Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)

For the 1969 border conflict, see Sino-Soviet border conflict.
For conflict in 1956–1966, see Sino-Soviet split.
Sino-Soviet conflict (1929)
Part of interwar period

Soviet soldiers with captured Kuomintang banners.
DateJuly – December 1929
Location
Manchuria
Result

Soviet victory

  • Provisions of 1924 agreement upheld; Khabarovsk Protocol signed
  • The Soviet/Russian military occupation over entire Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island until 2004 [2]
Belligerents
 Republic of China
White movement of Russia[1]		  Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Zhang Xueliang Vasily Blyukher
Kliment Voroshilov[3]
Units involved

Northeastern Army

White guerrilla groups

Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army

Soviet Navy and border guard detachments[8]
Strength

c. 200,000[9]

  • 3,000+ White Russians[10]
 c. 113,000 (peak)[6]
Casualties and losses
Official Chinese accounts:
2,000 killed, 1,000 wounded, 8,550 captured[11]
Modern estimate:
c. 5,000 lost[1]		 Official Soviet accounts:
812 killed,[12] 665 wounded, 4 missing[11][13]
Modern estimate:
Far more than officially reported[12]

The Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 (Chinese: 中東路事件, Russian: Конфликт на Китайско-Восточной железной дороге) was an armed conflict between the Soviet Union and the Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang of the Republic of China over the Chinese Eastern Railway (also known as the CER).

The conflict was the first major combat test of the reformed Soviet Red Army, which was organized along the latest professional lines, and ended with the mobilization and deployment of 156,000 troops to the Manchurian border. Combining the active-duty strength of the Red Army and border guards with the call-up of the Far East reserves, approximately one in five Soviet soldiers was sent to the frontier, the largest Red Army combat force to be fielded between the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and the Soviet Union's entry to the Second World War.[14]

In 1929, the Chinese Northeastern Army took over the Chinese Eastern Railway to regain sole control of it. The Soviet Union quickly responded with a military intervention and eventually forced the Chinese to return the railway to the previous format of joint administration.[15] During the conflict, the Soviets gained full control of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island (Chinese: 黑瞎子岛) from China, and its military occupation of the island continued until the 1991 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement, in which Russia agreed to return the western half of the island to China in 2004.[2]

  1. ^ a b c d e Bisher (2005), p. 298.
  2. ^ a b Bruno Maçães (5 May 2016). "Signs and Symbols on the Sino-Russian Border". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 19 December 2020. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  3. ^ Kotkin (2017), p. 30.
  4. ^ Jowett (2017), pp. 63, 64.
  5. ^ "Нечаев Константин Петрович" [Nechaev, Konstantin Petrovich]. Hrono.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Jowett (2017), p. 65.
  7. ^ Jowett (2017), p. 66.
  8. ^ Kotkin (2017), pp. 30–31.
  9. ^ Jowett (2017), p. 62.
  10. ^ Jowett (2017), p. 63.
  11. ^ a b Jowett (2017), p. 76.
  12. ^ a b Kotkin (2017), p. 31.
  13. ^ Krivosheev, G. F. (1997). "Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century". Page 370, Table 111.
  14. ^ Michael M. Walker, The 1929 Sino-Soviet War: The War Nobody Knew (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017), p. 1.
  15. ^ Collective security Archived 2008-07-05 at the Wayback Machine