Skirmish in the Far East

March 2, 1969: Chinese and Russian troops clash on the Ussuri River

What was the spring of 1969 like in the Soviet Union? A cloud of gloom had descended on the country, enveloping both those who could not see it (or at least thought it had nothing to do with them) and those only too aware of it.

The cloud had formed as a result of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia a half year earlier.

My third-grade school year began in the fall of 1968 with us children being shown the front page of the newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda, with the headline “Fraternal Assistance to the People of Czechoslovakia.” For some reason, after we lent Czechoslovakia that helping hand, imperialists of all stripes began to attack our country with particular fervor. Not as violently as they attacked Vietnam, of course, where things were truly awful. The North Vietnamese embassy was right next to my building, and a giant map and horrifying photographs were displayed in front. The world was becoming an increasingly scary place.

What was the spring of 1969 like in China? Apparently, it was even scarier than for us in the Soviet Union. A new wave of revolution – the Cultural Revolution – had been sweeping the country, with Red Guards – the Hóng Wèibing – plunging the country into chaos. This strange-sounding name, Hóng Wèibing, had even reached my third-grade classroom. But by that spring, the Hóng Wèibing had been crushed, dispersed, and destroyed – some of its leaders had even been publicly executed.

China was far away from my Moscow world, but frightening bits of news from there would reach me from time to time. Then suddenly, in March of 1969, these bits of news that I only vaguely understood turned into a roaring, terrifying flood pouring forth from televisions, radios, and newspapers and became part of our classroom political education – the politinformatsiya reports we were given in class. This torrent of information brought with it a name that had previously been unfamiliar not only to third graders, but to pretty much everyone: Damansky Island.

Just what is Damansky Island? Now I know that it is a tiny speck of land at Russia’s far eastern edge. It sits within the Ussuri River and measures just under two kilometers north to south and approximately six hundred meters west to east.  The island consists of flood meadows that are completely submerged every spring, so it is too wet to actually live on. Nevertheless, border guards were posted there.

And that spring there was a deadly battle over this soggy piece of land.

Before the Great Helmsman Mao turned his back on them, the Red Guard had descended on the island, waving their Little Red Books and trying to break through the barriers put up by the Soviet border guards. After the Red Guard was disbanded, Chinese peasants demonstratively harvested grasses on the island, which the Chinese refer to as Zhenbao (Rare Treasure). After the Soviet border guards drove them off, matters took a more serious turn. In March, clashes broke out between Soviet and Chinese troops. Intermittent battles raged for about two weeks, and a lot of blood was spilled. Today it is believed that 58 people were killed and 94 wounded on the Soviet side, while on the Chinese side there were approximately 300 deaths.

How reliable are these figures? There is cause for skepticism. The Chinese side has still not made its records of the event available, and the Soviet side was known for a tendency to lower casualty figures. Whatever the case may have been, it is clear that many lives were lost. And they were lost over a wisp of land nobody really cared about and that by late March was essentially impossible to defend, because it was under water. Over the summer, all the two sides could do was shoot at one another from across the river.

The significance of these deaths and the question of just how many had perished in the muddy snows along the Ussuri River was beyond the comprehension of my third-grade self. But what was very real for me was the bloodcurdling terror I felt at the time as I wondered whether nuclear war might really break out. How on earth could my young brain have come up with such a thought? Certainly not on its own. It grew out of the fertile ground provided by television broadcasts, newspaper articles, conversations among the grownups in my life, my classroom politinformatsiya lessons, and the photographs I saw of the Chinese Embassy in Moscow, which had been spattered with ink, jars of which outraged Soviet citizens who had “spontaneously” gathered outside the embassy just happened to have with them when they assembled there.

I remember how, that spring, our school had some sort of celebration where the various classes had to dress up as different branches of the military. A procession of “border guards” marched solemnly down the hall with a huge cardboard border marker they had cobbled together. The physical education teacher cheerfully winked at our teacher and said: “They’re going to defend Damansky Island.” We were all appalled – was that really something to joke about?

Now, fifty years later, I know that there are Chinese historians who believe that during the summer of 1969 the Soviet Union was preparing to launch a nuclear attack against China but supposedly backed off when President Nixon threatened a counterstrike against 130 Soviet cities. Most historians do not believe this – I, for one, have no idea whether or not it is true. Could any politicians, even such irresponsible ones as the Soviet leaders, seriously consider starting a nuclear war? Who knows?

In any event, on September 2, North Vietnam’s President Ho Chi Minh died. Chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers, Alexei Kosygin, flew to attend his funeral and on the way back stopped in China. On September 10, Soviet troops received an order to stop shooting. On September 11, at the Beijing Airport (until the Gorbachev era, no Soviet politicians ventured beyond it), Kosygin and Zhou Enlai reached an agreement: armed clashes would halt, troops would remain in their positions, and both sides would stay away from Damansky Island.

Fast forward 22 years. Mao Zedong is long gone, the Soviet Union is undergoing perestroika, and two years have passed since the fatal confrontation between tanks and students on Tiananmen Square and the first Sino-Soviet summit since 1959. Everyone, except perhaps some diplomats and the families of those who died there, have forgotten all about the island. Then, in 1991, the Sino-Soviet Border Agreement is signed, recognizing Zhenbao as part of China.

End of incident. The island went to China. Another 15 years would pass and there would be another border agreement between Russia and China, and certain areas that the people of Khabarovsk and other cities of the Amur region liked to visit suddenly wound up as part of the PRC.

So just what was it that happened in 1969? Is it really true that Soviet intelligence learned of an impending attack? Did the leaders of both tyrannical and aggressive countries with pretensions of world influence really want people to die over some absolutely useless island just because, in the words of a song from a popular movie: “we don’t want even an inch of anyone else’s land, but we won’t give an inch of our own”? Probably China has a similar song, since our two countries are so much alike in their approach to affairs of state – and to human lives.

Today the question of Damansky Island is long forgotten, and now it’s not Chinese nuclear bombs and Little Red Book brandishing Red Guards that people in the Far East and Primorye are afraid of – it’s Chinese guest workers coming to Russia and (who could believe it?!) working much harder than the locals.

I’ll take that fear any day over the one we felt back in the spring of 1969.