Russians Living in Harbin Receive Soviet Citizenship

According to a report dated 3 January, by early 1946 Harbin residents had submitted 7,000 applications.

The drive was triggered by a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the restoration of USSR citizenship to the subjects of the former Russian Empire, as well as persons who had lost their Soviet citizenship, residing on the territory of Manchuria."

The document was issued on 10 November, 1945. According to it, those wishing to have their citizenship reinstated were required, no later than by 1 February1946, to submit to the USSR Consulate in Manchuria an application with accompanying documents proving their identity and past citizenship of the former Russian Empire or the USSR.

The enthusiasm with which the Russian diaspora rushed to apply for Soviet citizenship was underscored by Georgy Pavlychev, USSR Consul General in Harbin. Applications submitted between late November and December 1945 were approved by the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Among the Russian Harbinians voluntarily repatriated in the 40s and 50s was poet and translator Valery Pereleshin, poet and prose writer Natalia Spirina, writer, philosopher and historian Vsevolod Ivanov, engineer Lev Gustov, and writer Alfred Haydock.

Some of the Russian emigrants were subjected to reprisals upon returning to their homeland.

Sources:

Oleg Goncharenko "Russian Harbin"

Record of the conversation between Consul General of the USSR in Harbin G.I. Pavlychev with the mayor of Harbin Yang Zuoan on the establishment of friendly relations between the Chinese and Russian populations of Harbin. 30 December 1945

Pereleshin Valery. Memoirs. Russian poetry and literary life in Harbin and Shanghai, 1930-1950

Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the restoration of citizenship of the USSR to the subjects of the former Russian Empire, as well as persons who have lost Soviet citizenship, residing on the territory of Manchuria" dated 10 November 1945