Harbin residents (former employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway, remigrants from Manchukuo)

Systematic repressions against the “Harbinites”, former employees of the CER and remigrants from Manchukuo, began on September 20, 1937, when an operational order was issued by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Yezhov No. The order reported that the NKVD bodies registered up to 25,000 people, and references were made to Accounting Intelligence and Operational Materials. They stated that “the overwhelming majority of the Harbinites who left for the USSR consist of former white officers, policemen, gendarmes, members of various emigrant spy-fascist organizations, etc.” They are allegedly agents of Japanese intelligence, which for a number of years sent them to the Soviet Union for terrorist, sabotage and espionage activities. The order listed the categories of "Harbinites" who were liquidated or arrested. Among them, among other things, were called members of various organizations (“Christian Union of Young People”, “Russian Student Society”, “Brotherhood of Russian Truth”, “Union of Musketeers” and others), as well as persons who served in foreign firms, owners and co-owners of various enterprises in Harbin.

Those arrested were divided into two categories: those “exposed in sabotage, espionage, terrorist, wrecking and anti-Soviet activities” were sentenced to “shoot”, less active were expected to be imprisoned for a period of 8 to 10 years.