The Chinese-Lenin School of Vladivostok ( rus, links=no, Китайская Ленинская Школа во Владивостоке, r=Kitaiskaya Leninskaya Shkola vo Vladivostoke) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
educational institution and
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
training center established for the official purpose of educating Chinese students into comrades of socialism. It was one of the major espionage training centers of the Soviet Union, opened in late 1924 and running until early 1938. Its students included
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
veterans, generally
Soviet Koreans and
Soviet Chinese born in the USSR, and communist students generally recruited in China.
History
Background
On October 29, 1923, the
Primorskii provincial Communist Party voted to begin to invest in large scale infrastructure construction (schools, universities, radio stations, publishing houses and roads) in the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admini ...
to support their political, educational and occupational campaigns for the Chinese and Koreans of the RFE. This was called
korenizatsiia (indigenization) a sort of “
Sovietization
Sovietization (russian: Советизация) is the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets (workers' councils) or the adoption of a way of life, mentality, and culture modelled after the Soviet Union. This often included ...
” program which would assimilate national minorities and in general all Soviet citizens through socialist ideological campaigns at work, school and through radio and newspapers. This socio-political policy and movement took place from 1923 to 1934. The Bolsheviks wanted to organize the “construction” of the Chinese and Koreans of the RFE as Soviet socialist peoples while increasing their educational networks (school systems), the number of “socialist” books, pamphlets and other materials and increase the recruitment efforts towards East Asians into Soviet institutions (as cadres) and as labor union members. The USSR would guard their borders with both military might and ideology (Soviet socialism).
There were immediate benefits for the Koreans and Chinese because most Asians were laborers. The “red corners” throughout the USSR would teach the foreign laborers the rudiments of speaking, writing and reading Russian while providing breaks (while on the job) and reading materials. Some large factories even had
rabfaks which were small schools/classrooms in the factory or workplace where workers could study from one to three hours a day.
On June 4, 1925, the Chinese section of the Primorskii Provincial Soviet Party School was formed. On March 1, 1933, this entity formally became the Chinese Lenin School in Vladivostok (CLS). Initially, there were 207 students. The students were separated into those studying at the preparatory stage, middle stage (secondary education) and higher education (university level). In the first year of the CLS, there were only 43 students studying at the university level.
Development of the Chinese-Lenin School
The Chinese-Lenin School was established with three main directives/goals: one, the teaching and educating future Chinese and Korean comrades/socialists, two, the creation of a publishing house for the translation of socialist literature in the Chinese language and three, the establishment of a recruitment and training center for East Asian (Koreans and Chinese) agents of Soviet intelligence. The
OGPU
The Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU; russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union f ...
/
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
also included a subdivision, the
INO (the Foreign Division of the Soviet political police) and the acronym
GRU
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...
(Soviet military intelligence) also included two further subdivisions, the RO,
OKDVA among others. OKDVA signified "the Intelligence Division" and "the Counter-intelligence Division" of “the Special
edBanner Far Eastern Army.”
Some students at the CLS who were referred to as "cadets", had been recruited from the Soviet intelligence organs. The cadets who were recruited from the GRU and OGPU/NKVD also monitored the students and the everyday life of the university (reactions to various courses, discussions, political thought among various groups at the university, who had influence and why). The CLS served to train qualified intelligence officers to work behind the "cordon" (behind Soviet borders) on the territory of the Japanese
puppet state of Manchukuo. The staff of the school was selected not only from Chinese and Russians who had Soviet citizenship as well as Chinese citizens and those who arrived illegally from Manchukuo. Most students were Chinese from China as well as some who were from the USSR. Regarding the composition of Koreans, most of the Koreans at the CLS were ex-military and former
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
officers.
Espionage training of the cadets
Those who were selected to become intelligence agents, that is, the cadets, were given false names to study under. In addition to a general training regime, Comrade Usenko taught the student cadets how to shoot a gun on the run and shooting on a target range. The cadets practiced their "
tradecraft
Tradecraft, within the intelligence community, refers to the techniques, methods and technologies used in modern espionage (spying) and generally, as part of the activity of intelligence assessment. This includes general topics or techniques ( ...
" two to three times a month visiting safe houses in which they had to pass certain tests working with various types of equipment. There are some parallels with the
Nakano school The was the primary training center for military intelligence operations by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
History
The Imperial Japanese Army had always placed a high priority on the use of unconventional military tactics. From be ...
and the evolution of intelligence tradecraft in the 1930s. Both schools wanted well-rounded, well-educated recruits. The students learned all the basics of Soviet spycraft, including
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
,
counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
,
guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or Irregular military, irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, Raid (military), raids ...
,
radio communication
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
, and techniques in
rezidentura A resident spy in the world of espionage is an agent operating within a foreign country for extended periods of time. A base of operations within a foreign country with which a resident spy may liaise is known as a "station" in English and a (, 're ...
. They were also directed to keep in excellent physical condition. Comrades Mastis and Zybalov gave the cadets lessons in weightlifting and boxing. They were supervised by the Primorsky regional administration of the NKVD
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
.
Persecution in the Great Terror
Ancha and Miz's research based on the Soviet archives found that at least 180 out of 400 students of the Chinese-Lenin School were purged as "
suspect nationalities". The number of Chinese students trained in espionage at the CLS, the
KUTV
KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14) and St. George–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate K ...
(Communist University of the Toilers of the East) and the
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, officially the Sun Yat-sen Communist University of the Toilers of China, was a Comintern school, which operated from 1925–1930 in the city of Moscow, Russia, then the Soviet Union. It was a training camp for ...
declined during the
Great Terror
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
as most faced immense persecution. Many who survived the terror returned to China to be arrested and interrogated as Stalin concurrently launched the
Chinese deportation of 1937-38 (which contained three waves of deportations). Students and graduates of the CLS were also persecuted during the
Soviet deportation of Koreans in 1937.
Spy cadets of the CLS (Chinese-Lenin School)
Ancha and Miz's ''Chinese Diaspora'' also gives profiles of cadets who enrolled at the Chinese-Lenin School (CLS) in the mid-1930s. Some of them were not students, but were affiliated with the school for training or as military reserve. The agents are emblematic of what Soviet intelligence wanted in their officers, first-hand knowledge of
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...
.
Vei Lianshan (born Ui Lianshan) worked in intelligence for the OKDVA (Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army). He was involved in leading an underground anti-Japanese movement in Manchuria. His group and work was uncovered in 1934. In that year, Vei Lianshan crossed the border covertly from Sakhalian (now
Heihe
Heihe (; ; Russian: Хэйхэ) is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, China, located on the Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur (Heilong) River, across the river from Blagoveshchensk. At the 2020 census, 1,2 ...
, China) to
Blagoveshchensk
Blagoveshchensk ( rus, Благове́щенск, p=bləgɐˈvʲeɕːɪnsk, meaning ''City of the Annunciation'') is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, opp ...
and was reassigned to study at the CLS in 1936.
Another cadet was Van Vychin. It appears that he was a GRU agent who was sent to Manchuria fighting in an anti-Japanese partisan unit. He would repeatedly pass information to Soviet intelligence about the Japanese army. In 1936, he enrolled in the Chinese-Lenin School but was arrested and repressed in 1938 during the Great Terror.
Wang Juntou (codename Fan Shohua) was born in 1912 and served as an intelligence agent in the RO, OKDVA. As part of his work, he repeatedly crossed the Soviet-Manchurian border. In late 1936, he returned illegally from Sakhalian
eihe China to the USSR. Beginning in early 1937, he was enrolled at the Chinese-Lenin School.
The spy cadets trained at the CLS would take part in multiple covert operations of the USSR across Asia, including
Operation «Maki Mirage» a combined
deception
Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight o ...
and "
special tasks
''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster'' is the autobiography of Pavel Sudoplatov, who was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general.
When it was publish ...
" (sabotage) operation against Japan in China (chiefly Manchuria) and Korea.
Soviet and post-Soviet Russian historiography championed the "Russian" (European and Russian) officers, and largely downplayed the key role of the East Asian agents (who understood cultural and linguistic nuances that aided their mission). Other USSR operations against Japan along the lines of Maki Mirage included "Dreamers", "Shogun", and "Organizator".
The operations heavily involved Chinese-Lenin School graduates from Vladivostok, but also included graduates of other Soviet espionage training schools (including the Moscow
KUTV
KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14) and St. George–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate K ...
and
KUTK who recruited from the East Asian diaspora in the Soviet Union), and several hundred recruits who had entered Soviet secret police by other means (i.e. without being part of an official "espionage university"), many also from the Vladivostok area.
Later reports
Two declassified CIA reports from March 1946, declassified in 1998 and 2000, mention the existence of Soviet espionage training schools in Vladivostok and the nearby cities of
Ussuriysk
Ussuriysk (russian: Уссури́йск) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, located in the fertile valley of the Razdolnaya River, north of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the krai, and about ...
,
Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk ( rus, Хабaровск, a=Хабаровск.ogg, r=Habárovsk, p=xɐˈbarəfsk) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia,Law #109 located from the China ...
, and
Komsomolsk-on-Amur
Komsomolsk-on-Amur ( rus, Комсомольск-на-Амуре, r=Komsomolsk-na-Amure, p=kəmsɐˈmolʲsk nɐɐˈmurʲə) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located on the west bank of the Amur Rive ...
, with the espionage schools having students "of Russian, Chinese, Mongolian, and Korean nationalities." The network was said to have began operation in 1929, when the
Chinese Eastern Railway
The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER (, russian: Китайско-Восточная железная дорога, or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (als ...
passed to the Soviets in the
Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929.
An attached report in August 1947 said there were two schools in Vladivostok and
Kraskino
Kraskino (russian: Кра́скино) is an urban locality (an urban-type settlement) in Khasansky District of Primorsky Krai, Russia, located on the shore of the Posyet Bay, southwest of Vladivostok, near the border with North Korea. Populatio ...
and said "it is reported that the intelligence agents sent out by Red Army HQ must be a graduate of the Vladivostok school."
See also
*
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, officially the Sun Yat-sen Communist University of the Toilers of China, was a Comintern school, which operated from 1925–1930 in the city of Moscow, Russia, then the Soviet Union. It was a training camp for ...
(KUTK)
*
Communist University of the Toilers of the East
The Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) (russian: link=no, Коммунистический университет трудящихся Востока; also known as the Far East University) was a revolutionary training scho ...
(KUTV)
*
(KUNMZ)
*
International Lenin School
The International Lenin School (ILS) was an official training school operated in Moscow, Soviet Union, by the Communist International from May 1926 to 1938. It was resumed after the Second World War and run by the Communist Party of the Soviet Unio ...
*
Millionka
Notes
Bibliography
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{{Refend
China–Soviet Union relations
Schools in the Soviet Union
Vladivostok