22 December Incident

The 22 December Incident was an attempted insurrection by Hezhen Army officers on the night of 22 December, 1979. A small faction of officers who came to be derisively known as the 'Righteous Path' prior to the incident (derived from a speech delivered by rebel leader Lieutenant General Varvara Rykova) assassinated several high-ranking officers and civil officials who were not sympathetic to their cause, most notably General Elizaveta Aniuke, and seized control of army headquarters in Zeya and the capital of Na. The insurrection was dealt a heavy blow when Colonel Ayta Zhao, tasked with assassinating Lieutenant General Elena Rinchen and capturing the army headquarters in Ussuri, was convinced to order her brigade to lay down their arms and warn Commodore Liang, the commander of the armed forces and the most high-profile target of the insurrection. Consequently, Liang escaped before Rykova's forces arrived to seize the capital headquarters, and the Righteous Path lost a significant portion of its forces. Despite heavy fighting throughout that night and the following morning in Na, the insurrection was quelled, and many of the rebels chose to die fighting or commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner. Lieutenant Colonel An Zuoren's battalion, which had taken the headquarters in Zeya, escaped northwards into unaligned Sakha, and Varvara Rykova, the leading figure of the rebellion, is suspected to have also escaped.

The rebels' motives were varied, but were primarily rooted in militant nationalism. Many of the officers of the Righteous Path believed more powers of decision should have rested in the hands of army officers than in the premier, or the General Staff. Furthermore, the rebels viewed Hezhe as a nation by and for indigenous peoples, and hoped to purge the military and government of what they considered 'appeasers and traitors', those who espoused a non-isolationist foreign policy; they also demanded citizenship and rights for all non-indigenous individuals in the Federation be renounced. They believed that, with leading figures such as Liang and Aniuke out of the way and the largest army headquarters throughout Hezhe in their hands, they could win greater support in the army and make demands of the Hezhen government.

The incident was a breaking point in tensions that had existed in Hezhe since the onset of the nation, between radicals who believed that the rise of an indigenous state was an opportunity for reprisal against centuries of outsider subjugation, and moderates who held that the existence of an indigenous nation was retribution enough. Although the rebels ultimately were unable to achieve their goals, they forced the brewing schism back to the forefront of Hezhen politics, and highlighted a problem that had lurked beneath the surface of the Federation for years. The insurrection's defeat also marked the point at which Premier Sayiina Wu began consolidating greater amounts of power into her own hands, diminishing the political presence of both the army and the Congress of Tribes.