Lenin’s Far Eastern Republic Continues to Cast a Shadow on Russia to This Day

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 5 – The complicated history of the Russian Civil War in the far eastern regions of what had been the Russian Empire and was to become part of Soviet Russia is not well known either in Russia itself or in the West. (For the best general description of this conflict, see John Stephan’s The Russian Far East (Stanford, 1996).)

            But this year, not only because it marks the 100^th anniversary of the demise of this buffer state created between Soviet-controlled Siberia and Japan and the Western allies but also because the short-lived Far Eastern Republic continues to cast a shadow on Russia, this formation is attracting more attention.

            In a new article for the Stoletiye portal, historical journalist Yevgeny Pronin both outlines the complicated history of the and fall of the Far Eastern Republic and mentions three of the four ways in which that long-deceased institution continues to play a role in Russia to this day (stoletie.ru/territoriya_istorii/poslednij_bastion_intervencii_964.htm).

            The first of the two ways that the FER has a continuing impact on Russia, the Stoletiye writer says, is on Russian nomenclature. “The very term ‘Far East,’” he writes, “and its territory in present-day understanding is connected with the formation of the FER.” The names of its component parts have changed, but the outer borders of that region have not.

            The second way he refers to is that the FER was a place where Moscow experimented with policies which it would later extend to the entire country, something that remains true. A year before NEP was introduced by Moscow for Soviet Russia, it was declared in the FER. Today, those who want to try out new policies often choose to try them in the Russian Far East.

            And the third, also mentioned by Pronin, is that the FER was a buffer zone against interventionists and their potential control of what Moscow continued to view as its territory. In the early 1920s, this threat proceeded almost exclusively from Japan; now it comes from the US and perhaps China, making the region a buffer zone once again.

            But there is a fourth shadow of the FER that the writer doesn’t mention but which may ultimately prove more important; and it is this: activists in the region view it as a model for a post-Russia state formation. That was the subject of discussions in Khabarovsk during the 2020 protests (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/07/protesters-in-khabarovsk-now-talking.html).

            And it lies  behind declarations about a future Russian republic in the far east that have been discussed by some regionalists and made explicit by émigré activists this past weekend (facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0kKmTUL9ZKGqedMozf8VqN29gEXqkKC9RKUhELZ8coWPZWSnXwSwHfgq8Rt6mNfRpl&id=100080706771966).