1.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
2.
Tumen River
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The river has a drainage basin of 33,800 km2. The river flows in northeast Asia, on the border between China and North Korea in its upper reaches, and between North Korea and Russia in its last 17 kilometers before entering the East sea. The river forms much of the border of Jilin Province in Northeast China. Baekdu Mountain on the Chinese-North Korean border is the source of the river, the name of the river comes from the Mongolian word tümen, meaning ten thousand or a myriad. This river is polluted by the nearby factories of North Korea and China, however. In Tumen, Jilin, China, a riverfront promenade has restaurants where patrons can gaze across the river into North Korea, the Russian name of the river is Tumannaya, literally meaning foggy. In 1938 the Japanese built the Tumen River Bridge, where the Quan River meets the Tumen River, important cities and towns on the river are Hoeryong and Onsong in North Korea, Tumen and Nanping in China. In 1995, the Peoples Republic of China, Mongolia, Russia, noktundo, a former island at the mouth of the Tumen, has been a boundary contention between Russia and North Korea. The Qing Dynasty ceded the island to Russia as part of the Primorsky Maritimes in the 1860 Treaty of Peking. In 1990, the former Soviet Union and North Korea signed a treaty which made the border run through the center of the river. South Korea refuses to acknowledge the treaty and demanded that Russia returns the territory to Korea, the Tumen has been used for years by North Korean refugees defecting across the Chinese border. Most refugees from North Korea during the 1990s famine crossed over the Tumen River, in some areas it can be crossed on foot, or by short swims. It also freezes in winter allowing dry crossings, defectors who wish to cross the Tumen often ignore its pollutants and dangerous border patrol, and spend weeks if not months or years waiting for the perfect opportunity to cross. Long, desolate stretches of the Chinese-North Korean border are not patrolled at all, refugees rarely cross the Tumen into Russia. This is because Russias short stretch of the river is far better patrolled than Chinas stretch, in addition, there is no sizable ethnic Korean community in Russia to receive support from, as opposed to China, which has a larger Korean population. The Tumen is also crossed illegally by soldiers and others seeking food, some Chinese villagers have left the border area because of the attacks. The humanitarian crisis along the Tumen River was dramatized in the 2010 dramatic feature-length film, Dooman River
3.
Empire of Japan
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The Empire of Japan was the historical Japanese nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan. Imperial Japans rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei led to its emergence as a world power, after several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, the Empire also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples it conquered. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, Occupation and reconstruction continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose full title is the State of Japan or simply rendered Japan in English. The historical state is referred to as the Empire of Japan or the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan in English. In Japanese it is referred to as Dai Nippon Teikoku, which translates to Greater Japanese Empire and this is analogous to Großdeutsches Reich, a term that translates to Greater German Empire in English and Dai Doitsu Teikoku in Japanese. This meaning is significant in terms of geography, encompassing Japan, due to its name in kanji characters and its flag, it was also given the exonym Empire of the Sun. After two centuries, the policy, or Sakoku, under the shoguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was forced open to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. The following years saw increased trade and interaction, commercial treaties between the Tokugawa shogunate and Western countries were signed. In large part due to the terms of these Unequal Treaties, the Shogunate soon faced internal hostility, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement. In March 1863, the Emperor issued the order to expel barbarians, although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan. The Namamugi Incident during 1862 led to the murder of an Englishman, Charles Lennox Richardson, the British demanded reparations but were denied. While attempting to exact payment, the Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima and they responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863. For Richardsons death, the Tokugawa government agreed to pay an indemnity, shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki and attacks against foreign property led to the Bombardment of Shimonoseki by a multinational force in 1864. The Chōshū clan also launched the coup known as the Kinmon incident. The Satsuma-Chōshū alliance was established in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, in early 1867, Emperor Kōmei died of smallpox and was replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mutsuhito. On November 9,1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned from his post and authorities to the Emperor, however, while Yoshinobus resignation had created a nominal void at the highest level of government, his apparatus of state continued to exist. On January 3,1868, Satsuma-Chōshū forces seized the palace in Kyoto. On January 17,1868, Yoshinobu declared that he would not be bound by the proclamation of the Restoration, on January 24, Yoshinobu decided to prepare an attack on Kyoto, occupied by Satsuma and Chōshū forces
4.
Manchukuo
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Manchukuo was a puppet state in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia, which was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The area, collectively known as Manchuria by westerners and Japanese, was designated by Chinas erstwhile Qing Dynasty as the homeland of the familys ethnic group. In 1931, the region was seized by Japan following the Mukden Incident and a government was installed one year later with Puyi. Manchukuos government was abolished in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan at the end of World War II, Manchus formed a minority in Manchukuo, whose largest ethnic group were Han Chinese. The population of Koreans increased during the Manchukuo period, and there were also Japanese, Mongols, White Russians, the Mongol regions of western Manchukuo were ruled under a slightly different system in acknowledgement of the Mongolian traditions there. The southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula was ruled by Japan as the Kwantung Leased Territory, Manchuria is a transcription of the Japanese reading of the Chinese word 滿洲 which means Manchuria, which in Japanese is Manshū, which in turn dates from the 19th century. The name Manzhou was invented and given to the Jurchen people by Hong Taiji in 1635 as a new name for their ethnic group. However, the name Manchuria was never used by the Manchus or the Qing dynasty itself to refer to their homeland, the name itself holding imperialistic connotation. According to Mark C. 满洲 then began to appear as a place names in more maps created by Japanese like Kondi Jūzō, Takahashi Kageyasu, Baba Sadayoshi and these maps were brought to Europe by the Dutch Philipp von Siebold. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using Manchuria as a name to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. Ordinary Manchus largely spurned Manchukuo which claimed to be established for their cause, the Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria. The historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial, professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks, when referring to Manchuria. Herbert Giles wrote that Manchuria was unknown to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression, the Qing Dynasty, which replaced the Shun and Ming dynasties in China, was founded by Manchus from Manchuria. The Manchu emperors separated their homeland in Jilin and Heilongjiang from the Han Liaoning province with the Willow Palisade and this ethnic division continued until the Qing dynasty encouraged massive immigration of Han in the 19th century during Chuang Guandong to prevent the Russians from seizing the area from the Qing. After conquering the Ming, the Qing identified their state as China, the lands in Manchuria were explicitly stated by the Qing to belong to China in Qing edicts and in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The area of Manchuria was then converted into three provinces by the late Qing government in 1907, as the power of the court in Beijing weakened, many outlying areas either broke free or fell under the control of Imperialist powers. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia was most interested in the lands of the Qing Empire. In 1858, Russia gained control over a tract of land called Outer Manchuria thanks to the Supplementary Treaty of Beijing that ended the Second Opium War
5.
Vasily Blyukher
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Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher (also spelled Bliukher, Blücher, etc. was a Soviet military commander. Blyukher was born into a Russian peasant family called Gurov in village of Barschinka, in the 19th-century, a landlord gave the nickname Blyukher to the Gurov family in commemoration of the famous Prussian Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. In 1916 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and he took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 in Samara. In late November 1917, he was sent into Chelyabinsk to suppress Alexander Dutovs revolt as Red Guard commissar, Blyukher joined the Red Army in 1918 and was soon a commander. During the Russian Civil War, he was one of the figures on the Bolshevik side. After the Civil War, he served as commander of the Far Eastern Republic in 1921-1922. From 1924 to 1927, Blyukher was a Soviet military adviser in China and he was responsible for the military planning of the Northern Expedition which began the Kuomintang unification of China. Among those he instructed in this period was Lin Biao, later a leading figure in the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, Chiang allowed Blyukher to escape after his anti-communist purge. Based at Khabarovsk, Blyukher exercised a degree of autonomy in the Far East unusual for a Soviet military commander, with Japan steadily extending its grip on China and hostile to the Soviet Union, the Far East was an active military command. In the Russo-Chinese Chinese Eastern Railroad War of 1929-1930 he defeated the Chinese warlord forces in a quick campaign, for this outstanding achievement, he became the first Recipient of the Order of the Red Star in September 1930. In 1935 he was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union, the importance of the Far East Front gave Blyukher a certain degree of immunity from Stalins purge of Red Army command, which had begun in 1937 with the execution of Mikhail Tukhachevsky. In fact, Blyukher had been a member of the tribunal that convicted Tukhachevsky, in 1938 he was accused of inadequate armed forces leadership during the battle of Lake Khasan and dismissed from his post. On October 22 he was arrested, convicted of espionage for Japan, a contributory factor in Blyukhers downfall was the defection to Japan in June 1938 of the NKVD chief in the Far East, Genrikh Lyushkov, who feared arrest. In prison Blyukher refused to confess and was never formally tried and he was severely tortured in Lefortovo jail in Moscow, which according to one source led to his death on November 9,1938, though another says he was shot on Joseph Stalins orders. When people began to ask about his whereabouts they were told that he was fighting in China under a pseudonym and his death was officially confirmed in 1956 when he was posthumously rehabilitated. In 1939, Chiang inquired about Blyukhers whereabouts in a meeting with Stalin, Stalin replied that the General had been executed for helping a Japanese spy. He continues to be a figure in Russia, and a documentary film on his life. George, 3rd and 4th classes Medal of St. George
6.
Nikolai Berzarin
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Nikolai Erastovich Berzarin was a Soviet officer in the Red Army during the Stalinist era and the Second World War. In 1945 he became the first town mayor of the Soviet occupying forces in Berlin, Berzarin was born in Saint Petersburg as the son of a pipefitter and a seamstress. He had one brother and four sisters, in 1925, he married bank employee Natalja Prosinjuk, with whom he had two daughters, Larissa and Irina. In 1918 Berzarin enlisted in the Red Army and fought against Allied troops in Archangelsk, between 1921 and 1923 he received more military training at the Leningrad Command Courses, machine gun course at the Vistrel and a command course at the Siberian Military District. In 1922, he became a member of Komsomol, in 1923 he was assigned to Siberia. In 1926, after training, he became a member of the CPSU. In 1924 he was serving as a officer in the Amur region against the bandit raiders. In 1927 he returned to Siberia, where he was an assistant to commander of a training unit in Irkutsk. From 1933 to 1935, he served in the staff of the Separate Far Eastern Army, until 1938, he was the chief instructor of the Amur group. During the Great Purge, he was accused of owing his career to the enemies of the people, as division commander, he repelled Japanese attacks at Lake Khasan, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. After his appointment as Major General, he was transferred at his own request to Riga and he fought against the German armed forces after their assault on the Soviet Union. From December 1941 to May 1944 he was Commander-in-Chief of several armies and he received the Order of Lenin and was promoted to Colonel General for his success in breaking through German lines in the Jassy-Kishinev Offensive. After conquering Kishinev in August 1944, the Belorussian and Ukrainian Fronts began their march on Berlin, during the Battle of Berlin, Berzarins 5th Shock Army reached the eastern outskirts of Berlin on April 21,1945, making them the first Soviet Army to do so. On April 24, he was appointed commander of the city by Marshal Zhukov,1, Berzarin assumed all governmental power. On May 17, he appointed non-partisan Arthur Werner the first post war Mayor of Berlin presiding over a city government. On June 16,1945, after only 55 days in office, he was killed in an accident when he collided with a truck convoy near his office in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde. Rumors that scattered Nazi Werwolf forces had assassinated him were never established, Berzarin is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. In 1975 Berzarin posthumously was bestowed honorary citizenship of East Berlin, after German reunification he was formally removed from the roll of honorary citizens by the Senate of Berlin in 1992
7.
Grigori Shtern
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Grigori Mihailovich Shtern was a Soviet officer in the Red Army and military advisor during the Spanish Civil War. He also served with distinction during the Soviet-Japanese Border Wars and the Winter War, Shtern was born into a Jewish family in Smila, Kiev Governorate in 1900. He started his career as a Commissar of a Red Army brigade in 1919. Shtern graduated from the Military Academy of the Red Army in 1929 and he was appointed commander of the 7th Cavalry Division in 1936. Shtern served as a Soviet military advisor to the Spanish Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War between January 1937 to April 1938. After returning from Spain, Shtern became chief of staff of the Far Eastern Front, commanded by Vasily Blyukher, during the July and August 1938 Battle of Lake Khasan, Shtern was given command of operations after Blyukhers initial counterattack failed. He attacked the Japanese troops on the ridge with numerically superior forces. The pressure of the Soviet attack forced the Japanese to a cease-fire on 11 August as they could not hold the ridge without widening the conflict. On 31 August Stalin decided to abolish the Far Eastern Front as he felt it had not proved its worth, on 9 February 1939 he was promoted to Komandarm 2nd rank. According to British military historian Geoffrey Roberts, Shtern played a role in planning the Soviet counterattack in August. Shtern was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 August 1939, for his courage, during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union, Shtern became commander of the 8th Army on 12 December 1939. After the Winter War, the Red Army restored traditional military ranks and he was appointed commander of the Far Eastern Front on 22 June 1940. He was shot without trial on 28 October, Shtern was rehabilitated in August 1954. Yakov Smushkevich Kilin, Juri, Raunio, Ari, stalins General, The Life of Georgy Zhukov. The Red Army, 1918–1941, From Vanguard of World Revolution to Americas Ally. Grigori Shtern at peoples. ru Grigori Shtern at warheroes. ru Grigori Shtern at vestnik. com Grigori Shtern at militera. lib. ru Grigori Shtern at khasan-district. narod. ru Григорий Михайлович Штерн
8.
Battles of Khalkhin Gol
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The Battles of Khalkhyn Gol were the decisive engagements of the undeclared Soviet–Japanese border conflicts fought among the Soviet Union, Mongolia and the Japan in 1939. The conflict was named after the river Khalkhyn Gol, which passes through the battlefield, in Japan, the decisive battle of the conflict is known as the Nomonhan Incident after a nearby village on the border between Mongolia and Manchuria. The battles resulted in the defeat of the Japanese Sixth Army, after the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931, Japan turned its military interests to Soviet territories that bordered those areas. The first major Soviet-Japanese border incident, the Battle of Lake Khasan, clashes between Japanese and Soviet forces frequently occurred along the border of Manchuria. In 1939, Manchuria was a state of Japan known as Manchukuo. The Japanese maintained that the border between Manchukuo and Mongolia was the Khalkhyn Gol which flows into Lake Buir, in contrast, the Mongolians and their Soviet allies maintained that the border ran some 16 kilometres east of the river, just east of Nomonhan village. The principal occupying army of Manchukuo was the Kwantung Army of Japan, the Soviet forces consisted of the 57th Special Corps, deployed from the Trans-Baikal Military District. They were responsible for defending the border between Siberia and Manchuria, the Mongolian troops mainly consisted of cavalry brigades and light artillery units, and proved to be effective and agile, but lacked armor and manpower in sufficient numbers. In 1939, the Japanese Cabinet sent instructions to the Kwantung Army to strengthen and fortify Manchukuos borders with Mongolia, the incident began on 11 May 1939. A Mongolian cavalry unit of some 70–90 men had entered the area in search of grazing for their horses. On that day, Manchukuoan cavalry attacked the Mongolians and drove back across the river Khalkhin Gol. On 13 May, the Mongolian force returned in greater numbers, Soviet and Mongolian troops returned to the disputed region, however, and Azumas force again moved to evict them. This time things turned out differently, as the Soviet-Mongolian forces surrounded Azumas force on 28 May, the Azuma force suffered eight officers and 97 men killed and one officer and 33 men wounded, for 63% total casualties. The commander of the Soviet forces and the Far East Front was Comandarm Grigori Shtern from May 1938, both sides began building up their forces in the area, soon, Japan had 30,000 men in the theater. The Soviets dispatched a new commander, Comcor Georgy Zhukov. Accompanying Zhukov was Comcor Yakov Smushkevich with his aviation unit, J. Lkhagvasuren, Corps Commissar of the Mongolian Peoples Revolutionary Army, was appointed Zhukovs deputy. On 27 June, the Japanese Army Air Forces 2nd Air Brigade struck the Soviet air base at Tamsak-Bulak in Mongolia, the Japanese won this engagement, but the strike had been ordered by the Kwantung Army without getting permission from Imperial Japanese Army headquarters in Tokyo. In an effort to prevent the incident from escalating, Tokyo promptly ordered the JAAF not to any more air strikes against Soviet airbases
9.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
10.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
11.
Japanese language
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Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic language family, whose relation to language groups, particularly to Korean. Little is known of the prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, during the Heian period, Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese saw changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region in the Early Modern Japanese period. Following the end in 1853 of Japans self-imposed isolation, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, English loanwords in particular have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person, Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener. Japanese has no relationship with Chinese, but it makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji, in its writing system. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system uses two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. Latin script is used in a fashion, such as for imported acronyms. Very little is known about the Japanese of this period, Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language. Through the spread of Buddhism, the Chinese writing system was imported to Japan, the earliest texts found in Japan are written in Classical Chinese, but they may have been meant to be read as Japanese by the kanbun method. Some of these Chinese texts show the influences of Japanese grammar, in these hybrid texts, Chinese characters are also occasionally used phonetically to represent Japanese particles. The earliest text, the Kojiki, dates to the early 8th century, the end of Old Japanese coincides with the end of the Nara period in 794
12.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
13.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
14.
Treaty of Peking
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In China, they are regarded as among the unequal treaties. The original copy of the Convention is kept in the National Palace Museum in Taiwan, on 18 October 1860, at the culmination of the Second Opium War, the British and French troops entered the Forbidden City in Beijing. Although Russia had not been a belligerent, Prince Gong also signed a treaty with Nikolay Ignatyev, the original plan was to burn down the Forbidden City as punishment for the mistreatment of Anglo-French prisoners by Qing officials. Because doing so would jeopardize the treaty signing, the plan shifted to burning the Old Summer Palace, the treaties with France and Britain were signed in the Ministry of Rites building immediately south of the Forbidden City on 24 October 1860. In the Convention, the Xianfeng Emperor ratified the Treaty of Tientsin, the area known as Kowloon was originally leased in March 1860. The Convention of Peking ended the lease, and ceded the land formally to the British on 24 October 1860, the treaty also ceded parts of Outer Manchuria to the Russian Empire. It granted Russia the right to the Ussuri krai, a part of the modern day Primorye, see Treaty of Aigun, Treaty of Nerchinsk and Sino-Russian border conflicts. In China, the treaty is labelled an unequal treaty, however, the parts of Outer Manchuria ceded to Russia were never returned and remain as a part of Russia today
15.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
16.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
17.
Northeast China
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Northeast China or Dongbei is a geographical region of China. It also historically corresponds with the term Manchuria in the English language, the heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain. Due to the shrinking of its industrial sector and decline of its economic growth. The region is congruent with some definitions of Manchuria in historical foreign usage. Another term for the area is Guandong, meaning east of the Pass, Northeast China was the homeland of several ethnic groups, including the Manchus, Ulchs, Hezhen. Various ethnic groups and their kingdoms, including the Sushen, Xianbei. Many Korean kingdoms have risen to power in Manchuria, including Gojoseon, Buyeo, Goguryeo. Yan State once occupied the Liaodong Peninsula, Han Chinese dynasties in China loosely controlled the southern parts of the region, during the Song dynasty, the Khitan set up the Liao Dynasty in Northeast China. Later, the Jurchen overthrew the Liao and formed the Jin dynasty, in AD1234, the Jin dynasty fell to the Mongols, whose Yuan Dynasty was later replaced by the Ming Dynasty in 1368. In 1644, the Manchu conquered the entirety of China and established the Qing dynasty, Northeast China came under influence of the Russian Empire with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin to Vladivostok. The Empire of Japan replaced Russian influence in the region as a result of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905, during the Warlord Era in China, Zhang Zuolin established himself in Northeast China, but was murdered by the Japanese for being too independent. The last Qing dynasty emperor, Puyi, was placed on the throne to lead a Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. After the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945, the Soviet Union invaded the region as part of its declaration of war against Japan, from 1945 to 1948, Northeast China was a base area for the Communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. Northeast China has a population of about 107,400,000 people. The overwhelming majority of the population in the Northeast is Han Chinese, people from the Northeast would first identify themselves as Northeasterners before affiliating to individual provinces and cities/towns. The Northeast was one of the earliest regions to industrialize in China during the era of Manchukuo, after the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, Northeast China continued to be a major industrial base of the country. The region is, on the whole, more urbanised than most parts of China. Major cities include Shenyang, Dalian, Harbin, Changchun and Anshan, other cities include the steel making centres of Fushun and Anshan in Liaoning, Jilin City in Jilin, and Qiqihar and Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang
18.
Chinese Eastern Railway
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The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER, also known as the Chinese Far East Railway and North Manchuria Railway, is the historical name for a railway across Manchuria. The line was built by Imperial Russia using a concession from Qing China, the railway and the concession, known as the Chinese Eastern Railway Zone, were administered from the city, which grew into a major rail hub. The Soviet Union handed the CER to the Peoples Republic of China in 1952, in 1896 China granted a construction concession through northern Inner Manchuria under the supervision of Vice Minister of Public Works Xu Jingcheng. Work on the CER began in July 1897 along the line Tarskaya – Hailar – Harbin – Nikolsk-Ussuriski, officially, traffic on the line started in November 1901, but regular passenger traffic from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok across the Trans-Siberian railway did not commence until July 1903. The Chinese Eastern Railway was essentially completed in 1902, a few earlier than the stretch around Lake Baikal. Until the Circumbaikal portion was completed, goods carried on the Trans-Siberian Railway had to be trans-shipped by ferry almost a hundred kilometers across the lake, the Chinese Eastern Railway became important in international relations. After the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Russia gained the right to build the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria and they had a large army and occupied Northern Manchuria, which was of some concern to the Japanese. Russia pressed China for a monopoly of rights in Manchuria, but China reacted to this by an alliance with Japan, during the Russo-Japanese War, Russia lost both the Liaodong Peninsula and much of the South Manchurian branch to Japan. The rail line from Changchun to Lüshun - transferred to Japanese control - became the South Manchuria Railway, during the 1917-1924 the Russian part of the CER came under the administration of the White Army. After 1924, the USSR and China administered the Northern CER jointly, the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 was fought over the administration of the Northern CER. From August 1945, the CER again came under the joint control of the USSR, in 1952, the Soviet Union transferred all of its rights to the Chinese Changchun Railway to the Peoples Republic of China. The flag of the Chinese Eastern Railway is a combination of Chinese and it has changed several times with the political changes of both owners. The first CER flag was a combination of the version of the flag of the Qing dynasty. The 1915-1925 flag replaced the flag of the Qing dynasty with a version of the five-colored flag. The flag was changed again in 1925 and 1932, with the flag of the Soviet Union, the only train that covers the entire route is train #19/20 ‘Vostok’ Moscow - Beijing. Trip from Moscow to Beijing takes 146 hours, journey in the opposite direction lasts 143 hours. There is also train #653/654 Zabaikalsk – Manzhouli which one can use to cross Russian-Chinese border, harbin–Manzhouli Railway Harbin Russians Harbin–Suifenhe Railway Russian gauge Sören Urbansky. Kolonialer Wettstreit, Russland, China, Japan und die Ostchinesische Eisenbahn,2008, Campus Publishers, secrets and Spies, The Harbin Files
19.
Rail transport
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Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
20.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
21.
Manchuria
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Manchuria is a modern name, first created by the Japanese, given to a large geographic region in Northeast Asia. Depending on the context, Manchuria can either refer to a region that falls entirely within the Peoples Republic of China, the definition of Manchuria can be any one of several regions of various size. These are, from smallest to largest, Northeast China, consisting of Heilongjiang, Jilin and this is the area referred to as Manchuria in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. Inner Manchuria, the above, plus parts of modern Inner Mongolia, The above, plus Outer Manchuria, the area from the Amur and Ussuri rivers to the Stanovoy Mountains, in Russian administrative terms, Ussuri krai, southern Harbin oblast, Primorskiy kray. The above, plus Sakhalin Island, which is included on Qing dynasty maps as part of Outer Manchuria even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the Treaty of Nerchinsk. The island was included in Manchuria on maps made by the Japanese Shogunate. Despite of lines on maps and empiress political claims, the island was inhabited by Ainu people until the Soviet Union enforced a policy after 1945. Three centuries and a half must now pass away before entering upon the act of the Manchu drama. During the ensuing two hundred years the Nü-chêns were scarcely heard of, the House of Ming being busily occupied in other directions and it may be noted here that Manchuria is unknown to the Chinese or to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression. The present extensive home of the Manchus is usually spoken of as the Three Eastern Provinces, namely, Shêngking, or Liao-tung, or Kuan-tung, Kirin, and Heilungchiang or Tsitsihar. — Herbert A. Giles, China and the Manchus,1912 Manchuria is a translation of the Japanese word Manshū, the Manchu and Chinese languages had no such word as Manchuria and the word has imperialist connotations. According to Bill Sewell, it was Europeans who first started using the name Manchuria to refer to the location, the historian Gavan McCormack agreed with Robert H. G. The Japanese had their own motive for deliberately spreading the usage of the term Manchuria, the historian Norman Smith wrote that The term Manchuria is controversial. Professor Mariko Asano Tamanoi said that she should use the term in quotation marks when referring to Manchuria, in his 2012 dissertation on the Jurchen people to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History from the University of Washington, Professor Chad D. In the 18th-century Europe, the later known as Manchuria was most commonly referred to as Tartary. However, the term Manchuria started appearing by the end of the century, in current Chinese parlance, an inhabitant of the Northeast, or Northeast China, is a Northeasterner. In China, the term Manchuria is rarely used today, and this usage is seen in the expression Chuǎng Guāndōng referring to the mass migration of Han Chinese to Manchuria in the 19th and 20th centuries. The name Guandong later came to be used more narrowly for the area of the Kwantung Leased Territory on the Liaodong Peninsula and it is not to be confused with the southern province of Guangdong
22.
Russian Far East
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The Russian Far East is the Russian part of the Far East, i. e. the extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean. The Far Eastern Federal District, which covers this area, borders with the Siberian Federal District to the west. The Far Eastern Federal District has land borders with the Peoples Republic of China and North Korea to the south west and maritime borders with Japan, although traditionally considered part of Siberia, the Russian Far East is categorized separately from Siberia in Russian regional schemes. In Russia, the region is referred to as just Far East. What is known in English as the Far East is usually referred to as the Asia-Pacific Region, primorskaya Oblast was established as a separate administrative division of the Russian Empire in 1856, with its administrative center at Khabarovsk. Until 2000, the Russian Far East lacked officially defined boundaries, a single term Siberia and the Far East was often used to refer to Russias regions east of the Urals without drawing a clear distinction between Siberia and the Far East. Since 2000, the term Far East has been used in Russia to refer to the federal district. Defined by the boundaries of the district, the Far East has an area of 6.2 million square kilometers—over one-third of Russias total area. Russia in the early 1900s persistently sought a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean for the navy as well as to facilitate maritime trade, the recently established Pacific seaport of Vladivostok was operational only during the summer season, but Port Arthur in Manchuria was operational all year. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the failure of the 1903 negotiations between Japan and the Tsarss government, Japan chose war to protect its domination of Korea and adjacent territories. Russia, meanwhile, saw war as a means of distracting its populace from government repression, Japan issued a declaration of war on 8 February 1904. However, three hours before Japans declaration of war was received by the Russian Government, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the Russian Far East Fleet at Port Arthur, eight days later Russia declared war on Japan. Japan also received the southern half of the Island of Sakhalin from Russia, between 1937 and 1939, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin deported over 200,000 Koreans to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, fearing that the Koreans might act as spies for Japan. Many Koreans died on the way in cattle due to starvation, illness. Many community leaders were purged and executed, Koryo-saram were not allowed to travel outside of Central Asia for the next 15 years, Koreans were also not allowed to use the Korean language and its use began to become lost with the involvement of Koryo-mar and the use of Russian. Development of numerous remote locations relied on GULAG labour camps during Stalins rule, after that, the large-scale use of forced labour waned and was superseded by volunteer employees attracted by relatively high wages. Indeed, Japan turned its interests to Soviet territories. Conflicts between the Japanese and the Soviets frequently happened on the border of Manchuria between 1938 and 1945, the first confrontation occurred in Primorsky Krai, the Battle of Lake Khasan was an attempted military incursion of Manchukuo into the territory claimed by the Soviet Union
23.
South Manchuria Railway
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After the Russo-Japanese War, Imperial Japan seized control of all the length of the railway south of Changchun, and renamed it as the South Manchurian Railway. The South Manchuria Railway Company, or Mantetsu for short, was a founded by the Japanese in 1906. The company was referred to as Japans East India Company in China. The last station remaining in Russian hands was at Kuanchengzi in modern-day Changchun, the northernmost Japanese-controlled station was the Changchun Railway Station. The organizing committee was headed by General Kodama Gentarō, and after his death, count Gotō Shimpei, formerly the Japanese governor of Taiwan, was appointed the first president of the company, and the headquarters was established in Tokyo before relocated to Dalian in 1907. One of the first tasks of the new company was to change the railway gauge, by the end of 1907, the company employed 9,000 Japanese and 4,000 Chinese. By 1910, those numbers had increased to 35,000 and 25,000 respectively, the railway used a significant amount of U. S. -made rails and signaling equipment, as well as some steam locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company at Dunkirk, NY. Mantetsu quickly expanded the system inherited from Russia to staggering proportions, building coal mines at Fushun and Yantai, and harbor facilities at Andong, Yingkou, at each station, Mantetsu built hotels for travelers and warehouses for goods. Japanese settlers were encouraged through the construction of schools, libraries, hospitals, the Mantetsu Research Wing was the centerpiece of Japans colonial program, and instigated agricultural research into development of soybean farming. Land under cultivation expanded 70% in 20 years, until 1925, the company also operated the Korean railway system. Company assets rose from 163 million yen in 1908 to over a billion yen in 1930, Mantetsu was by far the largest corporation in Japan, and also its most profitable, averaging rates of return from 25-45 percent per year. During the 1920s, Mantetsu provided for over a quarter of the Japanese governments tax revenues, over 75% of Mantetsus income was generated by its freight business, with the key to profitability coming from soybean exports, both to Japan proper and to Europe. Soybean production increased exponentially with increasing demand for soy oil, and for soy meal for use in fertilizer, Mantetsu was also charged with a government-like role in managing the rail transportation system after the formation of Manchukuo in 1932. By 1938, Mantetsu had 72 subsidiary companies, development projects in 25 urban areas, between 1930-1940, the Japanese population of Manchukuo rose by 800,000 making ethnic Japanese the majority in many of the towns and cities served by Mantetsu. Mantetsu prided itself on state-of-the-art urban planning, with modern systems, public parks. In 1934, Mantetsu inaugurated the Asia Express, a speed train from Dalian to the Manchukuo capital of Hsinking. Reaching a top speed of 134 km/h, the Asia Express was the fastest scheduled train in Asia at the time, in 1945, the Soviet Union invaded and overran Manchukuo. Rolling stock and movable equipment was looted and taken back to the Soviet Union, Mantetsu itself was dissolved by order of the American occupation authorities in occupied Japan
24.
Casus belli
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Casus belli is a Latin expression meaning an act or event that provokes or is used to justify war. Either may be considered an act of war, the term is also used informally to refer to any just cause a nation may claim for entering into a conflict. It attempts to demonstrate that it is going to war only as a last resort, modern international law recognizes only three lawful justifications for waging war, self-defense, defense of an ally required by the terms of a treaty, and approval by the United Nations. Proschema is the equivalent Greek term, first popularized by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, the proschemata are the stated reasons for waging war, which may or may not be the same as the real reasons, which Thucydides called prophasis. Thucydides argued that the three primary reasons for waging war are reasonable fear, honor, and interest, while the stated reasons involve appeals to nationalism or fearmongering. Countries need a public justification for attacking another country, both to galvanize support for the war and to gain the support of potential allies. The UN also reserves the right to ask member nations to intervene against non-signatory countries that embark on wars of aggression and this section outlines a number of the more famous and/or controversial cases of casus belli which have occurred in modern times. While slavery was the long term cause of the American Civil War, in the eyes of the United States, the sinking of the USS Maine provided casus belli for the Spanish–American War. There have been several alternative explanations for the explosion, such as proposed by Mr. Evans. Europeans had access to Chinese ports as outlined in the Treaty of Nanking from the First Opium War, France uses the execution of Auguste Chapdelaine as a casus belli for the Second Opium War. On February 29th,1856, Chapdelaine, a French missionary, was killed in the province of Guangxi, in response, British and French forces quickly take control of Guangzhou. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria provided the trigger that led to the outbreak of World War I, in June 1914, the refusal of two points of the July Ultimatum offered to Serbia was used by Austria-Hungary as a casus belli for declaring war on Serbia. The murder at Sarajevo in Bosnia by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb nationalist, Austrian subject, the Russian Empire started to mobilize its troops in defense of its ally Serbia, which resulted in the German Empire declaring war on Russia in support of its ally Austria-Hungary. This telegram was intercepted by the British, then relayed to the U. S. which led to President Woodrow Wilson then using it to convince Congress to join World War I alongside the Allies. The Mexican president at the time, Venustiano Carranza, had a military commission assess the feasibility, in his autobiography Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler had in the 1920s advocated a policy of lebensraum for the German people, which in practical terms meant German territorial expansion into Eastern Europe. Polands allies, the UK and France, subsequently declared war on Germany in accord their alliance. In 1941, acting once again in accordance with the policy of lebensraum, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union also employed a manufactured casus belli against Finland during World War II on its part. In November 1939, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities between Germany, Britain and France, the Soviet Union staged the shelling of the Russian village of Mainila and this manufactured incident was then used as a casus belli for the Winter War
25.
Russo-Japanese War
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The Russo-Japanese War was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden in Southern Manchuria and the seas around Korea, Japan, Russia sought a warm-water port on the Pacific Ocean for their navy and for maritime trade. Vladivostok was operational only during the summer, whereas Port Arthur, since the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan feared Russian encroachment on its sphere of influence. Russia had demonstrated an expansionist policy in the Siberian Far East from the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, through threat of Russian expansion, Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition of Korea as being within the Japanese sphere of influence. Russia refused and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel to be a buffer zone between Russia and Japan. The Japanese government perceived a Russian threat to its strategic interests, after negotiations broke down in 1904, the Japanese Navy opened hostilities by attacking the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China, in a surprise attack. The war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt, the complete victory of the Japanese military surprised world observers. The consequences transformed the balance of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japans recent entry onto the world stage and it was the first major military victory in the modern era of an Asian power over a European one. Scholars continue to debate the historical significance of the war, after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Meiji government endeavored to assimilate Western ideas, technological advances and ways of warfare. By the late 19th century, Japan had transformed itself into an industrial state. The Japanese wanted to be recognized as equal with the Western powers, the Meiji restoration had always been intended to make Japan a modernized state, not a Westernized one, and Japan was always an imperialist power, looking towards overseas expansionism. By the 1890s it had extended its realm across Central Asia to Afghanistan, the Russian Empire stretched from Poland in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the east. With its construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the port of Vladivostok, in the Tsushima incident of 1861 Russia had directly assaulted Japanese territory. Between the Meiji Restoration and its participation in World War I, the first war Japan fought was the First Sino-Japanese War, fought in 1894 and 1895. The war revolved around the issue of control and influence over Korea under the rule of the Joseon dynasty, from the 1880s onward, there had been vigorous competition for influence in Korea between China and Japan. The Korean court was prone to factionalism, and was divided by a reformist faction that was pro-Japanese. In 1884, a coup attempt was put down by Chinese troops. A peasant rebellion led by the Tonghak religious movement led to a request by the Korean government for the Qing dynasty to send in troops to stabilize the country
26.
Second Sino-Japanese War
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The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan from July 7,1937 to September 9,1945. The First Sino-Japanese War was fought from 1894 to 1895, China fought Japan, with some economic help from Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged into the conflict of World War II as a major front of what is broadly known as the Pacific War. Many scholars consider the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to have been the beginning of World War II, the Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy to expand its influence politically and militarily in order to access to raw material reserves, food. The period after World War One brought about increasing stress on the Japanese polity, leftists sought universal suffrage and greater rights for workers. Increasing textile production from Chinese mills was adversely affecting Japanese production, the Depression brought about a large slowdown in exports. All of this contributed to militant nationalism, culminating in the rise to power of a militarist fascist faction and this faction was led at its height by the Imperial Rule Assistance Associations Hideki Tojo cabinet under the edict from Emperor Shōwa. Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements, the last of these incidents was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, which is traditionally seen as the beginning of total war between the two countries. Since 2017 the Chinese Government has regarded the invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army in 1931, initially the Japanese scored major victories, such as the Battle of Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanjing. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government was relocated to Chongqing in the Chinese interior, by 1939, after Chinese victories in Changsha and Guangxi, and with Japans lines of communications stretched deep into the Chinese interior, the war reached a stalemate. The Japanese were also unable to defeat the Chinese communist forces in Shaanxi, on December 7,1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the following day the United States declared war on Japan. The United States began to aid China via airlift matériel over the Himalayas after the Allied defeat in Burma that closed the Burma Road, in 1944 Japan launched the invasion, Operation Ichi-Go, that conquered Henan and Changsha. However, this failed to bring about the surrender of Chinese forces, in 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force resumed its advance in Burma and completed the Ledo Road linking India to China. At the same time, China launched large counteroffensives in South China and retook the west Hunan, the remaining Japanese occupation forces formally surrendered on September 9,1945 with the following International Military Tribunal for the Far East convened on April 29,1946. China was recognized as one of the Big Four of Allies during the war, in the Chinese language, the war is most commonly known as the War of Resistance Against Japan, and also known as the Eight Years War of Resistance, simply War of Resistance. It is also referred to as part of the Global Anti-Fascist War, which is how World War 2 is perceived by the Communist Party of China, in Japan, nowadays, the name Japan–China War is most commonly used because of its perceived objectivity. In Japan today, it is written as 日中戦争 in shinjitai, the word incident was used by Japan, as neither country had made a formal declaration of war
27.
Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)
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The Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 was a minor armed conflict between the Soviet Union and Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang of the Republic of China over the Chinese Eastern Railway. In order to understand why the Chinese forced a hostile takeover, on August 26,1919, the Karakhan Manifesto was published by the Soviet press, but the document did not contain anything about returning the CER to China without compensation. The Soviets had laid the foundation to double-cross the Chinese, the Soviets would later use of the August 26th version of the Manifesto to argue with the Chinese government that they did not have to pay compensation for the CER. Along with the original Karakhan telegram the Chinese had the Vilenski pamphlet as evidence, the Vilenski pamphlet also shows the Chinese that they were willing to return the CER to the Chinese without compensation. The July 25th Karakhan telegram shows the Soviet Unions original intentions, which was to return the CER back into Chinese control without compensation. The July 25th telegram was used to satisfy the requirements for the Chinese government. This made all treaties, border relations and commercial relations dependent on the upcoming conference and this gave the Soviets time to turn to Zhang Xueliang in Manchuria. Zhang Xueliang was the strongest warlord in Manchuria at the time and he had control of the Mukden government, today the city is known as Shenyang. The Soviets were the first to propose joint management of the CER with the Chinese, but Zhang stood in the way of this joint management. The Soviets decided to make a deal with Zhang, on May 31,1924, Lev Karakhan and Dr. V. K. Ellington Koo, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of China, while negotiations had been concluded with the Chinese, the Soviets turned to make a deal with Zhang Xueliang. They promised him full control of choosing which Chinese officials would be on the board in the joint Chinese-Soviet management of the CER and this would give Zhang Xueliang half control of CER. On September 20,1924 Zhang signed the Secret Agreement not knowing the Chinese government had signed the Secret Protocol earlier in the year, and since the CER was originally controlled by the Soviets, the majority of the positions would be under Soviet control. Then the Soviet claimed they should keep majority control is any other solution would interrupt or injure the railway. The Soviets were also the master of the President for the CER. The Soviet government was able to regain majority control of the CER by playing the secret protocols off each other, the Soviets allowed the Chinese to think they were adding workers loyal to their government. However, in reality, the Soviets were creating more job on the railway, in the end, the Soviets controlled sixty-seven percent of all positions on the CER. The Chinese entertained joint- management until mid-1929, the change from Soviet control to Chinese control started when the Chinese authorities made a radical move to try and remove Soviet management
28.
Mukden Incident
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The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, was a staged event engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the Japanese invasion in 1931 of northeastern China, known as Manchuria. On September 18,1931, Lt. Suemori Kawamoto detonated a small quantity of dynamite close to a line owned by Japans South Manchuria Railway near Mukden. The ruse of war was soon exposed by the Lytton Report of 1932, leading Japan to diplomatic isolation and its March 1933 withdrawal from the League of Nations. The bombing act is known as the Liutiaohu Incident, and the episode of events is known in Japan as the Manchurian Incident. Japanese economic presence and political interest in Manchuria had been growing ever since the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the war had granted Japan the lease of the South Manchuria Railway branch of the China Far East Railway. This included absolute and exclusive administration within the South Manchuria Railway Zone, there were many reports of raids on local Chinese villages by bored Japanese soldiers, and all complaints from the Chinese government were ignored. In Nanjing in April 1931, a leadership conference of the Republic of China was held between Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Xueliang. They agreed to assert Chinas sovereignty in Manchuria strongly, Itagaki and Ishiwara chose to sabotage the rail section in an area near Liutiao Lake. The alleged Japanese plan was to attract Chinese troops by an explosion, the Japanese press labeled the site Liǔtiáo Ditch or Liǔtiáo Bridge, when in reality, the site was a small railway section laid on an area of flat land. The choice to place the explosives at this site was to preclude the extensive rebuilding that would have been necessitated had the site actually been a railway bridge. Colonel Seishirō Itagaki, Lieutenant Colonel Kanji Ishiwara, Colonel Kenji Doihara, at around 10,20 PM, September 18, the explosives were detonated. However, the explosion was minor and only a 1. 5-meter section on one side of the rail was damaged, in fact, a train from Changchun passed by the site on this damaged track without difficulty and arrived at Shenyang at 10,30 PM. On the morning of the day, two artillery pieces installed at the Mukden officers club opened fire on the Chinese garrison nearby. Zhang Xueliangs small air force was destroyed, and his soldiers fled their destroyed Beidaying barracks, the Chinese troops were no match for the experienced Japanese troops. By the evening, the fighting was over, and the Japanese had occupied Mukden at the cost of five hundred Chinese lives, honjō moved the Kwantung Army headquarters to Mukden and ordered General Senjurō Hayashi of the Chosen Army of Japan in Korea to send in reinforcements. At 04,00 on 19 September, Mukden was declared secure, therefore, the Japanese soldiers proceeded to occupy and garrison the major cities of Changchun and Antung and their surrounding areas with minimal difficulty. Despite this resistance, within five months of the Mukden Incident, the Imperial Japanese Army had overrun all major towns and cities in the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. Chinese public opinion strongly criticized Zhang Xueliang for his non-resistance to the Japanese invasion, while the Japanese presented a legitimate threat, the Kuomintang focused their efforts mainly on eradicating the communist party
29.
Soviet Border Troops
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Accordingly, they were known as NKVD Border Troops and KGB Border Troops. Unlike border guards of many countries, Soviet Border Troops also included the maritime borderguarding units. They became the Border Service of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation on December 30,1993, in 1934, under the NKVD, Border Troops were immediately subordinated to the GUPVO. In 1939 they were reorganized into the GUPV, NKVD Border Troops consisted of infantry, cavalry, reconnaissance, naval and airforce units. Since the 1920s, the part of Soviet Border Troops uniform was the medium-green colored parts of headwear. The color is present on a maritime Border Troops ensign. After the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Border Troops assisted the pacification of the newly acquired Soviet territory adjoining the state border, the mass execution of Romanian civilians known as the Fântâna Albă massacre happened at this time. Border Troops units on the western USSR frontier saw particularly fierce combat in the first weeks of the German invasion of the USSR and they bore the brunt of the initial German assault, and due to this, suffered high casualty rates. Border Troop servicemen were among the defenders of the Brest Fortress, Border troops from other parts of the Soviet border were also involved in the fighting of the war. Notably, the 105th, 157th, and 333rd Border Troops regiments took part in the Battle for Berlin in 1945. During and after the war,150 border guards were awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union and over 13,000 of them were decorated with different orders, in wartime the Border Troops would become a frontline combat service. The Border Troops also saw combat in 1969 in border clashes with Chinese soldiers on islands in the Ussuri River, after the formation of the KGB, Soviet Border Troops became subordinated to this agency and remained so until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As such, the Troops were concentrating on the tasks of preventing espionage infiltrations, the most notable in that system was the trace-control strip - a primitive labour-demanding method making surface crossing virtually impossible. The Border Troops consisted of conscripts drafted by the system as for the Soviet Army. Officers were trained in specialized academies, both conscripts and officer candidates for Border Troops were carefully selected and checked by the KGB. This made service in the troops privileged, article 28 defined the basic duties of the Border Troops. The Border Troops strength was estimated in 1989 to be in the range of 230,000 men, the Border Troops Directorate administered approximately nine border districts, which covered the nearly 63,000 kilometers of the state border. Border district boundaries were distinct from civil or military district boundaries, the nine border districts were subdivided into detachments, covering specific sections of the border, border command posts, passport control points, and border outposts
30.
Defection
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In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to one is bound by some tie. This term is applied, often pejoratively, to anyone who switches loyalty to another religion, sports team, political party. In that sense, the defector is often considered a traitor by their original side, the physical act of defection is usually in a manner which violates the laws of the nation or political entity from which the person is seeking to depart. By contrast, mere changes in citizenship, or working with allied militia, the Berlin Wall and fortifications along the Inner German border were erected by the Communist East German Democratic Republic in 1961 to enforce the policy. When people tried to defect from the GDR they were to be shot on sight, several hundred people were killed along the border in their Republikflucht attempt. Official crossings did exist, but permissions to leave temporarily or permanently were seldom granted, on the other hand, the GDR citizenship of some inconvenient East Germans was revoked, and they had to leave their home on short notice against their will. Others, like singer Wolf Biermann, were prohibited from returning to the GDR, during the Cold War, the many people illegally emigrating from the Soviet Union or Eastern Bloc to the West were called defectors. Westerners defected to the Eastern Bloc as well, often to avoid prosecution as spies, when the individual leaves his country and provides information to a foreign intelligence service, they are a HUMINT source defector. In some cases, defectors remain in the country or with the entity they were against. Intelligence services are concerned when debriefing defectors with the possibility of a fake defection. Alexander Mogilny, Soviet Hockey Player, who defected to the United States in 1988 and he was the first Soviet player to defect to play in the NHL. Aroldis Chapman, Cuban baseball pitcher, who defected to Andorra in 2009 before signing a Major League Baseball contract in 2010, josé Fernández, Cuban baseball player, who defected to the United States in 2008. Orlando Hernandez, Cuban baseball pitcher, who defected to the United States in 1997, arturo Sandoval, Cuban trumpeter, pianist, and composer, who defected to the United States in 1990. Nadia Comăneci, Romanian Olympic Gymnast, who defected to the United States in 1989, béla Károlyi and his wife Márta Károlyi, Romanian gymnastics coaches, who defected to the United States in 1981. Paquito DRivera, Cuban saxophonist and clarinetist, who defected to the United States in 1980, mikhail Baryshnikov, Soviet dancer, who defected to Canada in 1974, while in Toronto, touring with the Kirov Ballet. He later moved to the United States, natalia Makarova, Soviet dancer, who defected while in London in 1970. Rudolf Nureyev, Soviet dancer, who defected while in Paris touring with the Kirov Ballet in 1961, george Balanchine, Russian choreographer, who defected to the Weimar Republic in 1924
31.
Genrikh Lyushkov
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Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov was an officer in the Soviet secret police and its highest-ranking defector. His subsequent disappearance has been subject to controversy and speculation by journalists, Lyushkov was born in Odessa in the Russian Empire in 1900. His Jewish father supported him and his siblings as a tailor and he began his education in 1908 in a state-owned, six-classroom school, continuing there until 1915. While in school, he was influenced by his brother to join the Bolshevik Party, in April 1919, he received political training in Kiev for the Ukrainian Peoples Republic. By then, he was a political commissar and had received the Order of the Red Banner. In November 1920, he joined the Cheka of Odessa, which known for its ruthlessness. He also served in Moscow and Ukraine, when the Cheka was disbanded and reformed into the GPU, Lyushkov rose even further. Around 1930, he carried out an industrial espionage assignment in Germany and that led to his working again within the USSR, now as a member of the NKVD. He was also made a deputy of the Supreme Soviet and a member of the Central Committee, during the time of the Moscow Trials, he was the one who led the interrogations of Zinoviev and Kamenev. Later, he earned a reputation as an arrogant, arbitrary, on 31 July 1937, he received his final posting, as the NKVD chief in the Russian Far East, where he had direct command over 20, 000–30,000 élite NKVD troops. Balitsky, Blyukher, and Lapin all fell victim to the Great Purge, balitskys arrest and execution resulted from evidence gathered by Lyushkov. Blyukhers arrest and subsequent death resulted from blame being assigned to him for Lyushkovs defection, Lyushkov, immediately upon arriving in Khabarovsk, saw that Balitsky had been arrested and sent to Moscow for trial and execution. However, his time in the post proved to be short, Balitsky had been convicted on information from Lyushkov himself, whom he had considered a friend. By then, Lyushkov had been promoted to third-rank commissar of state security or Commissar 3rd Class, in preparation for his defection, Lyushkov arranged for his Jewish wife, Inna, to leave the country with his eleven-year-old daughter, for the daughter to receive medical treatment in Poland. The plan was for Inna to embed a secret codeword into a telegram, under unknown circumstances, however, Inna and her daughter were captured. Though the daughters fate remains unknown, Inna was kept at the Lubyanka prison, other members of Lyushkovs family were arrested and imprisoned in Siberian gulags. While his mother and brother were killed, his sister survived her imprisonment. His defection was initially kept a secret by Japan, but the revelation of his defection was judged to have a high propaganda value
32.
NKVD
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The Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated NKVD, was a joint law enforcement agency of the whole Soviet Union that directly executed the will of the All-Union Communist Party. It was closely associated with the Soviet secret police, which at times was part of the agency, the NKVD was headed by Soviet secret police officials. The NKVD contained the regular, public police force of the USSR, including police, firefighting, border guards. It is best known for the activities of the Gulag and the Main Directorate for State Security and it was also tasked with protection of Soviet borders and espionage, influencing foreign governments and enforcing Stalinist policy within communist movements in other countries. After the Russian February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government dissolved the Tsars police, realizing that it was left with no capable security force, the Council of Peoples Commissars of the RSFSR created a secret political police, the Cheka, led by Felix Dzerzhinsky. It gained the right to undertake quick non-judicial trials and executions, the Cheka was reorganized in 1922 as the State Political Directorate, or GPU, of the NKVD of the RSFSR. In 1922, the USSR was formed with the RSFSR as its largest member, the GPU became the OGPU, under the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR. The NKVD of the RSFSR retained control of the militsiya, as a result, the NKVD also became responsible for all detention facilities as well as for the regular police. Since its creation in 1934, the NKVD of the USSR underwent many organizational changes, on February 3,1941, the Special Sections of the NKVD responsible for military counterintelligence became part of the Army and Navy. The GUGB was separated from the NKVD and renamed the Peoples Commissariat for State Security, after the German invasion, the NKVD and NKGB were reunited on July 20,1941. The CI sections were returned to the NKVD in January 1942, in April 1943, the CI sections were again transferred to the Peoples Commissariats of Defense and the Navy, becoming SMERSH, at the same time, the NKVD was again separated from the NKGB. In 1946, all Soviet Commissariats were renamed ministries, accordingly, the NKVD of the USSR was renamed as the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while the NKGB was renamed as the Ministry of State Security. In 1953, after the arrest of Lavrenty Beria, the MGB was merged back into the MVD, the police and security services were finally split in 1954 to become, The USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, responsible for the criminal militia and correctional facilities. The USSR Committee for State Security, responsible for the police, intelligence, counter-intelligence, personal protection. In implementing Soviet internal policy towards perceived enemies of the Soviet state, untold multitudes of people were sent to GULAG camps, formally, most of these people were convicted by NKVD troikas – special courts martial. Evidential standards were low, a tip-off by an anonymous informer was considered sufficient grounds for arrest. Use of physical means of persuasion was sanctioned by a decree of the state. Hundreds of mass graves resulting from operations were later discovered throughout the country
33.
Hunchun
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Hunchun is a county-level city in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, far eastern Jilin province, Northeast China. It borders North Korea and Russia, has over 250,000 inhabitants and it was capital of Balhae/Bohai Kingdom between 785-793 as Dongyang. The citys name Hunchun comes from the Manchu language meaning borderland, the city is located near the point of junction of the borders of China, Russia, and North Korea, provided with an observation platform, it is a popular tourist attraction. Hunchun has four subdistricts, four towns, and five townships, on 9 March 1992 the Chinese parliament approved to set up Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone. The national government and Jilin provincial government have invested in succession over four billion yuan in Hunchun through the 1990s, on 16 March 2013, a joint agreement to export textiles to North Korea was announced. The textiles would be made into up to 8,000 shirts in North Korea, Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone was approved to be national-level border economic cooperation zone in 1992, with a planning area of 24 km2. In 2002 and 2001, Hunchun Export Processing Zone and Huichun Sino-Russia Trade Zone was set up in it, being located in the junction of China, Russia, and Korea, it enjoys a strategic location. The city focuses on the development of sea food processing, electronic product manufacture, bio-pharmacy, textile industry, Hunchun Export Processing Zone Hunchun Export Processing Zone is located in 5 km2 area in Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone. Its planned area is 2.44 km2 and it enjoys good infrastructure and policies as its parent zone does. In the early 1990s, Jilin province government constructed a railway, the Tumen River Bridge connects between Hunchun and the North Korean town of Wonjeong. The bridge was built during the Japanese occupation in 1938, in 2010 the bridge was renovated as part of an agreement between North Korea and China to modernize the Rason port in North Korea. In addition, a new line was constructed which links Hunchun and Makhalino in Russia. Hunchun port is 42 km from Posyet and 63 km from Zarubino port towns of Russia, a 250-km/h high-speed passenger rail line from Jilin to Hunchun via Tumen is under construction. Construction work started in January 2011, and service is expected to start at the end of September 2015, the railway has been described as Dongbeis most beautiful railway and the fastest way to Vladivostok. Reflecting the border location of the city, the new station has its sign in four languages, Chinese, Korean, Russian
34.
Great Purge
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The Great Purge or the Great Terror was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union which occurred from 1936 to 1938. In Russian historiography, the period of the most intense purge, 1937–1938, is called Yezhovshchina, after Nikolai Yezhov and it has been estimated between 600,000 and 3 million people died at the hands of the Soviet government during the Purge. In the Western world, Robert Conquests 1968 book The Great Terror popularized that phrase, Conquests title was in turn an allusion to the period called the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. The term repression was used to describe the prosecution of people considered counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people by the leadership of the Soviet Union. The purge was motivated by the desire to remove dissenters from the Communist Party, most public attention was focused on the purge of the leadership of the Communist Party, as well as of government bureaucrats and leaders of the armed forces, most of whom were Party members. The campaigns also affected many other categories of the society, intelligentsia, peasants and especially those branded as too rich for a peasant, a series of NKVD operations affected a number of national minorities, accused of being fifth column communities. Due legal process, as defined by Soviet law in force at the time, was largely replaced with summary proceedings by NKVD troikas. Hundreds of thousands of victims were accused of political crimes, they were quickly executed by shooting. Many died at the labor camps of starvation, disease, exposure. Other methods of dispatching victims were used on an experimental basis, one secret policeman, for example, gassed people to death in batches in the back of a specially adapted airtight van. The campaigns were carried out according to the line, and often by direct orders. The threat of war heightened Stalins perception of marginal and politically suspect populations as the source of an uprising in case of invasion. He began to plan for the elimination of such potential recruits for a mythical fifth column of wreckers, terrorists. The term purge in Soviet political slang was an abbreviation of the purge of the Party ranks. In 1933, for example, the Party expelled some 400,000 people, but from 1936 until 1953, the term changed its meaning, because being expelled from the Party came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment, and often execution. Stalins opponents on both sides of the political spectrum chided him as undemocratic and lax on bureaucratic corruption and these tendencies may have accumulated substantial support among the working class by attacking the privileges and luxuries the state offered to its high-paid elite. The Ryutin Affair seemed to vindicate Stalins suspicions and he enforced a ban on party factions and banned those party members who had opposed him, effectively ending democratic centralism. In the new form of Party organization, the Politburo, and this required the elimination of all Marxists with different views, especially those among the prestigious old guard of revolutionaries
35.
Camouflage
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Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier. A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a pattern, making the object visible. The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. Some animals, such as chameleons and octopuses, are capable of changing their skin pattern and colours. Military camouflage was spurred by the range and accuracy of firearms in the 19th century. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with the rifle made personal concealment in battle a survival skill, in the 20th century, military camouflage developed rapidly, especially during the First World War. On land, artists such as André Mare designed camouflage schemes, at sea, merchant ships and troop carriers were painted in dazzle patterns that were highly visible, but designed to confuse enemy submarines as to the targets speed, range, and heading. During and after the Second World War, a variety of schemes were used for aircraft. The use of radar since the century has largely made camouflage for fixed-wing military aircraft obsolete. Non-military use of camouflage includes making cell telephone towers less obtrusive, patterns derived from military camouflage are frequently used in fashion clothing, exploiting their strong designs and sometimes their symbolism. Camouflage themes recur in modern art, and both figuratively and literally in science fiction and works of literature, in ancient Greece, Aristotle commented on the colour-changing abilities, both for camouflage and for signalling, of cephalopods including the octopus, in his Historia animalium, The octopus. Seeks its prey by so changing its colour as to render it like the colour of the adjacent to it, it does so also when alarmed. Camouflage has been a topic of interest and research in zoology for well over a century, the English zoologist Edward Bagnall Poulton studied animal coloration, especially camouflage. In his 1890 book The Colours of Animals, he classified different types such as special protective resemblance and his experiments showed that swallowtailed moth pupae were camouflaged to match the backgrounds on which they were reared as larvae. Among vertebrates numerous species of parrots, iguanas, tree-frogs, beddard did however briefly mention other methods, including the alluring coloration of the flower mantis and the possibility of a different mechanism in the orange tip butterfly. He wrote that the scattered green spots upon the surface of the wings might have been intended for a rough sketch of the small flowerets of the plant. The artist Abbott Handerson Thayer formulated what is sometimes called Thayers Law, Thayer was roundly mocked for these views by critics including Teddy Roosevelt
36.
Kwantung Army
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The Kwantung Army was an army group of the Imperial Japanese Army in the first half of the 20th century. It became the largest and most prestigious command in the IJA, in August 1945, the army group, only around 713,000 men at the time, was defeated by and surrendered to Soviet troops as a result of the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Following the Russo-Japanese War, Japan obtained the Kwantung Leased Territory, Kwantung means east of Shanhaiguan, a guarded pass, east of which lies Manchuria. It was headquartered in Port Arthur, known as Ryojun in Japanese, after a reorganization in 1919, the Kwantung Garrison was renamed the Kwantung Army. They also advocated an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy regarding the Asian mainland. Members or former members of the Kwantung Army were active in numerous coup détat attempts against the civilian government, conspirators within the junior officer corps of the Kwantung Army plotted and carried out the assassination of Manchurian warlord Chang Tsolin in the Huanggutun Incident of 1928. Presented with the fait accompli, Imperial General Headquarters had little choice, the success of the campaign meant that the insubordination of the Kwantung Army was rewarded rather than punished. With the foundation of Manchukuo in 1932, the Kwantung Army played a role in the political administration of the new state as well as in its defense. When war broke out in the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 1937, its forces participated in Battle of Beiping-Tianjin, later, Kwantung forces supported the war in China from time to time. The Kwantung Army was heavily augmented over the few years, up to a strength of 700,000 troops by 1941. The Kwantung Army also oversaw the creation, training, and equipping of an auxiliary force, during this time, Prince Tsuneyoshi Takeda worked as liaison officer between the Imperial house and the Kwantung Army. Although a source of constant unrest during the 1930s, the Kwantung Army remained remarkably obedient during the 1940s. As combat spread south into central China and southern China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, however, as the war situation began to deteriorate for the Imperial Japanese Army on all fronts, the large, well-trained, and well-equipped Kwantung Army could no longer be held in strategic reserve. Many of its front line units were stripped of their best units and equipment. Other units were sent south into China for Operation Ichi-Go, by 1945, the Kwantung Army consisted of a mere 713,000 personnel, divided into 31 infantry divisions, nine infantry brigades, two tank brigades, and one special purpose brigade. It also possessed 1,155 light tanks,5,360 guns, the quality of troops had fallen drastically, as all the best men and materiel were siphoned off for use in other theaters. These forces were replaced by militia, draft levies, reservists, the Kwantung Army had also bacteriological weapons, prepared for use against Soviet troops. The bulk of equipment was developed in the 1930s
37.
Posyet
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Posyet is an urban locality in Khasansky District of Primorsky Krai, Russia, and an ice-free port on the Possiet Bay. It is named after the Russian navigator Konstantin Posyet and it is the oldest settlement in Primorsky Krai. It was established on April 11,1860 as Novgorodsky-Posyet, the name Novgorodsky was given after the bay named by Nikolay Muravyov-Amurskys expedition. Largest enterprise JSC Commercial port of Posyet is owned by Mechel and it is in possession of three 450-meter mooring lines of gravitational type. Posyet has a humid continental climate with warm, humid and stormy summers and cold. Unofficial website of Posyet Great Soviet Encyclopedia
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Headquarters
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Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility for managing all business activities, in the UK, the term head office is most commonly used for the HQs of large corporations. The term is also used regarding military organizations, a headquarters is the entity at the top of a corporation that takes full responsibility for the overall success of the corporation, and ensures corporate governance. Many companies have an office at a different address to their corporate office. A headquarters normally includes the leader of business unit and his or her staff as well as all functions to manage the business unit, the head of the business unit is responsible for overall result of the business unit. Military headquarters take many forms depending on the size and nature of the unit or formation they command, typically, they are split into the forward, main and rear components, both within NATO nations, and those following the organization and doctrine of the former Soviet Union. The forward or tactical HQs is a group of staff. The main HQs is less mobile and is involved in both the planning and execution of operations, there are a number of staff assembled here from various staff branches to advise the commander, and to control the various aspects of planning and the conduct of discrete operations. A main HQ for a large formation will have a chief of staff who coordinates the staff effort, the rear or logistic HQs is some distance from the battle or front line in conventional operations. The headquarters of the Catholic Church is Vatican City, the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church is in Danilov Monastery, Moscow. The World Council of Churches, including Orthodox Churches, has its headquarters in Geneva, the headquarters of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is located in Istanbul, Turkey. The headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Anglican Communion Office is in London. In Japanese budō martial arts such as karate, judo, aikido, kendo, there is usually a headquarters for each organization or region. The Japanese word honbu is generally used for that, also outside Japan, sometimes they refer to this headquarters as honbu dojo in which dojo is a facility provided for practicing discipline, the training ground. Sometimes honbu is written as hombu, the way it is pronounced, but according to the Hepburn transcription, weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army Janes, London,516 pp. Wanner, Herbert Global and regional corporate headquarters in, Kählin, Christian, H. Switzerland Business & Investment Handbook, Orell Füssli and Wiley, Wanner, Herbert, LeClef, Xavier, & Shimizu, Hiroshi Global Headquarters on the Move, From Administrators to Facilitators Prims Second Semester 2004, Arthur D. Little
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Khabarovsk
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The city also became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia in 2002. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, as of the 2010 Census, its population was 577,441. The Russian explorers and raiders of the 1650s set up a number of more or less fortified camps on the Amur, most of them were in use for only a few months, the fort was named after the local tribe whom Khabarovs people called Achans. Already on October 8 the fort was attacked by joint forces of Achans and Duchers. Similar campaign was waged later in winter against the Ducher chief Nechiga, once the ice on the Amur broke in the spring of 1652, Khabarovs people destroyed their fort and sailed away. The exact location of Khabarovs Achansk has long been a subject for the debate among Russian historians, as to the Cape Kyrma ruins, thought by Maack to be the remains of Achansk, B. P. Polevoy identified them as the remains of another ostrog - namely, Kosogorsky Ostrog, after the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the area became an uncontested part of the Qing Empire for the next century and a half. Modern historical maps of the Qing period published in China mark the site of future Khabarovsk as Bólì, all of the middle and lower Amur region was nominally part of the Jilin Province, run first out of Ninguta and later out of Jilin City. French Jesuits who sailed along the Ussury and the Amur in 1709 prepared the first more or less precise map of the region, according to them, the indigenous Nanai people were living on the Ussury and on the Amur down to the mouth of the Dondon River. These people were known to the Chinese as Yupi Dazi, in 1858, the area was ceded to Russia under the Treaty of Aigun. The Russians founded the military outpost of Khabarovka, named after Yerofey Khabarov, the post later became an important industrial center for the region. Town status was granted in 1880, in 1893, it was given its present name, in 1894, a department of Russian Geographical Society was formed in Khabarovsk and to found libraries, theatres and museums in the city. Since then, Khabarovsks cultural life has flourished, the Khabarovsk Art Museum exhibits a rare collection of old Russian icons. In 1916, the Khabarovsk Bridge across the Amur was completed, Chinese Emperor Puyi, captured by Soviet troops in Manchuria, was relocated to Khabarovsk and lived there from 1945 up to 1950, when he was returned to China. On 5 November 1956, the first phase of the city tram was commissioned, the Khabarovsk television studio began broadcasting in 1960. On 1 September 1967, the Khabarovsk Institute of Physical Education, now the Far Eastern State Academy of Physical Culture, on 14 January 1971 Khabarovsk was awarded the Order of October Revolution. In 1975 the first stage of the urban trolley opened, in 1976 the city hosted an international ice hockey tournament with the ball for the prize of the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossia. In 1981 the Bandy World Championship was played in the city, in 1996, Khabarovsk held its first mayoral elections
40.
Rason
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Rason is a North Korean city and ice-free port in the Sea of Japan in the North Pacific Ocean on the northeast tip of North Korea. It is in the Kwanbuk region and location of the Rason Special Economic Zone, in South Korean pronunciation, the initial R of the name is pronounced as N, as per standard Korean phonology. In 2000 the name was shortened from Rajin-Sŏnbong to Rason, during the 1930s, the Japanese called it Rashin, at that time it was an important port at the end of a railroad line. It was liberated by the Red Army on 14 August 1945, before 1991, Rason was used by the Soviet Union as an alternative warm water port in case Vladivostok was unavailable. From 1993 to 2004, it was administered separately from North Hamgyŏng as the Directly Governed City of Rason, prior to 1993 and from 2004 to 2009, the city had been part of the North Hamgyŏng Province. Since 2010, the city is a Special City, again breaking from provincial control and it is unclear what this means in practice. Rason borders Jilin province of China and Khasansky District in Primorsky Krai of Russia, China is making investments in the port as it gives it access to the Sea of Japan. In July 2011, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea gave a light to the Chinas domestic trade cargo to be shipped via its port of Rajin from northeast to east China. Coal is shipped from nearby Chinese mines to Shanghai, there is a casino by the sea which caters to Chinese visitors. Rason is divided into one district and one county, List of Korea-related topics List of cities in North Korea Rajin University of Marine Transport Special cities of Korea Geography of North Korea Dormels, Rainer. North Koreas Cities, Industrial facilities, internal structures and typification
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Japanese Korean Army
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The Japanese Korean Army was an army of the Imperial Japanese Army that formed a garrison force in Korea under Japanese rule. The Korean Army consisted of roughly 350,000 troops in 1914, after the Annexation of Korea by the Empire of Japan in 1910, this force was renamed the Chosen Chusatsugun, and was further renamed the Japanese Korean Army on June 1,1918. The Korean Army also came to the assistance of the Kwantung Army in its invasion of Manchuria in 1931. In 1941, the Army was subordinated to the General Defense Command and its two undermanned infantry divisions were unable to withstand the massive Soviet Red Army armored and amphibious assault on Korea during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. After the surrender of Japan, the Army remained armed under operational command of the United States Army to maintain order until the arrival of substantial Allied forces to take control. Downfall, The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945. The Pacific War Companion, From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, Korea under Japanese rule List of Korea-related topics Armies of the Imperial Japanese Army
Soviet Union
Japan
Manchukuo
