Reclaimed

Mother Russia clucked to her long-outcast brood in China. Thousands of White Russians, who have been stateless and scattered from Shanghai to Sinkiang since the Red Revolution, were suddenly offered Soviet citizenship. To return to the maternal wing, they had only to apply at the nearest Russian consulate, pay an 11-ruble fee, submit passport photos, answer a few routine questions.

After three decades, it was almost unbelievable. In Shanghai, haven of some 20,000 White Russians, they queued up, 500 to 600 daily, at the big grey Soviet Consulate. The would-be comrades included czarist dukes, countesses, generals. Half earnest, half jesting, they quavered: "Will they send us to concentration camps?" One woman asked another: "Is it very frightful?" Then, crossing herself, she filled out her questionnaire.

The Dreamland. For Shanghai's emigres, it was truly an era's end. Penniless and wretched, they had come down from Siberia and Manchuria. In what was then the French Concession and International Settlement they had set up a bit of old Russia, full of hate for the new Russia. Blue-blooded officers became janitors and doormen, ex-millionaires turned waiters, titled ladies opened delicatessens, hairdressing salons and apparel shops like Avenue Joffre's "Madame Fanny Corsets."

Now the emigres listened longingly to Mother Russia's call. Somehow the gulf between Tsar and Commissar seemed not so vast any more. The years had made them more Russian than White, their children more Red than White. The homeland had mellowed, too. To prove it, Shanghai's Soviet consul general, hulking Nicholas S. Ananiev, gave a reception for emigre clergymen, showed them pictures of the election in Moscow of Metropolitan Alexei as Patriarch of all Russia.

Why did Mother Russia, who always knows best, want them back? Many of the reclaimed believed that they would be resettled in Manchuria, where the Commissars now had a stake as big as that of the Tsars. Explained a Soviet newspaperwoman in Shanghai: "Manchuria is the dreamland for every Russian who has been there. The climate is good. There is work--where the railways are there will always be work, hospitals and universities. I think many will go to Manchuria. That would go very well with our Sino-Russian cultural relations, don't you think?"

The Market. The exact shape of the new Sino-Russian relations in Manchuria were still not clear. Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, at a notable press interview (see above), admitted that in "informal" talks the Russians had asked the Chinese Government for additional economic concessions in Manchuria.

By last August's treaty between Chungking and Moscow, Russia acquired a 30-year partnership in the main Manchurian railways, a joint naval base at Port Arthur and a free port at Dairen. Last week the Russians were said to be asking for a share in operating Manchurian mines, heavy industry and telephone lines. For the new Soviet citizens from Shanghai, the prospects indeed looked rosy.

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