The Soviet Army took the city on 20 August 1945[65] and Harbin never came under the control of the Nationalist Government, whose troops stopped 60 km (37 mi) short of the city.[66] The city's administration was transferred by the departing Soviet Army to the Chinese People's Liberation Army in April 1946. On 28 April 1946, the communist government of Harbin was established, making the 700,000-citizen-city the first large city governed by the communists.[26] During the short occupation of Harbin by the Soviet Army (August 1945 to April 1946), thousands of Russian emigres who had been identified as members of the Russian Fascist Party and fled communism after the Russian October Revolution,[37] were forcibly deported to the Soviet Union. After 1952 the Soviet Union launched a second wave of immigration back to Russia.[37] By 1964, the Russian population in Harbin had been reduced to 450.[62] The rest of the European community (Russians, Germans, Poles, Greeks, etc.) emigrated during the years 1950–54 to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, and the US, or were repatriated to their home countries.[37] By 1988 the original Russian community numbered just thirty, all of them elderly. Modern Russians living in Harbin mostly moved there in the 1990s and 2000s, and have no relation to the first wave of emigration.[citation needed]

Harbin was one of the key construction cities of China during the First Five-Year Plan period from 1951 to 1956. 13 of the 156 key construction projects were aid-constructed by the Soviet Union in Harbin. This project made Harbin an important industrial base of China. During the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961, Harbin experienced a very tortuous development course as several Sino-Soviet contracts were cancelled by the Soviet Union.[67] During the Cultural Revolution many foreign and Christian things were uprooted. On 23 August 1966, Red Guards stormed into St. Nicholas Cathedral, burned its icons on the streets while chanting xenophobic slogans before destroying the church.[68] As the normal economic and social order was seriously disrupted, Harbin's economy also suffered from serious setbacks. One of the main reasons of this setback is with its Soviet ties deteriorating and the Vietnam War escalating, China became concerned of a possible nuclear attack. Mao Zedong ordered an evacuation of military and other key state enterprises away from the northeastern frontier, with Harbin being the core zone of this region, bordering the Soviet Union. During this Third Front Development Era of China, several major factories of Harbin were relocated to Southwestern Provinces including Gansu, Sichuan, Hunan and Guizhou, where they would be strategically secure in the event of a possible war. Some major universities of China were also moved out of Harbin, including Harbin Military Academy of Engineering (predecessor of Changsha's National University of Defense Technology) and Harbin Institute of Technology (Moved to Chongqing in 1969 and relocated to Harbin in 1973).[69]

Huang Shan Jewish Cemetery of Harbin

National economy and social service have obtained significant achievements since the Chinese economic reform first introduced in 1979. Harbin holds the China Harbin International Economic and Trade Fair each year since 1990.[26] Harbin once housed one of the largest Jewish communities in the Far East before World War II. It reached its peak in the mid-1920s when 25,000 European Jews lived in the city. Among them were the parents of Ehud Olmert, the former Prime Minister of Israel. In 2004, Olmert came to Harbin with an Israeli trade delegation to visit the grave of his grandfather in Huang Shan Jewish Cemetery,[70] which had over 500 Jewish graves identified.[37]

On 5 October 1984, Harbin was designated a sub-provincial city by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee. The eight counties of Harbin originally formed part of Songhuajiang Prefecture whose seat was practically located inside the urban area of Harbin since 1972. The prefecture was officially merged into Harbin city on 11 August 1996, increasing Harbin's total population to 9.47 million.[71]

Harbin hosted the third Asian Winter Games in 1996.[72] In 2009, Harbin held the XXIV Winter Universiade.

A memorial hall honoring Korean nationalist and independence activist[73] Ahn Jung-geun was unveiled at Harbin Railway Station on 19 January 2014.[74] Ahn assassinated four-time Prime Minister of Japan and former Resident-General of Korea Itō Hirobumi at No.1 platform of Harbin Railway Station on 26 October 1909, as Korea on the verge of annexation by Japan after the signing of the Eulsa Treaty.[75] South Korean President Park Geun-Hye raised an idea of erecting a monument for Ahn while meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to China in June 2013.[76] After that China began to build a memorial hall honoring Ahn at Harbin Railway Station. As the hall was unveiled on 19 January 2014, the Japanese side soon lodged protest with China over the construction of Ahn's memorial hall.[77]