Soviet-Chinese border conflict on Damansky Island - armed clashes between the USSR and the PRC on March 2 and 15, 1969 in the area of Damansky Island (Chinese. 珍宝 , Zhenbao - “Precious”) on the Ussuri River 230 km south of Khabarovsk and 35 km west of the regional center Luchegorsk (46°29′08″s. w. 133°50′ 40″ V. d. (G) (O)). The largest Soviet-Chinese armed conflict in the modern history of Russia and China.
Background and causes of the conflict
After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, a provision emerged that borders between states should, as a rule (but not necessarily), run along the middle of the main channel of the river. But it also provided for exceptions, such as drawing a border along one of the banks, when such a border was formed historically - by treaty, or if one side colonized the second bank before the other began to colonize it. In addition, international treaties and agreements do not have retroactive effect. However, in the late 1950s, when the PRC, seeking to increase its international influence, entered into conflict with Taiwan (1958) and participated in the border war with India (1962), the Chinese used the new border regulations as a reason to revise the Soviet Chinese border. The leadership of the USSR was ready to do this; in 1964, a consultation was held on border issues, but it ended without results. Due to ideological differences during the Cultural Revolution in China and after the Prague Spring of 1968, when the PRC authorities declared that the USSR had taken the path of “socialist imperialism,” relations became particularly strained. The island issue was presented to the Chinese side as a symbol of Soviet revisionism and social-imperialism.
Damansky Island, which was part of the Pozharsky district of Primorsky Krai, is located on the Chinese side of the main channel of the Ussuri. Its dimensions are 1500–1800 m from north to south and 600–700 m from west to east (area about 0.74 km²). During flood periods, the island is completely hidden under water. However, there are several brick buildings on the island. And water meadows are a valuable natural resource.
Since the early 1960s, the situation in the island area has been heating up. According to statements from the Soviet side, groups of civilians and military personnel began to systematically violate the border regime and enter Soviet territory, from where they were expelled each time by border guards without the use of weapons. At first, at the direction of the Chinese authorities, peasants entered the territory of the USSR and demonstratively engaged in economic activities there: mowing and grazing livestock, declaring that they were on Chinese territory. The number of such provocations increased sharply: in 1960 there were 100, in 1962 - more than 5,000. Then Red Guards began to carry out attacks on border patrols. Such events numbered in the thousands, each of them involving up to several hundred people. On January 4, 1969, a Chinese provocation was carried out on Kirkinsky Island (Qiliqindao) with the participation of 500 people.
Hero of the Soviet Union Yuri Babansky, who served at the border outpost during the year of the conflict, recalled: “... in February he unexpectedly received an appointment to the post of commander of the outpost department, the head of which was Senior Lieutenant Strelnikov. I arrive at the outpost, and there is no one there except the cook. “Everyone,” he says, “is on the shore, fighting with the Chinese.” Of course, I have a machine gun on my shoulder - and to Ussuri. And there really is a fight. Chinese border guards crossed the Ussuri on the ice and invaded our territory. So Strelnikov raised the outpost “at gunpoint.” Our guys were taller and healthier. But the Chinese are not born with bast - they are dexterous, evasive; They don’t climb on their fists, they try in every possible way to dodge our blows. By the time everyone was thrashed, an hour and a half had passed. But without a single shot. Only in the face. Even then I thought: “A cheerful outpost.”
According to the Chinese version of events, Soviet border guards themselves “arranged” provocations and beat up Chinese citizens engaged in economic activities where they always did. During the Kirkinsky incident, Soviet border guards used armored personnel carriers to force out civilians, and on February 7, 1969, they fired several single machine gun shots in the direction of the Chinese border detachment.
However, it was repeatedly noted that none of these clashes, no matter whose fault it occurred, could result in a serious armed conflict without the approval of the authorities. The assertion that the events around Damansky Island on March 2 and 15 were the result of an action carefully planned by the Chinese side is now the most widespread; including directly or indirectly recognized by many Chinese historians. For example, Li Danhui writes that in 1968-1969 the response to “Soviet provocations” was limited by the directives of the CPC Central Committee; only on January 25, 1969, it was allowed to plan “response military actions” near Damansky Island with the forces of three companies. On February 19, the General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China agreed to this. There is a version according to which the leadership of the USSR was aware in advance through Marshal Lin Biao of the upcoming Chinese action, which resulted in a conflict.
In a US State Department intelligence bulletin dated July 13, 1969: “Chinese propaganda emphasized the need for internal unity and encouraged the population to prepare for war. It can be considered that the incidents were staged solely to strengthen domestic politics.”
Former KGB resident in China Yu. I. Drozdov argued that intelligence promptly (even under Khrushchev) and very fully warned the Soviet leadership about the impending armed provocation in the Damansky area.
Chronology of events
On the night of March 1-2, 1969, about 77 Chinese troops in winter camouflage, armed with SKS carbines and (partially) Kalashnikov assault rifles, crossed to Damansky and lay down on the higher western shore of the island.
The group remained unnoticed until 10:20, when the 2nd outpost “Nizhne-Mikhailovka” of the 57th Iman border detachment received a report from the observation post that a group of armed people of up to 30 people was moving in the direction of Damansky. 32 Soviet border guards, including the head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Strelnikov, went to the scene of events in GAZ-69 and GAZ-63 vehicles and one BTR-60PB (No. 04). At 10:40 they arrived at the southern tip of the island. The border guards under the command of Strelnikov were divided into two groups. The first group, under the command of Strelnikov, headed towards a group of Chinese military personnel standing on the ice southwest of the island. The second group, under the command of Sergeant Vladimir Rabovich, was supposed to cover Strelnikov’s group from the southern coast of the island, cutting off a group of Chinese military personnel (about 20 people) heading deeper into the island.
At about 10:45 Strelnikov protested about the border violation and demanded that the Chinese military personnel leave the territory of the USSR. One of the Chinese servicemen raised his hand up, which served as a signal for the Chinese side to open fire on the groups of Strelnikov and Rabovich. The moment the armed provocation began was captured on film by military photojournalist Private Nikolai Petrov. At this point, Rabovich’s group came to an ambush on the shore of the island, and small arms fire was opened on the border guards. Strelnikov and the border guards who followed him (7 people) died, the bodies of the border guards were severely mutilated by the Chinese military personnel, and in the short-lived battle, the squad of border guards under the command of Sergeant Rabovich (11 people) was almost completely killed - private Gennady Serebrov and Corporal Pavel Akulov survived, later captured in an unconscious state. Akulov's body, with numerous signs of torture, was handed over to the Soviet side on April 17, 1969.
Having received a report of shooting on the island, the head of the neighboring 1st outpost “Kulebyakiny Sopki”, senior lieutenant Vitaly Bubenin, went to the BTR-60PB (No. 01) and GAZ-69 with 23 soldiers to help. Upon arrival at the island at 11:30, Bubenin took up defense together with Babansky’s group and 2 armored personnel carriers. The firefight lasted about 30 minutes, the Chinese began shelling the border guards' combat formations with mortars. During the battle, the heavy machine gun on Bubenin’s armored personnel carrier failed, as a result of which it was necessary to return to its original position to replace it. After that, he decided to send his armored personnel carrier to the rear of the Chinese, skirting the northern tip of the island on the ice, going out along the Ussuri channel to the Chinese infantry company moving towards the island, and began firing at it, destroying the company on the ice. But soon the armored personnel carrier was hit, and Bubenin decided to go out with his soldiers to the Soviet coast. Having reached the armored personnel carrier No. 04 of the deceased Strelnikov and transferred to it, Bubenin’s group moved along the Chinese positions and destroyed their command post, but the armored personnel carrier was hit while trying to pick up the wounded. The Chinese continued to attack the combat positions of the Soviet border guards near the island. Residents of the village of Nizhnemikhailovka and servicemen of the automobile battalion of military unit 12370 assisted the border guards in evacuating the wounded and transporting ammunition.
Junior Sergeant Yuri Babansky took command of the surviving border guards, whose squad managed to covertly disperse around the island due to a delay in moving from the outpost and, together with the crew of the armored personnel carrier, took up fire.
“After 20 minutes of battle,” Babansky recalled, “out of 12 guys, eight remained alive, and after another 15, five. Of course, it was still possible to retreat, return to the outpost, and wait for reinforcements from the detachment. But we were seized with such fierce anger at these bastards that in those moments we wanted only one thing - to kill as many of them as possible. For the guys, for ourselves, for this inch that no one needs, but still our land.”
Around 13:00 the Chinese began to retreat.
In the battle on March 2, 31 Soviet border guards were killed and 14 were injured. The losses of the Chinese side (according to the assessment of the USSR KGB commission chaired by Colonel General N.S. Zakharov) amounted to 39 people killed.
At about 13:20, a helicopter arrived at Damansky with the command of the Iman border detachment and its chief, Colonel D.V. Leonov, and reinforcements from neighboring outposts, the reserves of the Pacific and Far Eastern border districts were involved. Reinforced squads of border guards were deployed to Damansky, and the 135th Motorized Rifle Division of the Soviet Army with artillery and installations of the BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system was deployed in the rear. On the Chinese side, the 24th Infantry Regiment, numbering 5 thousand people, was preparing for combat.
On March 4, the Chinese newspapers People's Daily and Jiefangjun Bao (解放军报) published an editorial “Down with the new kings!”, blaming the incident on the Soviet troops, who, according to the author of the article, “were driven by a clique of renegade revisionists, "brazenly invaded Zhenbaodao Island on the Wusulijiang River in Heilongjiang Province of our country, opened rifle and cannon fire on the border guards of the People's Liberation Army of China, killing and wounding many of them." On the same day, the Soviet newspaper Pravda published an article “Shame on the provocateurs!” According to the author of the article, “an armed Chinese detachment crossed the Soviet state border and headed towards Damansky Island. Fire was suddenly opened on the Soviet border guards guarding this area from the Chinese side. There are dead and wounded."
On March 7, the Chinese Embassy in Moscow was picketed. Demonstrators also threw ink bottles at the building.
On March 14 at 15:00 an order was received to remove border guard units from the island. Immediately after the withdrawal of the Soviet border guards, Chinese soldiers began to occupy the island. In response to this, 8 armored personnel carriers under the command of the head of the motorized maneuver group of the 57th border detachment, Lieutenant Colonel E. I. Yanshin, moved in battle formation towards Damansky. The Chinese retreated to their shore.
At 20:00 on March 14, the border guards received an order to occupy the island. That same night, Yanshin’s group of 60 people in 4 armored personnel carriers dug in there. On the morning of March 15, after broadcasting through loudspeakers on both sides, at 10:00 from 30 to 60 Chinese artillery and mortars began shelling Soviet positions, and 3 companies of Chinese infantry went on the offensive. A fight ensued.
Between 400 and 500 Chinese soldiers took up positions near the southern part of the island and prepared to move behind Yangshin's rear. Two armored personnel carriers of his group were hit, and communication was damaged. Four T-62 tanks under the command of the head of the 57th border detachment, Colonel D. V. Leonov, attacked the Chinese at the southern tip of the island, but Leonov’s tank was hit (according to different versions, by a shot from an RPG-2 grenade launcher or was blown up by an anti-tank mine), and he Leonov was killed by a Chinese sniper while trying to leave a burning car. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Leonov did not know the island and, as a result, Soviet tanks came too close to the Chinese positions, but at the cost of losses they did not allow the Chinese to reach the island.
Two hours later, having used up their ammunition, the Soviet border guards were nevertheless forced to withdraw from the island. It became clear that the forces brought into the battle were not enough, and the Chinese significantly outnumbered the border guard detachments. At 17:00, in a critical situation, in violation of the instructions of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee not to introduce Soviet troops into the conflict, by order of the commander of the Far Eastern Military District, Colonel General O. A. Losik, fire was opened from the then secret multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) ) "Grad". The shells destroyed most of the material and technical resources of the Chinese group and military, including reinforcements, mortars, and stacks of shells. At 17:10, motorized riflemen of the 2nd motorized rifle battalion of the 199th motorized rifle regiment and border guards under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Smirnov and Lieutenant Colonel Konstantinov went on the attack in order to finally suppress the resistance of the Chinese troops. The Chinese began to retreat from their occupied positions. At about 19:00 several firing points came to life, after which three new attacks were launched, but they were repulsed.
Soviet troops again retreated to their shores, and the Chinese side no longer took large-scale hostile actions on this section of the state border.
The direct leadership of the units of the Soviet Army that took part in this conflict was carried out by the first deputy commander of the Far Eastern Military District, Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General P. M. Plotnikov
Settlement and aftermath
In total, during the clashes, Soviet troops lost 58 people killed or died from wounds (including 4 officers), 94 people were wounded (including 9 officers). The irretrievable losses of the Chinese side are still classified information and, according to various estimates, range from 100 to 300 people. In Baoqing County there is a memorial cemetery where the remains of 68 Chinese soldiers who died on March 2 and 15, 1969 are located. Information received from a Chinese defector suggests that other burials exist.
For their heroism, five servicemen received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union: Colonel D.V. Leonov (posthumously), Senior Lieutenant I. Strelnikov (posthumously), Junior Sergeant V. Orekhov (posthumously), Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin, Junior Sergeant Yu. Babansky . Many border guards and military personnel of the Soviet Army were awarded state awards: 3 - Orders of Lenin, 10 - Orders of the Red Banner, 31 - Orders of the Red Star, 10 - Orders of Glory III degree, 63 - medals "For Courage", 31 - medals "For Military Merit" .
Soviet soldiers were unable to return the damaged T-62, tail number 545, due to constant Chinese shelling. An attempt to destroy it with mortars was unsuccessful, and the tank fell through the ice. Subsequently, the Chinese were able to pull it to their shores, and now it stands in the Beijing military museum.
After the ice melted, the Soviet border guards' exit to Damansky turned out to be difficult, and Chinese attempts to seize it had to be thwarted by sniper and machine-gun fire. On September 10, 1969, a ceasefire was ordered, apparently to create a favorable background for the negotiations that began the next day at Beijing airport. Immediately, the islands of Damansky and Kirkinsky were occupied by Chinese armed forces.
On September 11 in Beijing, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR A.N. Kosygin, who was returning from the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, and Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai agreed to stop hostile actions and that the troops would remain in their occupied positions. In fact, this meant the transfer of Damansky to China.
On October 20, 1969, new negotiations between the heads of government of the USSR and the PRC were held, and an agreement was reached on the need to revise the Soviet-Chinese border. Then a series of negotiations were held in Beijing and Moscow, and in 1991, Damansky Island finally went to the PRC (de facto it was transferred to China at the end of 1969).
In 2001, photographs of the discovered bodies of Soviet soldiers from the archives of the KGB of the USSR, indicating facts of abuse by the Chinese side, were declassified, the materials were transferred to the museum of the city of Dalnerechensk.
Literature
Bubenin Vitaly. Bloody snow of Damansky. Events of 1966–1969 - M.; Zhukovsky: Border; Kuchkovo field, 2004. - 192 p. - ISBN 5-86090-086-4.
Lavrenov S. Ya., Popov I. M. Soviet-Chinese split // Soviet Union in local wars and conflicts. - M.: Astrel, 2003. - P. 336-369. - 778 p. - (Military History Library). - 5 thousand, copies. - ISBN 5–271–05709–7.
Musalov Andrey. Damansky and Zhalanashkol. Soviet-Chinese armed conflict of 1969. - M.: Eksprint, 2005. - ISBN 5-94038-072-7.
Dzerzhintsy. Compiled by A. Sadykov. Publishing house "Kazakhstan". Alma-Ata, 1975
Morozov V. Damansky - 1969 (Russian) // magazine “Equipment and weapons yesterday, today, tomorrow.” - 2015. - No. 1. - P. 7-14.
The Soviet leadership failed to take advantage of Khrushchev's removal to normalize relations with China. On the contrary, under Brezhnev they worsened even more. The blame for this falls on both sides - from the second half of 1966, the Chinese leadership, led by Mao Zedong, organized a number of provocations on transport and the Soviet-Chinese border. Claiming that this border was forcibly established by the Russian tsarist government, it laid claim to several thousand square kilometers of Soviet territory. The situation was especially acute on the river border along the Amur and Ussuri, where over a hundred years after the signing of the border treaty, the river fairway changed, some islands disappeared, others moved closer to the opposite bank.
Bloody events took place in March 1969 on Damansky Island on the river. Ussuri, where the Chinese fired on the Soviet border guard, killing several people. Large Chinese forces landed on the island, well prepared for combat. Attempts to restore the situation with the help of Soviet motorized rifle units were unsuccessful. Then the Soviet command used the Grad multiple launch rocket system. The Chinese were virtually wiped out on this small island (about 1700 m long and 500 m wide). Their losses numbered in the thousands. At this point, active hostilities virtually ceased.
But from May to September 1969, Soviet border guards opened fire on intruders in the Damansky area more than 300 times. In the battles for the island from March 2 to March 16, 1969, 58 Soviet soldiers were killed and 94 were seriously injured. For their heroism, four servicemen received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The Battle of Damansky was the first serious clash between the USSR Armed Forces and regular units of another major power since World War II. Moscow, despite its local victory, decided not to aggravate the conflict and give Damansky Island to the People's Republic of China. The Chinese side subsequently filled up the channel separating the island from their shore, and since then it has become part of China.
On September 11, 1969, on the Soviet initiative, a meeting of the heads of government of the USSR (A.N. Kosygin) and the PRC (Zhou Enlai) took place, after which protracted negotiations on border issues began in Beijing. After 40 meetings in June 1972, they were interrupted. The Chinese government chose to improve relations with the United States, Western European countries and Japan. In 1982-85. Soviet-Chinese political consultations were held alternately in Moscow and Beijing at the level of government representatives with the rank of deputy foreign ministers. There were no results for a long time. Soviet-Chinese relations were settled only by the end of the 80s.
SAILORS LIVE!
Our special correspondents V. Ignatenko and L. Kuznetsov report from the area of Damansky Island
Here, on the front line, as soon as the smoke of the last battle cleared, we were told about the exceptional courage of the Far Eastern border guard sailors. It was not on distant ocean meridians, nor on cruises on supercruisers and submarines that the sailors distinguished themselves these days. In the mortal battle with Maoist provocateurs on March 2 and 15, guys in pea coats stood shoulder to shoulder with the officers and soldiers of the outposts.
It is not difficult to recognize them among the military people of the border region: only the sailors have black sheepskin coats, and their hats and caps with anchors are pulled down somehow in a special way, seemingly casually, but within the framework of the regulations.
Fortunately, the sailors came out of the fire without losses. Shells and lead bursts lay nearby and lay over their heads. But, alive and unharmed, the guys rose to their height, shook off the hot, steaming earth and rushed into a counterattack... We saw these young Komsomol guys, in whose veins flows the blood of their fathers, the defenders of the legendary Malaya Zemlya.
We want to tell you about one sailor in particular. Long before dawn, on March 15, when there were all the signs of preparing a new provocation at Damansky, captain Vladimir Matrosov took up an observation post on a spit a few meters from the gently sloping shore of the island. He could see the provocateurs fussing about on the Chinese shore in the pre-dawn twilight. From time to time, the annoying sounds of engines could be heard: it must have been the guns being brought to the firing lines. Then silence again, viscous, cold.
A few hours later, the first burst hit from the Chinese side, then the second, the first shells exploded... The Maoists rushed in chains towards Damansky. Our fire weapons began to speak, and the vanguard of the Soviet border guards moved to the island.
I am "Break"! I am "Break"! How do you hear? The enemy is in the southern part of the island,” Sailors shouted into the radiotelephone. It was the turn of his combat mission. - How did you understand?
I am "Burav". You are understood!
A minute later our fire became more accurate, the Chinese wavered.
I am "Break"! I am "Break"! The enemy moved to the northeast. - Sailors did not have time to finish: a mine struck nearby. He fell into the snow. It's gone! And the phone is intact.
I am "Break"! I am "Break"! - Volodya continued. - How did you understand me?
And the earth shook again. Again the elastic wave pushed the sailor. And again I just had to shake the earth off myself.
Then Sailors got used to it. True, he had an unpleasant feeling that someone invisible from the other shore was watching him, as if he knew how much now depended on his, Volodina’s, adjustment of the fire. But again the call signs of “Obryv” were flying on the air...
He saw our border guards fighting on the island. And if suddenly one of our people stumbled and fell, he knew: it was Mao Zedong’s lead that threw the soldier to the ground. This was already the second battle in Matrosov’s life...
Captain Sailors kept in touch with the command post for several hours. And all this time he was the epicenter of a barrage of fire.
Vladimir, one might say, is a border guard from the cradle. His father, Stepan Mikhailovich, only recently retired with the rank of colonel of the border troops, and the younger Sailors, as long as he can remember, lived all the time on the edges of his native land, at outposts. From childhood, he knew the anxieties of the front line, and this region planted good seeds of masculinity and goodness in his soul, and over time, having become stronger, these seeds began to grow. When the time came for Vladimir to choose his fate, there was no doubt: he chose his father’s path. He studied and became an officer. He is now 31 years old. He's a communist. He received border training before being assigned to this area in the Kuril Islands. Probably, not one of the eleven sailors who took part in the battle on Damansky is now dreaming of receiving Matrosov’s party recommendation. After all, Vladimir became a communist at their age, and they went through their first baptism of fire together: a communist and Komsomol members.
In the division, senior officers told us: “Did you notice how similar our Sailors are…” And we, without listening to the end, agreed: “Yes, he is very similar to that legendary Alexander Matrosov.” Everything seems to happen on purpose. It seems that the journalistic move is exposed to the limit. But no, what’s more important is not this amazing external similarity. The kinship of their characters - heroic, truly Russian - is seen a hundred times more clearly. More important is the identity of their high spirit, the fieryness of their hearts in difficult times.
Historians of the Great Patriotic War find new evidence of many exploits of privates, sergeants, and officers who repeated Matrosov’s feat. They died gloriously, and they became immortal, for the Russian warrior has this “sailor” vein, this spirit of victory even at the cost of his life.
Sailors Vladimir is alive!
May he live happily into old age. Let there be peace and harmony in his home, where his daughters are growing up: second-grader Sveta and five-year-old Katya. May they always have a dad...
N-division of maritime border guards
Red Banner Pacific
border district, March 20
YURI VASILIEVICH BABANSKY
Babansky Yuri Vasilievich - commander of the Nizhne-Mikhailovskaya border outpost of the Ussuri Order of the Red Banner of Labor border detachment of the Pacific Border District, junior sergeant. Born on December 20, 1948 in the village of Krasny Yar, Kemerovo region. After finishing an eight-year school, he graduated from a vocational school, worked in production, and then was drafted into the border troops. Served on the Soviet-Chinese border in the Pacific Border District.
The commander of the Nizhne-Mikhailovskaya border outpost (Damansky Island) of the Ussuri Order of the Red Banner of Labor border detachment, junior sergeant Babansky Yu.V. showed heroism and courage during the border conflict of March 2 - 15, 1969. Then, for the first time in the history of the border troops after June 22, 1941, the detachment’s border guards took on battles with units of the regular army of a neighboring state. On that day, March 2, 1969, Chinese provocateurs, who invaded Soviet territory, from an ambush shot a group of border guards who came out to meet them, led by the head of the outpost, Senior Lieutenant I.I. Strelnikov.
Junior Sergeant Yuri Babansky took command of the group of border guards remaining at the outpost and boldly led them into the attack. The Maoists unleashed heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars and artillery fire on the brave handful. Throughout the entire battle, Junior Sergeant Babansky skillfully led his subordinates, shot accurately, and provided assistance to the wounded. When the enemy was driven out of Soviet territory, Babansky went on reconnaissance missions to the island more than 10 times. It was Yuri Babansky with the search group who found the executed group of I.I. Strelnikov, and at gunpoint from the enemy’s machine guns he organized their evacuation; it was he and his group, on the night of March 15-16, who discovered the body of the heroically deceased head of the border detachment, Colonel D.V. Leonov and carried him off the island...
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 21, 1969, junior sergeant Yu.V. Babansky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (Gold Star medal No. 10717).
After graduating from the military-political school, Babansky Yu.V. continued to serve in the border troops of the KGB of the USSR in various officer positions, including during the fighting in Afghanistan. In the 90s, he was deputy chief of troops of the Western Border District, was a member of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, and was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of Ukraine.
Currently, Lieutenant General of the Reserve Yu.V. Babansky is a military pensioner and is involved in social activities. He is the chairman of the all-Russian organizing committee for the “Argun Outpost” action and at the same time is the chairman of the public organization “Union of Heroes”, Honorary Citizen of the Kemerovo Region. Lives in Moscow.
THE COUNTRY DID NOT KNOW YET
...They loved fire training at the outpost. We often went out shooting. And in recent months, time for study has become less and less. The Red Guards gave no rest.
Since childhood, Yuri Babansky was taught to consider the Chinese as brothers. But when he first saw the angry, hooting crowd, waving clubs and weapons, shouting anti-Soviet slogans, he could not understand what was happening. It took him a while to learn to understand that faith in the sacred bonds of brotherhood had been trampled upon by the Maoists, that people deceived by Mao’s clique were capable of committing any crime. The Chinese staged demonstrations with slogans of the “great helmsman.” Then they attacked the Soviet border guards with their fists. “This is how they were fooled,” thought Babansky. “But the fathers of our guys fought for the liberation of China and died for the People’s China.” There was a strict order: do not give in to provocations. Machine guns on your back. And only the courage and restraint of the Soviet border guards prevented the incidents from turning into a bloody conflict.
The Maoists acted more and more boldly. Almost every morning they went out onto the ice of Ussuri and behaved cheekily. provocative.
On March 2, 1969, border guards, as usual, had to expel the rampaging Maoists who crossed the border. As always, the head of the outpost, Ivan Ivanovich Strelnikov, came out to meet them. Silence. You can only hear the snow creaking under your felt boots. These were the last minutes of silence. Babansky ran up the hill and looked around. From the cover group, only Kuznetsov and Kozus ran after him. “I broke away from the guys.” Ahead, a little to the right, stood the first group of border guards - the one that followed Strelnikov. The head of the outpost protested to the Chinese, demanding to leave Soviet territory.
And suddenly the dry, frosty silence of the island was ripped open by two shots. Behind them are frequent bursts of machine gun fire. Babansky didn’t believe it. I didn't want to believe it. But the snow was already scorched by bullets, and he saw how the border guards from Strelnikov’s group fell one after another. Babansky pulled out a machine gun from behind his back and a magazine closed in:
Get down! Fire! - he commanded and in short bursts began to mow down those who had just shot his comrades point-blank. Bullets whistled nearby, and he shot and shot. In the excitement of the battle, I didn’t notice how I had used up all the cartridges.
Kuznetsov,” he called the border guard, “give me the store!”
They'll give you a ride. There's enough for everyone. Be on the left, and I'll go to the tree.
He dropped to his knee, raised his machine gun and fired aimed fire from behind a tree. Cool, calculating. Eat! One, two, three...
There is an invisible connection between the shooter and the target, as if you are sending a bullet not from a machine gun, but from your own heart and it hits the enemy. He got so carried away that Sergeant Kozushu had to shout several times:
Yurka! Who is it in camouflage suits, ours or the Chinese?
Kozus was firing to Babansky’s right; a large group of Maoists, who had taken refuge on the island since the evening, was moving toward him. They walked straight ahead. The distance was getting shorter every minute. Kozus fired several bursts and just had time to think that there weren’t enough cartridges when he heard Babansky’s command: “Save your cartridges!” and turned the lever to single fire.
Kozus! Be careful not to get passed on the right!
Like Babansky, he did not remain in place, changed positions and fired aimed fire. The cartridges were running out.
Kuznetsov! And Kuznetsov! - he called and looked towards where the border guard had just fired. Kuznetsov sat bent over with his head in his hands. The face is bloodless, the lower lip is slightly bitten. Lifeless eyes. A spasm squeezed her throat, but there was no time to grieve. I took the remaining cartridges from Kuznetsov. And then right in front of him, about thirty meters away, he saw a Chinese machine gun. Babansky fired and killed the machine gunner. Now we need to help Kozushu. Babansky acted quickly and accurately. He shot through the channel and fired at the enemy advancing from the right. The Chinese machine gun has a soldier again. Yuri fired again. He was glad that the machine gun never fired a single burst.
Kozus! Cover up! - Babansky commanded hoarsely and crawled towards his group, lying down in the lowland. He crawled along a pitted island, blackened by fire and iron. Mines howled, whistled, explosions roared. It flashed in my head: “How are the guys? Are they alive? How much longer can they hold out? The main thing is ammunition...” The guys lay in the lowlands, pinned down by fire. Babansky did not have time to feel fear - there was only rage in him. I wanted to shoot, to destroy the killers. He commanded the border guards:
Razmakhnin, to the tree! Observe! Bikuzin! Fire towards the parapet!
The border guards lay down in a semicircle, six meters from each other. The cartridges were divided equally. Five or six per brother. Shells and mines exploded. It seemed as if you took off from the ground - and you were gone. One bullet whistled past Babansky's ear. “Sniper,” flashed through my head. “We need to be careful.” But Kozus, who was covering him, had already removed the Chinese shooter. Suddenly the fire died down. In preparation for a new attack, the Chinese regrouped. Babansky decided to take advantage of this:
One at a time, a distance of eight to ten meters, dashing to the leading signs! Yezhov - to the armored personnel carrier! Let him support!
Babansky did not yet know that the river bed was under fire. I didn’t know whether Eremin, who he sent to the outlet (“Let them send cartridges!”) managed to inform the outpost of the commander’s order. The Maoists pressed on. Five Soviet border guards led by junior sergeant Yuri Babansky against an enemy battalion. The border guards took a more advantageous position - at the leading signs. The Chinese are no more than a hundred meters away. They opened heavy fire. This fire was supported by a mortar battery from the shore. For the first time for twenty-year-old boys, armed combat became a reality: life next to death, humanity next to treachery. You are against the enemy. And you must defend justice, you must defend your native land.
Guys, help is coming! Bubenin should come up. We must stand, because our land!
And Bubenin came to their aid. Using his armored personnel carrier, he invaded the rear of the Chinese, caused panic in their ranks and essentially decided the outcome of the battle. Babansky did not see the armored personnel carrier, he only heard the roar of its engines on the river, right opposite them, and understood why the enemy faltered and retreated back.
Run after me! - Yuri commanded and led the fighters to the northern part of the island, where the Bubeninites who arrived in time were fighting. “Five machine guns is also strength!” Babansky fell, froze, then crawled. Bullets whistled from all sides. The body tensed. Even if there was some kind of pothole, crater - no, the snow-covered meadow spread out like a tablecloth. Apparently, Yuri Babansky was not destined to die; apparently, he was “born in a vest.” And this time the shells and mines spared him. He reached the bushes and looked around: the guys were crawling behind him. I saw: help was coming from the Soviet shore in a deployed chain. Babansky sighed with relief. I wanted to smoke. It took some time for someone to find two cigarettes. He smoked them one after another. The tension of the battle had not yet subsided. He still lived with the excitement of the fight: he picked up the wounded, looked for the dead, and carried them out of the battlefield. It seemed to him that he was numb, unable to feel. But tears came to my eyes when I saw the face of Kolya Dergach, a fellow countryman and friend, disfigured by the Chinese. Late in the evening, completely tired, he turned on the radio at the outpost. There was music on the air. It seemed unthinkable, impossible, unnatural. And then suddenly the meaning of the border service was revealed in a new way: for the sake of children sleeping peacefully, for the sake of this music to sound, for the sake of life, happiness, justice, guys in green caps stand at the border. They stand to death. The country did not yet know what happened at Damansky...
The history of the origin of the conflict goes back to 1860, when China (then still the Qing Empire) ceded vast lands in Central Asia and Primorye to Russia under the Aigun and Beijing Treaties.
After World War II in the Far East, the USSR received a very reliable and devoted ally in the form of the People's Republic of China. Soviet assistance in the war with Japan 1937-1945. and in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang forces made the Chinese Communists very loyal to the Soviet Union. The USSR, in turn, willingly took advantage of the created strategic situation.
However, already in 1950, peace in the Far East was destroyed by the outbreak of the Korean War. This war was a logical consequence of the Cold War that began four years earlier. The desire of the two superpowers - the USSR and the USA - to unite the Korean Peninsula under the rule of a friendly regime led to bloodshed.
Initially, success was entirely on the side of communist Korea. Its troops managed to break the resistance of the small army of the South and rushed deep into South Korea. However, US and UN forces soon came to the aid of the latter, as a result of which the offensive stopped. Already in the fall of 1950, troops were landed in the area of the capital of the DPRK - the city of Seoul, and therefore the North Korean army began a hasty retreat. The war threatened to end with the defeat of the North as early as October 1950.
In this situation, the threat of a capitalist and clearly unfriendly state appearing on China’s borders has increased more than ever. The specter of civil war still hung over the PRC, so it was decided to intervene in the Korean War on the side of the communist forces.
As a result, China became an “unofficial” participant in the conflict, and the course of the war changed again. In a very short time, the front line again dropped to the 38th parallel, which practically coincided with the demarcation line before the war. This is where the front stopped until the end of the conflict in 1953.
After the Korean War, the most noticeable thing in Sino-Soviet relations was China’s desire to break away from the “suzerainty” of the USSR in order to pursue its own, completely independent foreign policy. And the reason was not long in coming.
The gap between the USSR and China
In 1956, the 20th Congress of the CPSU was held in Moscow. The result was the refusal of the Soviet leadership from the personality cult of J.V. Stalin and, in fact, a change in the country’s foreign policy doctrine. China closely followed these changes, but was not enthusiastic about them. Ultimately, Khrushchev and his apparatus were declared revisionists in China, and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party radically changed the foreign policy course of the state.
That period in China is called the beginning of the “war of ideas between China and the USSR.” The Chinese leadership put forward a number of demands to the Soviet Union (for example, the annexation of Mongolia, the transfer of nuclear weapons, etc.) and at the same time tried to show the United States and other capitalist countries that the PRC was no less an enemy of the USSR than they were.
The gap between the Soviet Union and China widened and deepened. In this regard, all Soviet specialists working there were removed from the PRC. In the highest echelons of the USSR, irritation grew over the foreign policy of the “Maoists” (as the followers of Mao Zedong’s policies were called). On the Chinese border, the Soviet leadership was forced to maintain a very impressive group, aware of the unpredictability of the Chinese government.
In 1968, events took place in Czechoslovakia that later became known as the “Prague Spring.” A change in the political course of the country's government led to the fact that already at the end of August of the same year, the Soviet leadership was forced to intervene in this process in order to avoid the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Troops of the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries were brought into Czechoslovakia.
The Chinese leadership condemned the actions of the Soviet side, as a result of which relations between the countries deteriorated extremely. But as it turned out, the worst was yet to come. By March 1969, the situation for a military conflict was fully ripe. It was fueled by the huge number of provocations on the Chinese side that had taken place since the early 1960s. Not only the Chinese military, but also peasants often entered Soviet territory, demonstratively engaged in economic activities in front of the Soviet border guards. However, all violators were expelled back without the use of weapons.
By the end of the 1960s, full-fledged clashes involving military personnel from both sides took place in the area of Damansky Island and other sections of the Soviet-Chinese border. The scale and boldness of the provocations grew steadily.
The Chinese leadership pursued the goals not only and not so much of military victory, but of clearly demonstrating to the US leadership that the PRC was an enemy of the USSR, and therefore could be, if not an ally, then at least a reliable partner of the United States.
Fights March 2, 1969
On the night of March 1-2, 1969, a group of Chinese military personnel numbering from 70 to 80 people crossed the Ussuri River and landed on the western shore of Damansky Island. Until 10:20 am, the group remained unnoticed by the Soviet side, as a result of which the Chinese soldiers had the opportunity to conduct reconnaissance and plan further actions based on the situation.
At approximately 10:20 a.m. on March 2, a Soviet observation post spotted a group of Chinese military personnel on Soviet territory. A group of border guards headed by the head of the 2nd outpost “Nizhne-Mikhailovka”, senior lieutenant I. Strelnikov, went to the site of the violation of the USSR border. Upon arrival on the island, the group split up. The first part, under the command of I. Strelnikov, moved in the direction of the Chinese military personnel standing on the ice at the southwestern tip of Damansky Island; another group under the command of Sergeant V. Rabovich moved along the coast of the island, cutting off a group of Chinese military personnel moving deeper into Damansky.
After about 5 minutes, Strelnikov’s group approached the Chinese military personnel. I. Strelnikov protested to them in connection with the violation of the state border of the USSR, but the Chinese suddenly opened fire in response. At the same time, another group of Chinese soldiers opened fire on V. Rabovich’s group, as a result of which the Soviet border guards were taken by surprise. In a short battle, both Soviet groups were almost completely destroyed.
The shooting on the island was heard by the head of the neighboring 1st outpost “Kulebyakiny Sopki”, senior lieutenant V. Bubenin. He decided to move with 23 fighters in an armored personnel carrier towards Damansky to help his neighbors. However, approaching the island, the senior lieutenant’s group was forced to take up defensive positions, because Chinese troops went on the offensive with the goal of capturing Damansky Island. Nevertheless, Soviet soldiers bravely and stubbornly defended the territory, not allowing the enemy to throw them into the river.
Realizing that this state of affairs could not continue for long, Senior Lieutenant Bubenin made a very brave decision, which essentially decided the outcome of the battles for Damansky Island on March 2. Its essence was a raid to the rear of the Chinese group with the aim of disorganizing it. On the BTR-60PB, V. Bubenin headed to the rear of the Chinese, skirting the northern part of Damansky Island, while inflicting serious damage on the enemy. However, Bubenin’s armored personnel carrier was soon hit, as a result of which the commander decided to get to the armored personnel carrier of the killed senior lieutenant I. Strelnikov. This plan was a success, and soon V. Bubenin continued to move along the lines of the Chinese troops, inflicting losses on the enemy. So, as a result of this raid, the Chinese command post was also destroyed, but soon the second armored personnel carrier was also hit.
The group of surviving border guards was commanded by Junior Sergeant Yu. Babansky. The Chinese failed to oust them from the island, and already at 13:00 the violators began to withdraw troops from the island.
As a result of the battles on March 2, 1969 on Damansky Island, Soviet troops lost 31 people killed and 14 wounded. The Chinese side, according to Soviet data, lost 39 people killed.
Situation March 2-14, 1969
Immediately after the end of the fighting on Damansky Island, the command of the Iman border detachment arrived here to plan further actions and suppress further provocations. As a result, a decision was made to strengthen border guards on the island and deploy additional border guard forces. In addition to this, the 135th Motorized Rifle Division, reinforced with the latest Grad multiple rocket launchers, was deployed in the area of the island. At the same time, the 24th Infantry Regiment was deployed from the Chinese side for further actions against the Soviet troops.
However, the parties did not limit themselves to military maneuvers. On March 3, 1969, a demonstration took place at the Soviet embassy in Beijing. Its participants demanded that the Soviet leadership “stop aggressive actions against the Chinese people.” At the same time, Chinese newspapers published false and propaganda materials claiming that Soviet troops allegedly invaded Chinese territory and fired at Chinese troops.
On the Soviet side, an article was published in the Pravda newspaper, in which the Chinese provocateurs were branded with shame. There the course of events was described more reliably and objectively. On March 7, the Chinese embassy in Moscow was picketed and demonstrators threw ink bottles at it.
Thus, the events of March 2-14 essentially did not change the course of events, and it became clear that new provocations on the Soviet-Chinese border were just around the corner.
Fights March 14-15, 1969
At 15:00 on March 14, 1969, Soviet troops received an order to leave Damansky Island. Immediately after this, Chinese military personnel began to occupy the island. To prevent this, the Soviet side sent 8 armored personnel carriers to Damansky, upon seeing which the Chinese immediately retreated to their shore.
By the evening of the same day, the Soviet border guards were given the order to occupy the island. Soon after this, a group under the command of Lieutenant Colonel E. Yanshin carried out the order. On the morning of March 15, 30 to 60 Chinese artillery barrels suddenly opened fire on the Soviet troops, after which three companies of the Chinese went on the offensive. However, the enemy failed to break the resistance of Soviet troops and capture the island.
However, the situation was becoming critical. In order not to allow Yanshin’s group to be destroyed, another group under the command of Colonel D. Leonov came to its aid, which entered into a counter battle with the Chinese at the southern tip of the island. In this battle, the colonel died, but at the cost of serious losses, his group managed to hold its positions and inflict significant damage on the enemy troops.
Two hours later, the Soviet troops, having used up their ammunition, were forced to begin withdrawing from the island. Taking advantage of their numerical advantage, the Chinese began to reoccupy the island. However, at the same time, the Soviet leadership decided to launch a fire strike on enemy forces from Grad installations, which was done at approximately 17:00. The result of the artillery strike was simply stunning: the Chinese suffered huge losses, their mortars and guns were disabled, and the ammunition and reinforcements located on the island were almost completely destroyed.
10-20 minutes after the artillery barrage, motorized riflemen went on the offensive along with border guards under the command of Lieutenant Colonels Smirnov and Konstantinov, and the Chinese troops hastily left the island. At approximately 19:00, the Chinese launched a series of counterattacks, which quickly fizzled out, leaving the situation virtually unchanged.
As a result of the events of March 14-15, Soviet troops suffered losses of 27 people killed and 80 wounded. Chinese losses were strictly classified, but roughly we can say that they range from 60 to 200 people. The Chinese suffered the bulk of these losses from the fire of Grad multiple rocket launchers.
Five Soviet servicemen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for their heroism in the battles on Damansky Island. These are Colonel D. Leonov (posthumously), Senior Lieutenant I. Strelnikov (posthumously), Junior Sergeant V. Orekhov (posthumously), Senior Lieutenant V. Bubenin, Junior Sergeant Yu. Babansky. Also, approximately 150 people were awarded other government awards.
Consequences of the conflict
Immediately after the end of the battles for Damansky Island, Soviet troops were withdrawn across the Ussuri River. Soon the ice on the river began to break, and the crossing was very difficult for the Soviet border guards, which the Chinese military took advantage of. At the same time, contacts between Soviet and Chinese troops were reduced only to machine-gun firefights, which ended in September 1969. By this time the Chinese had effectively occupied the island.
However, provocations on the Soviet-Chinese border after the conflict on Damansky Island did not stop. So, already in August of the same year, another major Soviet-Chinese border conflict occurred - the incident at Lake Zhalanashkol. As a result, relations between the two states reached a truly critical point - a nuclear war between the USSR and the PRC was closer than ever.
Another result of the border conflict on Damansky Island was that the Chinese leadership realized that it was impossible to continue its aggressive policy towards its northern neighbor. The depressing state of the Chinese army, once again revealed during the conflict, only strengthened this guess.
The result of this border conflict was a change in the state border between the USSR and China, as a result of which Damansky Island came under the rule of the PRC.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below the article. We or our visitors will be happy to answer them
On March 2, 1969, on Damansky Island, located in the middle reaches of the Ussuri River, a battle took place between Soviet border guards and a Chinese detachment, which included border guards and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army of China.
On March 2, 1969, on Damansky Island, located in the middle reaches of the Ussuri River, a battle took place between Soviet border guards and a Chinese detachment, which included border guards and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA). To this day, there are very different versions of the causes, course and results of this collision. This situation was partly caused by the fact that all the Soviet border guards who were in the first detachment that entered the battle died, and only one seriously wounded remained alive from the second detachment. The rest of the participants in the events could not see the beginning of the battle. The main reasons are probably the disinterest of both sides in an objective investigation of the conflict, the lack of mutual understanding and cooperation in this matter.
A group of Soviet border guards fights for Damansky Island on March 2, 1969
(artist N. N. Semenov, Central Border Museum of the FSB of the Russian Federation)
Today, in principle, the Russian and Chinese sides have a common position on the number of dead Soviet border guards. On March 2, in a battle that lasted about two hours, 31 or 32 Soviet border guards were killed on Damansky Island and on the ice of the Ussuri River. The first to be killed were the head of outpost No. 2 of the Iman border detachment, senior lieutenant I. I. Strelnikov, the detective of the special department of the detachment, senior lieutenant N. M. Buinevich, and the five border guards who followed them. Almost simultaneously, a battle broke out in which 12 men from Sergeant V.N. Rabovich’s squad were killed (the seriously wounded private G.A. Serebrov survived). Then most of the squad of junior sergeant Yu. V. Babansky died. After some time, the border guards of Outpost No. 1, Senior Lieutenant V.D. Bubenin, entered the battle. From this outpost on March 2, 8 border guards were killed in battle, and 14 were wounded. Almost generally accepted data on the losses of the Soviet side on March 2 are the following: of the 66 border guards who participated in the battle, 31 died, one seriously wounded border guard died in Chinese captivity, 14 were wounded.
Memorial at the city cemetery of Dalnerechensk, where the remains are buried
dead Soviet border guards of the Iman border detachment (photo by Sergei Gorbachev)
As for losses on the Chinese side (according to Soviet data, about 30 border guards and up to 300 PLA soldiers took part in the battle), even modern Russian publications contain different figures - from 17 dead Chinese soldiers to 300. Published Soviet documents and scientific publications do not talked about the number of Chinese killed at Damansky. Only in the 2000s. At the instigation of General V.D. Bubenin, a figure of 248 killed Chinese appeared in historical literature. Soviet border guards, after the Chinese retreated from the island, found the body of one Chinese there; the rest of the dead and wounded were probably evacuated by the enemy at the end of the battle.
Russia is making a “turn to the East.” China today is considered one of our main strategic partners. However, the two great powers did not always get along peacefully with each other. There were also conflicts, sometimes having the status of local wars.
In the middle of the 17th century, when the Russians found themselves at the borders of China, power in this country was seized by the Manchu imperial Qing dynasty, which did not recognize the annexation of the Amur lands to Russia. The dynasty considered them their ancestral possessions, although before that they had practically not participated in their economic development in any way.
In 1649, a series of so-called Qing border conflicts began.
Siege of Kumarsky fort
One of the major Russian-Chinese clashes of that period. It was preceded by the battle on the Songhua River in 1654, where about 400 Cossacks under the command of the serviceman Onufriy Stepanov (comrade and successor of the famous Russian explorer and warrior Erofei Khabarov) met the Manchu army under the command of Mingandali. According to Stepanov’s report, he was opposed by an army of 3,000 Chinese and Manchus, not including the Duchers and Daurs allied with them.
Despite the clear superiority of the enemy, Stepanov's Cossacks emerged victorious from the battle. However, the surviving Manchus went ashore and dug in. The Cossacks attacked them, but, having suffered losses, were forced to retreat down the river.
Fearing an attack, Stepanov began to restore the abandoned Kumarsky prison. And as it turned out, not in vain.
On March 13, 1655, a Manchu army of 10,000 soldiers besieged the fort. Its defenders successfully repelled several attacks from a much superior enemy. On April 3, 1655, the Manchus were forced to lift the siege due to food shortages. When leaving, the Manchus destroyed all the Cossack boats.
Siege of the Verkhnezeya fort. One to twenty
Russia, realizing that sooner or later the conflict would take armed forms, began strengthening its Far Eastern borders. In the first year of the formal reign of Tsar Peter the Great at that time (1682), a separate Albazin voivodeship was formed. Its center was the town of Albazin - the first Russian settlement on the Amur.
Voivode Alexei Tolbuzin was sent with a detachment of servicemen to defend Albazin.
In November 1682, the Chinese military leader Lantan with a small cavalry detachment visited Albazin, where he explained his appearance by deer hunting. The Russians and Manchus exchanged gifts. In fact, the purpose of the “hunt” was reconnaissance. As a result, Lantan compiled a report in which he assessed the wooden fortifications of Albazin as weak. The Emperor of China “gave the go-ahead” for a military expedition against Russia.
Already in the next 1683, Lantan, who appeared on the Amur with advanced forces, surrounded near the mouth of the Zeya River with his flotilla and forced the surrender of the plows of the Russian detachment of Grigory Mylnik, numbering 70 people, traveling from Albazin to the forts and winter quarters located on the banks of the Zeya River (a tributary of the Amur ).
The Russians, left without reinforcements and food, were forced to leave the Dolon and Selemdzha forts without a fight. In the Verkhnezeysky fort, 20 Russian Cossacks defended against 400 Manchus for almost a year until February 1684. And they were forced to surrender mainly due to extreme exhaustion from hunger.
Defense of Albazin
At the beginning of the summer of 1685, the Qing army of 5 thousand people, not counting the cavalry, approached Albazin on the ships of the river flotilla. According to other sources, there were about 15 thousand people in the Chinese army. Among other things, the attackers had 150 guns. At that time, 826 servicemen, industrial people and arable peasants gathered in Albazin, who formed the garrison of the defenders of the fortress. There were about 450 “professional military” people.
The Russians did not have a single gun in their arsenal (according to other sources, 3 guns). The Manchu demand was conveyed to the fortress: to immediately leave the Amur under threat of death.
On June 10, the Qing flotilla appeared near Albazin. She managed to capture 40 residents of surrounding villages on rafts, who were in a hurry to take refuge behind the fortress walls. When the attackers opened gunfire, it turned out that the log fortifications of Albazin, designed to protect against native arrows, were easily penetrated by cannonballs. According to eyewitnesses, there were cases when one cannonball flew right through the city, breaking through both the northern and southern walls. As a result of fires that broke out in Albazin, grain barns and a church with a bell tower burned down. About 100 people were killed and wounded.
On June 16, early in the morning, the Chinese began their assault. It lasted almost the whole day. The defenders of Albazin fought stubbornly, preventing the Manchus from overcoming the ditch and rampart surrounding the fortress and climbing onto the dilapidated fortifications. Only at 10 o'clock in the evening did the Manchus retreat to their camp.
Lantan gave the order to prepare a new assault. The Chinese filled the fortress moat with brushwood. The Russians were running out of gunpowder supplies, so they could not drive away the enemy by shooting. Fearing that they were preparing to burn the defenders of the fortress along with it, Alexei Tolbuzin turned to Lantan with a proposal to withdraw the garrison and residents from Albazin to the city of Nerchinsk. The Qing command, fearing stubborn resistance and heavy casualties, agreed. The Manchus believed that Nerchinsk was also located on Manchu lands, and demanded that the Russians withdraw to Yakutsk. However, Tolbuzin managed to insist on a retreat to Nerchinsk.
Albazin, rising from the ashes. Second siege
Already in August 1685, Tolbuzin with an army of 514 servicemen and 155 fishermen and peasants returned to the city that was burned and abandoned by the Chinese. By winter, Albazin was rebuilt. Moreover, the fortress was built more thoroughly taking into account the previous siege.
In the spring of 1686, the Chinese tried to capture both the revived Albazin and Nerchinsk. In July, an enemy army of five thousand with forty guns again approached Albazin. The Chinese, who had previously destroyed the surrounding villages in order to deprive the besieged of food supply, sent several previously captured Russian prisoners to Albazin with a demand to surrender. At the assembled circle, the Albazinians made a general decision: “United for one, head to head, and we won’t go back without an order.”
Active hostilities began in July 1686. Already at the very beginning of the siege, Tolbuzin was killed by the Chinese core. Afanasy Beyton took command of the Russian troops. Thanks to heroism and good military organization, Russian losses were approximately 8 times less than those of the Chinese. In September and October, the defenders of Albazin managed to repel two powerful assaults. In the winter of 1686/1687, both the Chinese and Russians began to suffer from famine and scurvy. By December there were no more than 150 defenders of Albazin left. At the same time, losses in battles did not exceed 100 people. But more than 500 died of scurvy. Manchu losses exceeded 2.5 thousand people killed and killed. However, reinforcements constantly approached them. However, the Chinese, who did not know how many defenders remained in the fortress and feared large losses, negotiated and soon lifted the siege.
Thus, the defenders of Albazin held out for almost a year and, in fact, morally defeated their many times superior enemy. True, in August 1689 Albazin was abandoned by the Russians. This was a consequence of the signing of the Nerchinsk Treaty on the Russian-Chinese border between Moscow and Beijing.
Testing the Red Army's strength
The conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway can also be classified as a border conflict. The road itself and the territory around it, according to the agreement between Soviet Russia and China from 1924, were considered joint property. The road even had its own flag, “compiled” from the Chinese five-color flag at the top and the Soviet red flag at the bottom. In the West, the conflict was explained by the fact that the Chinese were not satisfied that in the second half of the 1920s the CER was bringing in less and less profit, becoming unprofitable precisely because of the position of Soviet Russia.
In the USSR, the reasons for the clashes were explained by the fact that the ruler of Manchuria (through whose territory the CER passed, and which at that time was de facto independent of China) Zhang Xueliang was instigated by “Western imperialists” and white emigrants who settled in the border Chinese-Manchu cities, eager to check How strong is the Red Army?
Traditionally, for Russian-Chinese conflicts, the army of the “Celestial Empire” was much more numerous. The Manchus sent more than 300 thousand soldiers to fight Soviet Russia. While on our side, only 16 thousand military personnel took part in the hostilities. True, they were better armed. In particular, the Soviet side actively used airplanes. It was they who contributed to the success of the Sungari offensive operation.
As a result of an air raid on October 12, 1929, 5 of the 11 Chinese ships were destroyed and the rest retreated upstream. After this, troops were landed from the ships of the Far Eastern military flotilla. With the support of artillery, the Red Army captured the Chinese city of Lahasusa. Moreover, the tactics of the Soviet troops were such that, having defeated the enemy, they soon retreated to Soviet territory. This was the case during the Fugda operation that began on October 30. At the mouth of the Songhua River, 8 ships of the Far Eastern military flotilla with a landing force finished off the ships of the Chinese Songhua flotilla located here, then two regiments of the 2nd Infantry Division occupied the city of Fujin (Fugdin), which they held until November 2, 1929, and then returned to Soviet territory.
Military operations that continued until November 19 convinced the enemy of the moral and military-technical superiority of the Soviet troops. According to some estimates, the Chinese lost about 2 thousand people killed and more than 8 thousand wounded during the battles. While the losses of the Red Army amounted to 281 people.
It is characteristic that the Soviet side showed great humanity towards the prisoners and carried out ideological work with them, convincing them that “the Russian and the Chinese are brothers forever.” As a result, more than a thousand prisoners of war asked to remain in the USSR.
The Manchurian side quickly asked for peace, and on December 22, 1929, an agreement was signed, according to which the CER continued to be jointly operated by the USSR and China on the same terms.
Conflict on Damansky. On the brink of a big war
In the series of Russian-Chinese clashes, this was far from the largest, but perhaps the most significant in its geopolitical and historical consequences. Never before have two major world powers been so close to a full-scale war, the consequences of which could have been catastrophic for both sides. And only a decisive rebuff from the Soviet side convinced the Chinese that it was not worth laying claim to the “northern territories”.
Fighting near Lake Zhalanashkol
A few months after the conflict on Damansky, the Chinese once again (the last time at the moment) tried to test the strength of their “northern neighbor” by force of arms. On August 13, 1969, at 5:30 a.m., a total of about 150 Chinese troops invaded Soviet territory in the area of the Kazakh Lake Zhalanashkol.
Until the last moment, Soviet border guards tried to avoid hostilities and enter into negotiations. The Chinese did not react. They took up defensive positions on the Kamennaya hill and began to dig in. Border guards of the Rodnikovaya and Zhalanashkol outposts, with the support of 5 armored personnel carriers, attacked the hill. Within a few hours the height was recaptured. On the Soviet side, 2 border guards were killed. The Chinese lost 19 people.
Less than a month after this conflict, on September 11, 1969 in Beijing, Alexey Kosygin and Zhou Enlai agreed on measures to end the fighting on the Russian-Chinese border. From that moment on, tension in relations between our countries began to decrease.
Tags: