Sino-Soviet conflict — Border conflict between China and the Soviet Union in 1929
The 1929 Sino-Soviet conflict was the first major combat test of the reformed Red Army and resulted in Soviet seizure of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island.
Key Facts
- Soviet troops mobilized
- 156,000 troops
- Proportion of Red Army deployed
- Approximately 1 in 5 Soviet soldiers
- Disputed asset
- Chinese Eastern Railway (CER)
- Island seized by Soviets
- Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island
- Island western half returned to China
- 2004
- Soviet occupation of island ended by
- 1991 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
In 1929, Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang's Northeastern Army seized the Chinese Eastern Railway in an attempt to reassert sole Chinese control over it, ending the existing arrangement of joint Sino-Soviet administration and directly provoking a Soviet military response.
The Soviet Union launched a swift military intervention along the Manchurian border, mobilizing 156,000 troops—roughly one in five Red Army soldiers—making it the largest Soviet combat force deployed between the Russian Civil War and the Winter War. The operation served as the first significant combat test of the newly professionalized Red Army.
China was forced to restore the Chinese Eastern Railway to joint Sino-Soviet administration. The Soviets also gained full military control of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island, an occupation that persisted until the 1991 Sino-Soviet Border Agreement, under which Russia returned the island's western half to China in 2004.