The conflict was the first major combat test of the reformed Soviet Red Army, which was organized along the latest professional lines, and ended with the mobilization and deployment of 156,000 troops to the Manchurian border.

Combining the active-duty strength of the Red Army and border guards with the call-up of the Far East reserves, approximately one in five Soviet soldiers was sent to the frontier, the largest Red Army combat force to be fielded between the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) and the Soviet Union's entry to the Winter War (1939-1940).

The Soviet Union quickly responded with a military intervention and eventually forced the Chinese to return the railway to the previous format of joint administration.

[16] On 26 August, a revised version of the Karakhan Manifesto was published by the Soviet press, but the document mentioned neither the return of CER to the Chinese nor the lack of financial compensation.

The July 25 Karakhan telegram showed that the Soviets' original intention was to return the CER to Chinese control without compensation.

"[16] The Soviets added, "In carrying out the principle of equal representation the normal course of life and activities of the Railway shall in no case be interrupted or injured, that is to say the employment of both nationalities shall be in accordance with experience, personal qualifications and fitness of applicants.

[3] On 6 August, the Soviet Union created the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army, commanded by Vasily Blyukher,[1] with the assistance of Voroshilov.

[8] Zhang quickly enlisted more troops, most importantly thousands of anticommunist Russians who lived as White émigrés in Manchuria.

On December 13, after much debate, the Chinese signed the Khabarovsk Protocol, which restored peace and the status quo ante bellum, the Sino-Soviet treaty of 1924.

During the conflict, the Soviets used propaganda to help spread communist ideology and to confuse the Chinese Army by using radio and leaflets.

They did so by deceiving the Chinese command on the town that was the Soviets' next target: "Its military forces combined carefully measured use of depth and variety, coordinated in the fashion of a swift action design to achieve the precise goal of annihilating offensive under complex conditions' against enemy forces.

"[19] Stalin boasted to Vyacheslav Molotov that "our fellows from the Far East Army gave [the Chinese] a good scare.

[20] Stalin adopted a policy of strict neutrality, and the Soviet Union sold its rights to the Chinese Eastern Railway to the Manchukuo government on 23 March 1935.

[21] In 1928, Arsenyev Mikhail Mikhailovich (Арсеньев Михаил Михайлович), Staff Colonel of Red Army Headquarter, submitted a report to the Far Eastern Bureau that advised that free migration from China and Korea in the areas bordering the countries should be stopped and that the area should be filled with migrants from Siberia and Europe instead.

Thousands of Chinese in Irkutsk, Chita, and Ulan-Ude were arrested for breach of local orders, tax evasion, and other reasons.

"[26] On 12 August, the newspaper stated that there were still 1,600-1,700 Chinese in jail in Vladivostok, who were supplied with a piece of rye bread daily and suffered various forms of torture.

[27] On 26 August, the newspaper stated that those detained in Khabarovsk had only a bread soup for meal daily, and many people had hanged themselves because of unbearable starvation.

[30] On 21 September, the newspaper said that "the government in Russian Far East cheated the arrested Chinese, and forced them to construct the railway between Heihe and Khabarovsk.

"[31][25]: 31 Although after signing the Treaty of Khabarovsk [zh; ru], the Soviet government released most of the arrested Chinese.