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A view from China on Soviet aid during World War II:
the case of the 88th rifle brigade of the Far Eastern front

Zuenko I.Yu.,

MGIMO University, Moscow, Russia, i.zuenko@inno.mgimo.ru

elibrary_id: 802840 | ORCID: 0000-0002-9853-9703 | RESEARCHER_ID: AAB-5070-2020

Article received: 2025.02.11 20:49. Accepted: 2025.03.12 20:49


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2025.04.13
EDN: LHERCI

Rubric: History recent and remote

For citation:

Zuenko I.Yu. A view from China on Soviet aid during World War II: the case of the 88th rifle brigade of the Far Eastern front. – Polis. Political Studies. 2025. No. 4. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2025.04.13. EDN: LHERCI (In Russ.)

The article was prepared within the framework of a research project under the grant of the Russian Science Foundation No. 23-18-00109.

Abstract

The article examines the perception in China of cooperation with the Soviet Union during World War II (including the defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army and the liberation of Manchuria in August-September 1945) in the context of the policy of historical memory (as understood by Assmann and Halbwachs). As a case for examining the historical memory of these events taking shape in China, the reflection in Chinese sources of the history of the 88th Separate Rifle Brigade of the Far Eastern Front is used – a Soviet military unit in which there were Chinese and Korean partisans forced to retreat to the territory of the USSR from Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The author shows that due to Beijing’s desire to emphasize its own efforts to liberate China, contradictions arise in the assessment of the history of this unit in the two countries. A direct manifestation of these contradictions was the delay in the opening of a memorial complex in honor of the 88th Brigade in the Vyatskoye village (Khabarovsk Krai), due to the Chinese side using formulations that contradict the Russian position. The author comes to the conclusion that the peculiarities of the development of nationalist sentiments in modern China and the policy of historical memory about the contribution of the PRC to the victory of the Allies significantly alter, if not limit, the prospects for using the memory of the history of Soviet aid in the 1940s to strengthen relations between the two countries.

 

Keywords

China, historical memory, World War II, Manchurian operation, 88th brigade.

Дополнительные материалы

Приложение

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