V. M. Molotov, Analysis of the Conditions for Settlement of the Conflict Over the Chinese Eastern Railroad. June 8, 1929

In a speech to a Moscow party conference in September 1929, Molotov portrayed the Chinese seizure of the Chinese Eastern Railway as a planned provocation by “Chinese militarists,” encouraged by foreign imperialist powers. He claimed the USSR held a peaceable, legally grounded position, demanding a return to the 1924 agreements and setting “minimal” negotiating terms, including the appointment of Soviet-nominated railway managers. Yet the message was also coercive. Molotov warned that Soviet restraint was not weakness and that any frontier escalation would meet ruthless force.

Original Source: "Stroitel'stvo sotsializma i protivorechiia rosta;' Izvestiia, No. 217, September 20, 1929, p. 3.

The seizure of the C.E.R. (Chinese Eastern Railway) on July 10 was not only a predatory act, it was a direct provocation of war. Under the obviously invented pretext of a struggle against "communist propaganda," the Chinese militarists tore up the treaty concluded in 1924 between the U.S.S.R. and the government of China. This seizure had long been prepared for. The imperialist powers standing behind Mukden and Nanking had been systematically urging the Chinese authorities to take this step. Now, this predatory raid was effected for the obvious purpose of provoking the U.S.S.R. into a war. The obstinacy displayed thus far by the Mukden-Nanking authorities in this conflict shows that they are being backed up by powerful imperialist forces. . . .

Events, however, have proved that the plans of the war provocateurs have not been realized. The imperialists, after failing to portray the U.S.S.R. as a violator of the peace and an instigator of war, are now trying to characterize the peace-loving attitude of the Soviet Union as the weakness of the soviets. Such an attempt is in itself a provocation of war, albeit of another kind, in connection with the events accompanying the dispute in the Far East. But this ruse of the imperialist powers is also being more and more exposed by events connected with the conflict over the C.E.R., thanks to the firm and consistent position taken by the Soviet government.

The usurpers of the C.E.R., meanwhile, are far from being in a victorious mood. Their difficulties resulting from the conflict are growing every day. The disorganization of the railway and the helplessness of the Chinese administration--railway, civil, and military--to combat the chaos on the C.E.R. grow ever greater. On the other hand, the policy of the Soviet government in the conflict over the C.E.R., by its firm stand on principle, has gained the sympathy not only of the toilers of the Soviet Union itself, but also, to an ever increasing degree, of the toiling masses in other countries. Mukden and Nanking meanwhile are forced to resort to fraudulent maneuvers to conceal their helplessness and vacillation. As you know, Mukden and Nanking have applied several times to the U.S.S.R. with suggestions for negotiations to settle the dispute. The Soviet government has systematically exposed the hypocrisy of these proposals. The Soviet government has agreed to limit itself to the barest minimum of preliminary conditions in order to open a conference to end the dispute. As is known, among these minimum conditions in particular was the stipulation that the manager and deputy manager of the railway proposed by the U.S.S.R. should immediately be appointed, in accordance with the Mukden-Peking agreement before the conflict. The non-controversial character of this condition for the settlement of the conflict by means of agreement is obvious. However, the Mukden-Nanking authorities make promises one day and withdraw them the next, thereby proving, and not for the first time, the dishonesty of their policy. The same two-faced character is likewise apparent in the latest proposal advanced by Nanking for the immediate appointment of deputy managers of the railway by each country a proposal which the Nankinists hope to substitute for their previous agreement to the appointment of a Soviet manager and deputy manager. Needless to say, such "maneuvers" on the part of the Nanking government merely tend to undermine its authority.

It must therefore be pointed out that this policy on the part of Nanking and Mukden does not provide even the most elementary premises for a settlement of the conflict by means of agreement.

The Soviet government therefore firmly adheres to the position it has taken, meaning the demand for minimum conditions for the convocation of a Soviet-Chinese conference to settle the dispute. Our position unmasks each and every war provocateur and at the same time indicates that the U.S.S.R. has met and will meet every attempt at attack with annihilating resistance. Units of the Red Army have already given more than one example of stiff resistance to the attempts of the White bandits and Chinese units to cross our frontier. We will be able to answer the new attempts of the White Guardists in Manchuria and the new attack by the Chinese militarists with appropriate firmness and ruthlessness.

At an earlier time the Soviet government, unlike the imperialists, who hold concessions in China, not only volunteered to administer the railway jointly with the Chinese authorities, but also offered to hand over to the Chinese side half the income of the railway, which belongs to our state, and also took steps to ensure that the workers and employees of the railway should have the same working conditions as railway workers and employees in the U.S.S.R. (an eight-hour working day, protection of labor, the construction of housing accommodations, hospitals, and schools, etc.). Now the Soviet government merely desires the restoration of the treaties voluntarily agreed upon by the U.S.S.R. and China in 1924, which have been criminally violated by the predatory seizure of the railway. This position taken by the U.S.S.R. is entirely in accordance with the interests not only of the workers of our country, but the working class of China and also the interests of the entire international proletariat.

Source: Xenia Joukoff Eudin and Robert M. Slusser, eds., Soviet Foreign Policy, 1928-1934; Documents and Materials (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1967).