The Ita Affair: Why Did the Soviet Union Commit Sedition?
In the early morning of April 22, 1962, at the Khorgos port in Xinjiang, a group of people claiming to be "expatriates" of the Soviet Union dragged their families and asked to leave the customs for the Soviet Union. But the words and deeds of these people are not the real Su Qiao at first glance, and they propose to leave the customs in the middle of the night, which is obviously contrary to common sense.
Therefore, our border guards tried to stop them. However, this caused an altercation between the two sides, after which thousands of border residents armed with Soviet "expatriate cards" rushed to the port and clashed with border guards.
This incident quickly escalated and eventually evolved into a vicious incident involving the defection of two founding major generals and tens of thousands of border residents, known as the "Ita Incident".
The Ita incident at the port of Khorgos: Why did the Soviet Union encourage Xinjiang border people to defect? The Ita incident that occurred in the Soviet Union had a far-reaching impact on Sino-Soviet relations.
After the outbreak of this incident, the relations between China and the Soviet Union, which had originally existed in the internal "dispute over the line," rapidly deteriorated into a "contradiction between the enemy and us." Why, then, did the Soviet Union encourage the Xinjiang border people to defect?
Where did the thousands of Soviet expatriate cards in the hands of these border residents come from? The ostensible reason was that the Soviet Union was vast but underpopulated, especially in Siberia, east of the Ural Mountains.
In addition, during World War II, the Soviet Union's young and middle-aged laborers suffered heavy casualties, resulting in the entire World War II period, the Soviet Union has been attracting people from Central and East Asian countries to replenish its own labor force.
Although the Soviet Union coveted China, the world's largest population, was not good at dealing with fraternal socialist countries, so no major contradictions broke out between the two sides.
In 1958, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev entered into a so-called "cooperation" with China, but the real purpose was to turn China into a vassal of the Soviet Union. He completely repudiated Stalin's contribution on the historical issue of liquidating Stalin, which led to an unstable foundation within the socialist camp, and a conflict with the revolutionary leaders of our country *** and others on the concept of socialism, which in turn led to a "battle of lines".
As a result, Sino-Soviet relations began to break down, and the Soviet Union began to make frequent small moves on the border to lure Chinese border residents to defect to the Soviet Union. However, it is obviously inexplicable that such a large country as the Soviet Union turned its back on China, a socialist brother, just to attract tens of thousands of border residents of our country to Siberia to grow potatoes.
Why, then, did the USSR encourage the defection of our border people? In fact, this is still because of the "battle of routes". From the late 50s to the mid-60s, the "line struggle" between China and the Soviet Union was really about who could better represent the direction of socialist development.
In that year, some border residents defected from the Soviet Union and left the Soviet Union with their families. However, some theories take time to test to see if they are right or wrong. Neither we nor the USSR can prove each other wrong, because we are younger brothers, and the USSR is big brothers.
We need time to verify the ideas of the USSR, but the USSR does not need it. They need our help to fight the pressure of the capitalist camp and to prove themselves right in other socialist countries.
Therefore, they took advantage of the fact that we were late in liberation, our foundation was weak, and natural disasters to induce our border people to defect to the Soviet Union. This was the "Ita Affair" of 1962.
The Soviet Union took advantage of the historical problems left over from the Tsarist period and our trust in them to induce our border people to defect. Through various means, they directly issued "overseas Chinese" certificates to border residents, and by taking advantage of our trust in them, they successfully induced our border residents to defect to the Soviet Union.
When Khrushchev visited China, the Cold War was in a white-hot stage, and the anti-China forces represented by the United States and Chiang Kai-shek sent spies to China again and again, but these spies were often spotted by the PLA's keen reconnaissance ability before they could enter China.
However, this is not a unique ability of the PLA, and more importantly, the new China of the era, although the economic foundation is weak, but the cohesion of the country and the ability of grassroots organizations are at the highest peak in history.
If it weren't for our trust in the Soviet Union, the Soviet consulate in Xinjiang, even if it only issued some expatriate cards, or had a casual meal behind closed doors, the local grassroots organizations would have known it the next day.
Because the USSR was our "big brother", and before that, they did help China a lot, so the local border regiments and grassroots ** in Xinjiang did not interfere too much in the actions of the Soviet consulate.
Even if they knew that the Soviet consulate was issuing expatriate cards in large quantities, they did not expect that the Soviet Union would do such a thing as encouraging our border people to defect. Because we believe that even if there is a conflict between brothers, as long as they do not slam the door when they go out and enter the door, it is already considered a deterioration of the relationship, and there is no need to guard against their brothers like thieves.
What we did not expect, however, was that the USSR took advantage of our trust and willingly became a "thief". They not only hyped up the defection of our border residents through radio and radio broadcasts on the border, but also directly issued expatriate certificates and became the backers of these defected border people.
Taking the defection incident on April 22, 1962 as an example, when Chinese border guards clashed with border residents who wanted to defect, the Soviet Union went so far as to directly dispatch large trucks to the border to support these defectors in the name of picking up Soviet "expatriates."
Therefore, the Soviet Union was able to encourage so many people to defect, first of all, because they took advantage of our trust in them.
The Causes and Effects of the Soviet Union's Instigation of Xinjiang Border Residents to Defect From the Perspective of Historical Problems In the Xinjiang region on the Sino-Soviet border, due to its special historical and cultural background, the local ethnic composition is complex, and it has close ties with the five Central Asian stans.
The Qing Dynasty was corrupt and incompetent, and the Tsar ** had occupied these places and left his influence. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, although the border line was established, due to the pressure of the Soviet Union, the influence of the Soviet Union in the local area was not eliminated.
These remaining problems provided the objective conditions for the Soviet Union to incite China's Xinjiang border people to defect around 1962. Of the two major generals who defected, one was of ethnic Russian origin in our country.
The reason why the Soviet Union was able to incite China's border people to defect was that on the one hand, it took advantage of our trust in the Soviet Union, and on the other hand, it was also caused by the special historical and cultural background of the local area.
In 1962, although there was no direct conflict between China and the Soviet Union, the "Ita Incident" in which the Soviet Union instigated the defection of China's border people had a more far-reaching impact on Sino-Soviet relations and even the world pattern.
Although China has taken a restrained attitude in dealing with the incident, this incident has had a profound impact on China's stability and stability.
New Copywriting: The establishment of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps has completely changed the nature of Sino-Soviet relations. After sending off the defectors and officers, the words of ** "This is not socialism!" ”
It is not only an evaluation of the transformation of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Khrushchev from a genuine socialist country into "Soviet imperialism," but also a sign that Sino-Soviet relations have been upgraded from a "fraternal contradiction" to a "contradiction between ourselves and the enemy."
Since then, our country has been forced to guard against the long border with the Soviet Union, which it treats as an enemy. For the Soviet Union, this was not only a question of losing a socialist brother, but also marked the internal division of the socialist camp that had gradually radiated to the entire Eurasian continent since the founding of New China in 1949.
This deprived the USSR of the opportunity to compete globally with the United States de facto. For the United States, the Soviet Union, having lost China as an arm, actually turned into a "lame" adversary, and the threat was greatly reduced.
As far as our country is concerned, the hostility with the Soviet Union has forced us to re-orient ourselves in the international arena and start anew.
The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France after the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's return to the United Nations marked China's gradual liberation from the influence of the Soviet Union on the global stage and the beginning of its influence as an independent power.
Since then, the international pattern of China, the United States, and Russia has been basically established. Looking back at Sino-Soviet relations in the years, it is easy to have the illusion that Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated rapidly from 1958 to 1969, but in fact, every step has a key point.
After Khrushchev's visit to China in 1958, Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated, and the "line dispute" that had been in private began to become public, which was the starting point of Sino-Soviet relations. In 1960, the Soviet Union withdrew all its experts from aiding China, stopped aiding China, and demanded that China repay the loans, which marked the end of the "socialist brotherhood" and the relationship between the two sides was close to becoming strange.
By 1962, when the "Ita Incident" broke out, the Soviet Union intervened in our ** team and forced us to regard it as an enemy, and the Sino-Soviet contradiction escalated into a "contradiction between the enemy and us". The deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations did not happen overnight, but was forced to fight back in the course of the Soviet Union's constant crossing of the line and domineering.
Although it has been 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the help given to us by the former "big brother" is worth remembering, but the harm it has done to us also needs to be vigilant at all times.