| Annotation |
The history of the creation of the agent network of the Russian Empire has not found comprehensive coverage
in scientific publications so far. The existing research referred to specific names or mention private facts.
This predetermined the relevance of the work. The object of the study is the Russian agents in China in general
and in Chinese Shanghai, in particular. The subject is the study of peculiarities of the first attempts in creating
Russian agent network in the city. The aim of the work is to analyze the attempt to create a network of Russian
illegal agents in Shanghai in 1906–1908. The lack of materials on the problem in scientific and popular scientific
publications predetermined the use of previously unknown or little-known archival sources. This is the correspondence
of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Russian Imperial envoy in Beijing and the Russian Consul in Shanghai
stored in the funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (SARF). The main conclusion of the study
was the remark about the lack of scientific elaboration, at the moment, the history of official, legal and illegal
agents of the Russian Empire in Shanghai, China. Private findings suggest that, judging by the available data,
creation of a serious network of agents in the city during the Russian Empire failed. The reasons for this, presumably,
were several: the lack of qualified agents with knowledge of Chinese or, at least, English, who could work
effectively; the lack of funds for the maintenance of agents, a small number of Russian citizens, the remoteness
of Shanghai from the Russian-Chinese border, etc. A network of agents will be created in the city by the Soviet authorities by the middle of the third decade of the 20th century, and Soviet illegal agents began to work in the
early 1920s. The History of Soviet agents in China and Shanghai, in particular, is studied quite well which cannot
be said about the previous period. It is obvious that further serious work with archival sources is required to
recreate as complete as possible the history of Russian legal and illegal agents in Shanghai in pre-Soviet times. |
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