The reason was to stem "the infiltration of Japanese espionage into the Far Eastern Krai", as Koreans were at the time subjects of the Empire of Japan, which was the Soviet Union's rival.

Estimates based on population statistics suggest that between 16,500 and 50,000 deported Koreans died from starvation, exposure, and difficulties adapting to their new environment in exile.

The exiled Koreans remained living in Central Asia, integrating into the Kazakh and Uzbek society, but the new generations gradually lost their culture and language.

Modern historians and scholars view this deportation as an example of a racist policy in the USSR[8][9][10] and ethnic cleansing, common of Stalinism, as well as a crime against humanity.

Emigration from the Joseon kingdom of Korea to the neighboring Primorsky Krai (ceded to Russia from China in the Amur Annexation) was recorded in the early 1860s.

Under the terms of a Russo-Korean treaty signed on 25 June 1884, all Koreans living in the Far East up until that date were granted citizenship and land in the Russian Empire, but all others who would arrive after 1884 were not allowed to stay longer than two years.

[19][20] On 13 April 1928, a Soviet decree was passed stipulating that Koreans should be removed away from the vulnerable Soviet-Korean border, from Vladivostok to the Khabarovsk Oblast, and to settle Slavs in their place, mostly demobilized Red Army soldiers.

An official plan intended to resettle 88,000 Koreans without citizenship north of Khabarovsk, except those who "proved their complete loyalty and devotion to Soviet power".

[23] The decree was signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Molotov and Secretary of the Central Committee Joseph Stalin.

The decree stated:[23] The Council of People's Commissars and CC of the VCP (b) hereby order: To prevent the penetration of Japanese espionage to the Far East region undertake the following acts: The official justification for resolution 1428-326cc was that it had been planned with the aim to "prevent the infiltration of Japanese spies into the Far East", without trying to determine how to distinguish those who were spies from those who were loyal to the state,[24] as Stalin considered many Soviet minorities a possible fifth column.

[23] Even though the decree was issued in August, the Soviet officials delayed its implementation for 20 days in order to wait for the Koreans to complete the harvest.

Koreans had to leave their movable property behind and receive "exchange receipts", but these were rushed and filled out in a way that they were not considered binding legal documents.

Some were resettled for a second time, as was the case of 570 Korean families who were evicted from the Kazakh SSR to the Astrakhan District to be given jobs in the fishing industry.

A decree signed by the chief of the Soviet secret police Lavrentiy Beria ordered that 675 families containing 1,743 people, including Germans, Poles, Chinese and Koreans, should be removed from the border regions.

[31] The Soviet government failed to prepare the terrain for the influx of so many resettled people, with some areas lacking building materials for construction of new houses or schools.

[43] In the Tashkent area, of the 4,151 planned two-flat houses for the deportees, only 1,800 were completed by the end of 1938, forcing many to find improvised accommodation in barracks, earthhouses and other places.

[38] Finally, on 3 March 1947, MVD minister S. N. Kruglov signed a directive that allowed the banished Koreans to obtain passports, though they could only be used within Central Asia, and not for the border areas.

[48] It was not until Yuri Andropov's speech in October 1982 during his ascent to the Party General Secretary that Soviet Koreans were mentioned as one of the nationalities which were living without equal rights.

[53] On 1 April 1993, the Russian Federation issued a decree "On the Rehabilitation of Soviet Koreans",[54] acknowledging that their deportation was illegal and stating that they could theoretically return to the Far East.

[48] Dozens of Koreans in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were designated Heroes of Socialist Labor, including chairman of a collective farm Kim Pen-Hwa, member of the Uzbek Communist Party Hwan Man-Kim, and farmer Lyubov Li.

[59] Russian historian Pavel Polian considered all of the deportations of entire ethnic groups which occurred during Stalin's rule a crime against humanity.

[5] Kazakhstani Korean scholar German Kim assumes that one of the reasons for this deportation may have been Stalin's intent to oppress ethnic minorities that could have posed a threat to his socialist system or he may have intended to consolidate the border regions with China and Japan by using them as political bargaining chips.

The prevalence of racism lay in the fact that (Slavs, some Jews, Armenians and members of other ethnic groups) could be wholly or individually judged based on what class they belonged to but the Koreans could not.

[64] Farid Shafiyev, chairman of the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations, assumes that the Soviet policy has always been the Russification of border regions, especially the Asian peripheries.

[8][65][10] Nonetheless, the dominant view among historians of Russia and the USSR was and remains that of Harvard's Terry Martin and his theory of "Soviet xenophobia."

Alyssa Park, in her archival work, found very little evidence that Koreans had proven or were able to prove their loyalties beyond a shadow of a doubt, thus 'necessitating' deportation from the border areas.

[75][76] After the "primordialist turn" by the Stalinist regime in the mid-1930s, the Soviet Greeks, Finns, Poles, Chinese, Koreans, Germans, Crimean Tatars and other deported peoples were all seen as being loyal to their "titular" nations (or they were seen as being loyal to non-Soviet polities) because in the 1930s, the Soviet state considered nationality (ethnicity) and political loyalty (ideology) primordial equivalents.

[80][81] John J. Stephan called the "erasure" of Chinese and Korean history (state-formation, cultural contributions, peoples) to the region by the USSR and Russia the intentional "genesis of a 'blank spot.

Finally, on the other end of the "primordial" spectrum, the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) were inherently seen as being more loyal and more representative of the Soviet people.

[85] Missionaries from South Korea have traveled to Central Asia and Russia to teach the Korean language for free at schools and universities which are located there.