The more intensive development of the Far East and Siberia in comparison with the previous period, the growing geopolitical importance of the region, together with the complication of international relations in the Far East at the beginning of the XX century —all this led to the revival of the activities of the special services of neighboring states with Russia, among which Chinese intelligence took a prominent place. The fight against Chinese intelligence has also developed in the border areas of Western Siberia.

There are no scientific papers dealing with this topic. There are only general works that examine the activities of Russian counterintelligence during the Russo-Japanese War [Pavlov, 1996], the general history of special services [Ronge, 1993] and military intelligence in Russia from ancient times to the era of Nicholas II [Alekseev, 1998]. One exception is the work of the Omsk historian N. V. Grekov [Grekov, 2000], which examines the activities of Russian counterintelligence in Siberia.

Keywords: Chinese intelligence, Chinese diaspora, Chinese migration, Chinese ethnic group, counterintelligence.

Tomsk province was part of Western Siberia. From the south, it was bordered by the Chinese region of Kobdo. It was adjacent to the Steppe General Government, which had a border with China (Troinitsky, 1904). The province conducted an active trade with Mongolia and China. With some frequency, the Tomsk provincial administration sent officials to China to check border signs [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d. 3041, l. 5; d. 4516, l. 7].

Tomsk province had a rather diverse ethnic composition of the population. The Chinese also lived here. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Chinese who lived in Tomsk Province in the 19th century. According to the first general census of the Russian Empire in 1897, 91 Chinese (by place of birth) and 106 Chinese subjects lived in Tomsk Province. Most of them lived in Tomsk, Barnaul, and Biysk districts (Troinitsky, 1904). Temporary foreigners were not included in the census.

Since 1904, there have been reports of arrests of Chinese citizens in the Tomsk province. In March 1904, the military guards of the Siberian Railway detained two Chinese citizens who were on their way to Tomsk to deliver a letter to a compatriot. These Chinese were accused of espionage. There is information about seven Chinese subjects who arrived accompanied by a gendarme non-commissioned officer and escorts from the Taiga station [GATO, f. 104, op. 1, d. 3348, l. 14].

Before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the Chinese were not particularly suspected of espionage activities. In addition, there was no special counterintelligence service in the province.

After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, foreign intelligence agencies began to show interest in the Asian part of Russia, including Siberia. Therefore, in Russia there is a need for a systematic fight against espionage not only in wartime, but also in peacetime. Discussion began on issues related to the creation of proper special services (Grekov, 2000).

Since Japanese intelligence was mainly conducted in Siberia (Grekov, 2000), the Chinese were initially suspected of working for Japanese intelligence. The main interest of Japanese intelligence was the topography of Siberia, especially the border areas with China (the Steppe Region and Tomsk Province). Geographical descriptions and maps of these areas were classified, and therefore the Japanese tried to make their own [Grekov, 2000]. The Japanese managed to create an extensive network of agents in Siberia relatively quickly, since it was easy for them to get lost in the mass of Japanese and Chinese emigrants [Grekov, 2000].

So, in 1911, Japanese Major Izome Rokuro and Captain Misao Kusaka made a trip to Siberia. They visited many Western Siberian cities, including Tomsk. When they were in Tomsk and other Siberian cities, they paid visits to military and civilian authorities, and bought a large number of postcards with views of Siberian cities, geographical maps, terrain plans, and provincial and regional reference books in bookstores [Grekov, 2000].

Prior to the creation of separate regional counterintelligence departments, the fight against espionage was conducted by both military and Interior Ministry agencies. The central organ of Russian intelligence was the Office of the Quartermaster General of the Main Directorate of the General Staff. He was responsible for the headquarters of the military districts. Tomsk province was part of the Omsk Military District. There were intelligence departments in the district headquarters. On the part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Police Department and gendarmerie departments were engaged in the suppression of espionage. Specially trained security agents and gendarmerie agents were used for surveillance only in special cases. In the autumn of 1903, only nine people were registered in the Tomsk Security Department. The police authorities of the Tomsk province were subordinate to the local governors, and the heads of gendarme departments were guided by the instructions of the Police Department and the command of the Gendarme Corps headquarters. The detective departments of the police department were not particularly trusted. They were few in number. In 1908, the Tomsk detective department consisted of eight people, including four policemen (Grekov, 2000).

In 1911, the Irkutsk Counterintelligence Department was established. His activities also extended to the Tomsk province. In 1912, observation agents appeared in Novonikolaevsk and Tomsk (Grekov, 2000).

During 1907, the authorities were alarmed by the appearance of numerous Korean and Chinese merchants, magicians, musicians, and day laborers in the cities of Western Siberia. Since 1910, every visiting Chinese magician or merchant in gendarme reports was awarded the epithet "suspicious" (Grekov, 2000). So, one of the reports of the Tomsk police contains information about the arrest of three subjects of the Chinese Empire who were magicians. They lived in a rented house on Moskovsky trakt. All of them were arrested on suspicion of espionage [GATO, f. 104, op. 1, d. 3348, l. 14].

The Chinese and Japanese were recorded in the gendarme data for the Tomsk province in 1910. According to the information of the head of the Tomsk GZHU, only from April 14 to May 31, 1910, from Tomsk, Irkutsk and Novonikolaevsk, 8 parties of "yellow faces" who could have been involved in espionage passed by rail to Omsk [Grekov, 2000].

The military saw this as a manifestation of the activity not of Chinese, but of Japanese intelligence. They convinced the gendarmes to see every Chinese or Korean as a spy, without being embarrassed by the absurdly large number of foreign agents [the Greeks,

2000]. Initially, we had to settle for random observations of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans.

For example, the case of the Chinese citizen Han-yu, who tried to obtain Russian citizenship in 1906, became well-known in the Tomsk province. Han-yu provided three national passports (at various times) to the Tomsk Provincial Administration. The first passport was issued in the name of a Daitsung citizen, Xu-Lan-Shan. The second one is in the name of Monei-qiu. And the third time, he sent an incomplete passport form. They suspected him of activities involved in secret intelligence. He was secretly monitored. For living under a foreign guise, he was subject to deportation to the Chinese Empire. They couldn't send him out for a long time. On November 3, 1911, he finally left for Chita. But, according to the Military Governor of the Trans-Baikal region, the Chinese citizen Han-yu was not found in Chita [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d. 6625, l. 50].

In early July 1908, seven Chinese arrived in the border town of Zaisan. Having paid a large fee for the goods they brought, they did not trade, but went to the Altai. However, local authorities in Tomsk Province failed to find them (Grekov, 2000). On January 3, 1908, a Chinese man named Zhang Kangyong was arrested in the village of Kosh-Agach. In the last war, he was an interpreter for Colonel Madritov's detachment, and now he was found in the Altai as a person without any specific occupation [Grekov, 2000].

Until 1909, the authorities did not conduct serious work in the field of combating foreign intelligence. The actions of the military and the Interior Ministry were not coordinated. No one was going to specifically follow the Chinese and Japanese. That is why we had to settle for a single piece of information. But that all changed when the threat of a world war loomed. The attitude to the fight against espionage has been revised. All the governors of Western Siberia were asked to establish secret and continuous surveillance of Japanese and Chinese subjects [Grekov, 2000].

An example of the work of the Tomsk and Siberian authorities was the "case of flower growers". It was found that dozens of Korean and Chinese artisans who were engaged in the manufacture and sale of artificial flowers settled in almost all cities of Western Siberia, and most of the flower growers appeared in Omsk and Tomsk in the autumn of 1909 [Grekov, 2000].

After analyzing the settlement of the "flower people", the authorities came to the conclusion that the" yellow faces " sought to settle closer to the line of the Siberian Railway. Therefore, all the governors of Western Siberia were asked to take the strictest measures to ensure that the police did not allow foreigners and persons who aroused even the slightest suspicion that they were involved in espionage to enter the 50-verst lane on both sides of the railway line [Grekov, 2000].

The case of the Chinese citizen Machin also became famous. In 1910, he applied to the Tomsk Provincial Administration for a residence permit. All his documents were authentic. He received a ticket for accommodation. However, on April 6, 1910, Machin was detained during a raid at the station of the Tutalskaya Siberian Railway. It turned out that he lived secretly at this station, hiding in the dugout of the quarry. The very fact of his residence near the Siberian Railway aroused suspicion of his involvement in espionage activities, and in September 1910, Machin was exiled to the Chinese Empire [GATO, f. 3, op. 5, d. 116, l. 14].

In 1910, in the Tomsk province, a search began for persons who lived under someone else's documents. To obtain a residence permit, it was necessary to present a national passport with a visa issued by the Russian consulate or border commissioner. But the Chinese usually provided other people's passports, and passports without translating the first and last names into Russian. All such people were subject to deportation abroad [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d. 6446, l. 12]. On June 1, 1910, the Imperial Russian Vice-Consul in Chifu reported to the Tomsk Provincial Administration that among the Chinese, there was a large number of Chinese citizens.-

the transfer and resale of passports, as well as the residence of Chinese people under foreign types are ticked [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d. 6446, l. 11].

On December 28, 1909, the Tomsk Provincial Administration received a request from a Chinese citizen, Ma-yu, to become a Russian citizen. He lived in Barnaul. The petition was not considered. It turned out that there were not enough stamp stamps, a metric birth certificate, a national passport and a Russian passport, according to which he lives within the Russian Empire. Ma-yu did not submit the necessary documents, but in April 1910 he submitted a new application for admission to Russian citizenship. At the same time, he no longer lived in Barnaul, but in Biysk. In June of the same year, he submitted the documents. Since there was no translation of the passport holder's first and last name into Russian, the national passport was sent for verification to the Imperial Russian Vice-Consulate in Chifu. My fears were confirmed. The passport was issued in the name of a Chinese man named Ho-shan-zuo. Since this Chinese man may have been involved in secret intelligence, the Police Department issued an order to expel him abroad. On September 4, 1910, he received a pass to leave Russia for the Chinese Empire and on November 11 left Biysk for Novonikolaevsk [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d. 644, l. 31].

In May 1910, Chinese citizens Ning-hai and Chang-fa, who lived in Tomsk, presented their national passports and applied for Russian tickets. The Russian Vice-Consulate in Chifu requested information about the authenticity of the passports. It turned out that the passports presented by the Chinese Ning-hai and Chang-fa were issued in the names of the Chinese Liu-ching-he and Mu-tzu-li. All of them had to be sent abroad. On August 15, 1910, they left Tomsk for Irkutsk with issued passes. Ning-hai reached Irkutsk, received a passport from his friend, a Chinese citizen Che-o-hung, issued by the Irkutsk governorate,and returned to Tomsk. For unauthorized return to Russia and living under a foreign guise, he was put in prison [GATO, f. 3, op. 5, d. 162, l. 18].

In May of the same year, Li-fa, a Chinese citizen, applied to the Tomsk Provincial Administration for a Russian ticket, presenting a national passport without translating the owner's first and last name into Russian. At the same time, he presented an old ticket, where the age was forged in ink. In addition, it did not correspond to the signs indicated in the ticket. In the passport itself, neither the name, title, surname, or age of the passport holder was indicated. On August 30, he left for Krasnoyarsk [GATO, f. 3, op. 5, d. 162, l. 22].

In July 1910, Li-ha, a Chinese citizen living in Tomsk, applied to the Tomsk Provincial Administration for a Russian ticket. It turned out that the passport was issued in the name of Ma-wei-ki. He was suspected of involvement in secret intelligence [GATO, f. 3, op. 5, d. 151, l. 17].

The activities of counterintelligence agencies were hampered by the lack of specialists with knowledge of Eastern languages. In 1909, the question was raised about the establishment of a Chinese language translator position at the Tomsk Provincial Administration. It was established only in 1915 [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d. 6543a, l. 45]. All this made it extremely difficult to work. Even to establish the authenticity of the national passport, it was necessary to resort to the services of border commissioners and consulates.

There were also difficulties with the Japanese language. On September 4, 1910, Tsoiken-se-ki, a Japanese citizen, asked for a Russian ticket. On September 22, 1910, the Vice-governor of Tomsk Province asked the border commissar to indicate in whose name and for how long a national passport was issued to a Japanese citizen Tsoi-ken-se-ki. The Border Commissioner replied that he did not have a Japanese translator at his disposal [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d.6599, l. 3].

Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs themselves often confused the names of Chinese people. In August 1910, the police Department reported to the Tomsk Governor that in January 1910, a Chinese citizen, Mo-yu, was detained in Blagoveshchensk for armed robbery. If it turns out that

If my mother and I are one and the same person, the named foreigner should be transferred to the military governor of the Amur Region by stage [GATO, f. 3, op. 2, d.6446, l. 19].

In the autumn of 1912, the work of Chinese agents was revived. The misconception about the passivity of Chinese intelligence has become obvious due to the weakening of the central government in China itself. On the contrary, due to the growing separatist sentiment in Xinjiang and Mongolia, Chinese President Yuan Shikai, who needed reliable information, began to periodically send his officers to collect information about Russian troops located on the border with Mongolia, in the Altai, and also in Tarbagatai (Grekov, 2000).

From the end of 1912, Yuan Shikai's attention was distracted by the struggle against the Kuomintang and the preparation of a campaign against the Republican south of China. So he stopped sending his spies to Siberia. But on the other hand, without instructions from Beijing, on their own initiative, the governors of the northern provinces of China continued their intelligence in Russia. They sent mostly officers and officials who were personally loyal to them to Siberia (Grekov, 2000).

Not all Chinese were spies. The "risk group" included both people who were really engaged in intelligence in Russia, and who had nothing to do with espionage.

So, we know the case of a Chinese citizen Chen-yun-zhe, who lived in Barnaul. In May 1910, he applied to the Tomsk Provincial Administration for a certificate of residence within the Russian Empire. The Chinese lived in Tomsk province for more than 15 years. He was engaged in a small trade. Before (at home) he was a turner. While living in Barnaul, Cheng-yun converted to Orthodoxy and married a peasant woman named Elizaveta Borisova (Kalashnikova). In order to obtain a certificate of placement, he submitted a national passport. But it turned out that the passport was issued in the name of another Chinese. That is why a Chinese citizen was subject to deportation abroad. Nevertheless, he obtained a new residence permit from the Main Railway Diplomatic Bureau of Heilongjiang Province, which he presented to a Foreign Ministry official in Hailar in December 1910. Apparently unaware of the consequences that might occur after an unauthorized return to the borders of the Russian Empire, he appeared with this view in the Tomsk provincial administration with a request for the issuance of a Russian ticket. At the same time, Cheng-yun also presented the pass issued to him as being sent out. Brought to the investigation for unauthorized return to Russia, the Chinese did not hide, but went to his wife in Barnaul. But in 1911 he was arrested in Barnaul and was held in custody in the Tomsk provincial prison castle. With the assistance of his wife, Chen-yun-se was released in 1912 and received documents on his establishment within the Russian Empire [GATO, f. 3, op. 5, d. 144, l. 121].

Everything changed in 1914, when the war broke out. Now the number of suspects was determined not by the presence of incriminating information,but by nationality. That is why all the Chinese who were on the territory of the empire were considered suspicious [Grekov, 2000].

Usually, the Chinese were considered likely agents of Japanese intelligence, but with the outbreak of war, this was not the case. Now it was assumed that the Chinese could also be agents of Germany. The gendarmerie and the police were obliged to establish a thorough surveillance of the Chinese in order to find out their true occupation (Grekov, 2000).

Therefore, everyone was suspected. For example, on August 2, 1914, the Tomsk Provincial Administration received a petition from a Chinese merchant, Han-te-jun, who lived in Tomsk. He came to the Tomsk province with his employees to sell silk, scabies and other goods and stopped in Novonikolaevsk,where his employees went home to trade. In August, its workers are Ha-dae-hya, Joo-kyu-soo

and Jo-joo-hoe was arrested along with the goods. At the time of his arrest, Han-dae-jun was traveling to Moscow to buy goods. He reported that in Novonikolaevsk he has eight more employees who sell his goods. He asked to review the case and release them, as they were not seen in anything suspicious. They were arrested at a Siberian Railway junction near the Taiga station [GATO, f. 3, on. 70, d. 1176, l. 72].

There were many suspicious Chinese people in Russia. So, only on October 25, 1914. The Tomsk Provincial Administration received from the Police Department a list of wanted Chinese from 133 people who were banned from entering the empire [GATO, f. 3, on. 70, d. 2466, l. 51].

This fact is interesting. On December 18, 1914, the Tomsk governor received a copy of the Police Department's report. In it, the chief commander of the Odessa Military District and the Governor-General, guided by the rules on areas declared under martial law, decided to send Chinese subjects: Qio-Zhi-Yoyin, Shen-Dai-Yuan, Chen-Sun-Liang and Qiu-Zu-Zhai to Tomsk province for the duration of the Odessa city administration's stay on the territory of the Russian Federation. military situation in view of their danger, expressed in the occupation of espionage [GATO, f. 3, op. 70, d. 1710, l. 1; d. 1711, l. 1].

So why send Chinese spies to Tomsk Province? The fact is that the most common form of combating espionage has become the administrative expulsion of suspects. By a decree of July 20, 1914, the western provinces of Russia were under martial law, so the chief governors of the provinces were given the right to expel all unreliable people to the inner regions of the empire [Grekov, 2000].

The details were not thought out in advance: where, in fact, should the unreliable be sent? St. Petersburg regarded Siberia as one large prison cell and found it convenient to place exiles in almost all its nooks and crannies. Initially, they were exiled to the Tomsk province (Grekov, 2000).

In Siberia, the possibility of the Chinese working for Germany did not cause the slightest doubt on the part of the authorities. This hypothesis was accepted easily and immediately. The most energetic measures to expel the Chinese from the country were taken by the civil authorities of Western Siberia (Grekov, 2000). Thus, the Tomsk governor demanded that the gendarmes and police take the most energetic measures to expel all Chinese people from the Tomsk province without exception (Grekov, 2000).

However, such suspicions apparently disappeared at the end of the war. So, in 1916, three Chinese citizens who came to work received residence permits in Blagoveshchensk Lane and Tatarskaya Street in Tomsk. In 1917, 10 Chinese people between the ages of 20 and 50 were granted a residence permit in Tomsk. They lived on the streets of Mukhinskaya, Lermontovskaya, Nikolskaya, engaged in trade and small crafts. Some of them had previously lived in other Siberian cities [GATO, f. 104, op. 1, d. 4038, l. 2].

Chinese intelligence in the Tomsk province was carried out in different ways. First, it was indeed conducted by the Chinese intelligence agencies. The main methods of such intelligence were diplomatic missions and military trips. A lot of material was collected by travelers. Secondly, Chinese subjects who lived in the territory of Tomsk province were engaged in intelligence. They aroused suspicion of espionage among the military and the Interior Ministry. Such suspicions were often associated with espionage mania. Not all Chinese subjects were scouts. The question of the scale of Chinese intelligence in Tomsk Province remains open. But it is worth noting that after 1910, there were many Chinese subjects in Tomsk province. At the same time, in 1914, the Chinese, who were suspected of espionage activities, began to be exiled to the Tomsk province. The activities of the military and the Interior Ministry in the field of combating Chinese intelligence are also ambiguous. Until 1909, specifically monitor the Chinese

no one was going to be a subject. Therefore, I had to be content with fragmentary information. At the same time, the Chinese were considered as possible agents of Japanese intelligence. In 1909, attitudes toward foreign intelligence changed. The work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has intensified, counterintelligence agencies have appeared. It was at this time that the presence of Chinese intelligence was revealed. In 1914, all Chinese living in the territory of the empire were included in the list of "suspicious". They were suspected of working for German intelligence. However, attitudes towards the Chinese changed in 1916. And many of the Chinese citizens received a residence permit in the Tomsk province.

list of literature

Alekseev M. N. Military intelligence of Russia from Rurik to Nicholas II. Book II. Moscow, 1998.

State Archive of the Tomsk Region (GATO).

Grekov N. V. Russkaya kontrrazvedka v 1905-1917 gg.: shpionomaniya i real'nye problemy [Russian counterintelligence in 1905-1917: spy Mania and Real Problems]. http://militcra.lib.ru/rcscarch/grckov/indcx.html (accessed: 1.10.2012).

Pavlov D. B. Rossiyskaya kontrrazvedka v gody Russko-yaponskoy voyny [Russian counterintelligence during the Russo-Japanese War]. Otechestvennaya istoriya, Moscow, 1996.

Rongs M. Intelligence and counterintelligence. Kiev, 1993.

Troinitsky N. A. The first General Population census of the Russian Empire, 1897 Vol. LXXIX. Tomsk Province, St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 1904. 280 p. / Scientific Library of Tomsk State University URL: http://sun.tsu.ru/mminfo/000180712/000180712.djvu (accessed: 5.10.2012).

Permanent link to this publication: