New | Q&A: The fates of 200,000 Chinese workers in Russia during the first world war
Labourers met tragic ends, some built an Arctic railway or joined the Soviet Red Army - which preceded China's own Communist movement, says author Mark O’Neill
The centenary of the first world war has recast the spotlight on the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who worked for Britain, France, Russia and the United States during the war, supporting their troops after fighting had depleted their own manpower.
Mark O’Neill, a Hong Kong-based journalist and writer, sheds light on their history in his upcoming book, From the Tsar's Railway to the Bolshevik Revolution, set to be published by Penguin Books later this month.
In an interview, O’Neill discussed how these Chinese labourers lived and how many of them fought for the world’s first communist army, the Red Army, years before China’s Communist Party was established.
How many Chinese worked in a Russia and what kind of work did they do there?
The consensus estimate of Chinese scholars is that about 200,000 Chinese worked in Russia during the first world war. They worked all over the country, from Murmansk in the north to the coal mines and factories of the Donetsk basin in Ukraine, in factories in Moscow and St Petersburg, in farms and forests in the Urals and Siberia. They built roads and railways. And some worked near the front, digging trenches and carrying ammunition for the Russian troops.