta"
Controversy over the Declaration of 1919
Declaration of 1920
China Improved Relations with Russia
The Far Eastern Republic
The Yourin and Rsdkes Missions
II. THE PROBLEMS OF MANCHURIA ...................... 20
Early Developments of the Chinese Eastern Railway
The Allies In Manchuria
The Supplementary Contract of 1920
III. THE PROBLEMS OF OUTER MONGOLIA ................ 30
Earlier Developments In Mongolia
Period of Confusion, 1919-1921
Mongolian People's Government
Mongolian Problems Unsettled
IV. THE TREATY OF 192^ ............................
Joffe's Mission
Karalchan's Mission and the Slno-Russian
Agreement
A New Diplomatic Era
V» COOPERATION BETWEEN THE KUOMINIANG
AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY .................. &
The Beginning of Communism In China
Third International and Communism In China
The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party
Kuomlntang Turns Toward Russia
Reorganization of the Kuomlntang
Advisability of the Kuomlntang-Communist
Alliance
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TABLE OP CONTENTS - Continued
Page
Chapter
Disagreements Among the Russian Leaders
Russian Aids to the Kuomlntang
The Second National Congress
of the Kuomlntang
VI. COMMUNIST ASCENDENCY DURING
NORTHERN EXPEDITION . , ................ 96
Fluctuations in the North
Conflicts Within the Kuomlntang
Preparations for the Northern Expedition
Anti-Communist Coup of 1926
Establishment of the Wuhan Government
The Mass Movements
The Capture of Shanghai and Nanking
VII. THE END OF THE UNITED FRONT IN CHINA ............ 120
Nanking Government as Rival to Wuhan
The Final Breach between the Kuomlntang
and the Chinese Communist Party
The Nanehang Uprising and the Canton Commune
Comintern, Kuomlntang, and Chinese
Communist Party
Union of Nanking and Wuhan, and the Competition
of the Northern Expedition
VIII. THE BREACH IN SINO-RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC
RELATIONS . . . . . . ...................... 14S
Early Disagreements
Disturbances in Manchuria
Difficulties During the Transitional Period
The Harbin Raid
The Final Breach
The Last Attenpts
IX. CONCLUSIONS 16S
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..............
171
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CHAPTER I
EARLY EFFORTS OF SOVIET RUSSIA TO SECURE
CHINESE RECOGNITION
Introduction
To understand the peoples of China and Russia is not an
easy task, for each nation has a unique and outstanding national
character that Is very different from the other. However, hoth
nations are deeply concerned with the internal and external devel
opments of the other because their territorial contact extend
from the Sea of Japan to the Pamir Highland. It is, therefore,
quite natural that mutual friendship and cordial relationship are
earnestly desired by the two neighbors, just as it is sought
sincerely by the United States of America and Canada. But inter
national relations are not always conducted on as high a plane as
they should be done. This is evidenced by the diplomatic relations
; between Russia and China before the October Revolution of 1917 in
Russia, and especially before the Revolution of 1911 in China.
Whether this was caused by egotism or self-deceit is not my concern
here, but it is true that both nations were Indifferent in promoting
• better relationship with each other. Only when the revolutionary
j liberals took the leadership in both nations did a gradual shift of
| foreign policies take place. In this thesis I shall devote myself
k
| to the period between 1919 and 1929, which marks first a rapproohe-
..)5
| ment and then a rupture of the diplomatic relations between Soviet
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Russia and China, and whioh, therefore, is one of the most inter
esting and delicate period in Slno-Russlan diplomatic relations.
"New Diplomatic Magna Carta"
In 1919, Russia was hard pressed by the Western Powers who
looked upon the Soviets as outlaws of International order and
agitators against world peace. Diplomatic relations between Russia
and all nations were being broken, the last being the Danish Red
Cross which left Russia in the summer of 1919*^ Under these
circumstances, Russia was eager to obtain peace and diplomatic
recognition from foreign nations. Since China was suppressed by
the Powers and was steadily showing her indignation against im
perialists, Russia was quick to seize the moment to express her
desire of signing an equal treaty with China. The bases of the
Sovlet-Chinese negotiations leading up to the conclusion of the
Agreement on General Principles on May 31> 192^, were the Soviet
Declarations of 1919 and 1920. They came at a time when public
opinion in China was aroused to the highest pitch of righteous
indignation against the predatoriness of western secret diplomacy.
In tantalizing contrast to these violations of good faith and
international morality came the unprecedented overtures of the
Soviets. Dr. Dennis characterized the Declaration of 1919 as "a
new diplomatic Magna Carta’’.^
The Declaration of 1919,^ though promulgated by Karakhan
■*•&. V. Chlcherin, Two Years of Foreign Policy, Nov. J,
l?17"N°v. 7. 1919 (Nettf York: The Russian Soviet Government 'Bureau,
^9207, p. 69.
■3! ,T k. P. Dennis, The Foreign Policies of Soviet Russia
(New York: 2. P. Dutton & (Jo., 19247,'p. 316.
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^Por text, see China Year Book, 1924-25, pp. S6S-S70.
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on July 26, 1919, was not received In Peking until March 26, 1920
after cumbersome Indirect transmission. It announced the injustice
of imperialism and the desire of Soviet Russia for equality. It
went on to say:
The Government of Workers and Peasants has then declared
null, and void all the secret treaties concluded with Japan,
China, and the ex-allies, the treaties wiiich were to enable
the Russian Government of the Tsar and his allies to enslave
the people of the East and principally the people of China.
. . . The Soviet Government returns to the Chinese people,
without demanding any kind of compensation, the Chinese Eastern
Railway, as well as all the mining concessions, forestry, gold
mines and all other things which were seized from them by the
Government of the Tsars, that of Kerensky, and the . . .
merchants and capitalists. The Soviet Government gives up the
indemnities payable by China for the insurrection of the
Boxers in 1900. . . . No authority or law court, whatever,
should be allowed to exist in China except the authority and
law court of the Chinese people . . . the Soviet Government
represented by its plenipotentiaries, is ready to negotiate
with the Chinese people, all the other questions and to settle
once for all, all the cases of acts of violence and injustice
which were committed towards China by the former government
of Russia, acting together with Japan and the Allies.
This Declaration was aimed toward the proletariats.
Chicherin said on page thirty-five of his book, Two Years of
Foreign Policy, that "this year we write fewer notes to governments
but more appeals to working classes. This appeal to the Chinese
working classes and intelligentsia was Indeed enormous and lasting.
Controversy over the Declaration of 1919
Regardless of wnat diplomatic move China might make, the
l Chinese people were vitally concerned with the future of the
I Chinese Eastern Railway. We have discussed the Declaration of
i 1919 which was issued by the Sovnarkom and signed by Leo Karakhan,
j
| the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign affairs. No official
1 text of the original declaration has been discovered, and the
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different versions which appeared afterward created a considerable
controversy. The first printed version, presumably authorized,
appeared In Izvestlia Just one month after the document’s date.1
According to this version, Russia did not offer to return the Chinese
Eastern Railway without compensation. However, neither was any
official text delivered to China nor was this first version known
to Peking. Probably because of the extremely disrupted state of
communication as a result of Intervention and civil war, China did
not learn about the Declaration of 1919 until March, 1920, when a
French text was received by wire in Peking from M. Zanson, repre
sentative for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples of Siberia and the
Far East at Irkutsk. The Declaration was immediately published,
and created a sensation by the offer to return the Chinese Eastern
Bailway to China witnout any compensation. It has since been
maintained by the Chinese Government and people that the Irkutsk
version was an authorized, official copy, although a "correct"
copy of the 1919 Declaration was forwarded to Peking by General
Chang Shih-lin together with the further Declaration of 1920. The
Chinese belief in the Irkutsk text was further strengthened by an
Interview given by Paikes on his arrival in Peking in 1921. He
declared that the more important part of his mission was the return
of the Chinese Eastern Railway to China witnout financial obliga-
(
tion or any other condition beyond a promise that she would not
dispose of it to any other power.^ Paikes was bound to fall because
j ^Allen S. Nhiting, "The Soviet Offer to China of 19191"
i Par Eastern Quarterly, August. 1951: also Izvestlia, August 26,
1 IysSTWESS V jm J7 p. i. ' :
;i 2
J North China Herald, December 31, 1921, p. 2>&7-
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he was simply sent as an advanced agent to pave the road for others
and was not prepared to meet all the difficulties which arose, hut
it was important to note that Joffe1 mission also came to naught,
Joffe's personal popularity was greatly hurt by his own speeches
in public and his notes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as
Whiting observed. In a speech he prepared for the fifth anniversary
of the Russian Revolution, Joffe addressed a group of Chinese in
tellectuals saying that all what Russia hoped for was that her
interest in the question of the Chinese Eastern Railway would be
understood and satisfied by China, and that necessary guarantees
would be given.1 Again, Joffe emphasized in a Note, in reply to
the Chinese Foreign Minister of November 11, 1922 that the passage
"It is the intention of the Workers'and Peasants' Government to
restore to China, without any compensation, all rights and inter-
ests referring to the Chinese Eastern Railway", was in neither the
Declaration of 1919 or 1920. He specifically denied that any
concrete proposition was made in the 1919 Declaration.2 He offered
no explanation concerning Peking's receipt of the Irkutsk text.
since Joffe made no headway, the stalemate was to be broken only
by Karakhan himself. Further complications were stirred when the
Soviet mission published an "authorized" version of the 1919
- Declaration in Peking. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately
contended that the 1919 Declaration was issued from Moscow by
Karakhan and received in Peking on March 26, 1920 by cable from
3 1Whiting quotes from A. J0ffe, "Russia's Policy in China,"
| Age, January, 12, 1923, PP. 73-76.
1 2Chlna Year Book. 192*1-25, p. 661.
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Irkutsk, and that the Chinese text of the Declaration published in
Chinese newspapers in 1920 was Identical with those published by
the Russian press in Harbin and elsewhere in the Russian Far East.
Karakhan retorted in his memorandum to Dr. Wang, dated November 3°>
1923, that “never and nowhere could I have said that all the rights
on the Chinese Eastern Railway belong to China." Moreover, the
1920 Declaration proposed "a special treaty on the way of working
of the Chinese Eastern Railway with due regard to the needs of the
R.S.F.S.R.11 These arguments could not convince the Chinese that
the Irkutsk version was distorted. Though Karakhan was diplomatic
enough to conclude a treaty with China in 192*1-, the mystery over
the disputed declaration remained unsolved.
B. P. Sawin rationalized that “this famous appeal of the
Workers’ and Peasants* Government" did not reach the Chinese
Governments. In spite of the steps taken to assure the receipt
of the text of the note by the Chinese Governments, it was either
intercepted and distorted by someone among the imperialist rep
resentatives or by the former Tsarist minister in Peking. The
text of the note which was received by the Peking Government and
acknowledged as a copy of it, as later ascertained, was entirely
different from the original. Whiting comments sarcastically that
"the ten year lapse of time permitted the note to be entirely dif
ferent and the distortion to be a deliberate plot of the imperialist
After reviewing VI. Vilenskil’s pamphlet,3 Kltall Saverskala
1 - . . - . . . - _ —_ - — — - ------ - - . ....
j ^-Chlna Year Book, 192*1-25, PP. 37 5-^76.
3 ^Whiting quotes from B. P. Sawin., Vzalmootnoshenlla
Roball 1 SSSR s Kitaem (Moscow, 1930)* P. 97*
| 3viienskli was a diplomatic official of the Far Eastern
| Republic.
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Hoslla, which bore all the official symbols and was published
shortly after the Karakhan statement was released in Izvestlia on
August 26, 1919, Whiting is convinced that Yanson and Vilenskil
used the same text as that communicated to China because "the
disputed passage appears word-for-word in the Identical position in
both the manifesto as printed in Vilenskil*s pamphlet, and as
received by wire in Peking on March 26, 1920." Therefore Whiting
concludes that Soviet Russia did offer to return the Chinese
Eastern Railway to China without compensation. "The responsibility
of any alleged ‘insertion* or 'distortion* . . . rests solely with
Soviet officials who, between July 25 and August 26, 1919, reversed
their position concerning the renunciation of the Chinese Eastern
Railway and then exerted every effort to conceal the fact of that
reversal."
Declaration of 1920
With a desire to hasten Chinese recognition of the Soviet
Government, Russia issued another Declaration on September 27,
1920.^ It made several specific and categorical proposals.
Article I proposed the renunciation of all the treaties concluded
between China and the former government of Russia. Article II
suggested the conclusion of new treaties for the establishment of
regular trade and economic relations. Accoriing to Article III,
the Chinese Government was to pledge not to aid the Russian counter
revolutionaries nor to allow their continued presence In Chinese
^ territory. Article IV declared the abrogation of the right of
?, extraterritoriality. By Article V, the Chinese Government was to
! -** — - ■ -- . _ . .
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| For text, see China Year Book, 192*1-25, p. 370.
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