FROM MIGRANT WORKERS TO THE “EASTERN BATTALION” OF THE RED ARMY: DYNAMICS OF THE IMAGE OF THE CHINESE IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY RUSSIA

Abstract

The article analyzes the transformation of the image of Chinese labor migrants into the participants of the military conflict on the side of the Bolsheviks. The analysis of how the image of the Chinese workers was reformatted into the Red Army soldiers made it possible to reveal the cultural and historical specificity of the image of the Chinese, to show its main components and meaningful specifics before the revolution and during the Civil War. The source base was made up of materials from periodicals; archival documents of the Russian State Military Archive; and propaganda posters of the “white” movement. The texts published in the pre-revolutionary periodicals reflect the mass perception of Chinese migrants. The materials of the Bolshevik newspapers contain elements of the official discourse on Chinese migrants in the parts of the Red Army. Documents from the Office of the Moscow Military District, as well as the Army Directorate of the Southern Front, complement the picture created by newspaper reports. “White” movement posters were a powerful means of visualizing the enemy (in this case, the Chinese) on the side of the Bolsheviks. Historical imagology served as the methodological basis; to analyze press texts, content and discourse analysis was used. Diligence, impersonality, unpretentiousness, and the rapid development of new areas of activities formed the basis of the image of a Chinese migrant in the early 20th century Russia. The interpretation of this cultural construct depended on the use of one or another social optics. Before the revolution, partial or full recognition / denial of the ideology of the “yellow peril” made the Chinese either an effective tool for expansion or a workforce, the use of which should be streamlined and regulated as much as possible. Under the conditions of revolutionary upheavals, the characteristics of the Chinese in mass culture for some turned into a marker of threat and danger, and for others - into a criterion for choosing an ally.