Even in North Caucasus, Media Outlets are Preparing Residents for Closer Ties with China

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – Prior to 1991, Soviet propagandists played up ties between the USSR and China when relations were good and tried to ignore them when relations soured. Now, that relations between Moscow and Beijing are warming, Russian writers are again talking about the role of Chinese among them in earlier times.

            In North Ossetia in the north Caucasus, a statue to Chinese workers who joined the Bolsheviks was erected in Soviet times and the square on which it was cited came to be known as the Chinese square. Later officials renamed it, but the population continues to refer to it as Chinese (etokavkaz.ru/istoriya/kitaiskii-sled-vo-vladikavkaze).

            At the end of tsarist times, Chinese workers came to the North Caucasus to work. When the revolution broke out, many of them joined the Bolsheviks serving both there and elsewhere in the former Russian empire. Now, their stories are being revived in the official media, one more way in which residents of Russia are being prepared for a greater and longer Chinese presence.