In 1920 Lenin had declared
that England was Soviet Union’s greatest enemy and they must be hit in India
hard. During this tense period of the twentieth century various intelligence
gatherings missions were carried out, both on the Soviet and the British side.
The Soviet secret police known as Cheka as rival of the British intelligence,
which was still the world’s most formidable intelligence service. Disguised as
member of shooting trips, scientific expeditions and covering as native
traders, acts of espionage gained new highest in the Central Asian region. In
Summer 1918 a small party on ponies led by Colonel Fredrick Bailey of the
Indian Political and Secret Department were travelling through Chinese Central
Asia heading for the Russian frontier. Another British officer included in this
party was Major Stewart Blacker.
On 22 April Bailey left India
and on 7 June he reached Kashgar. Messages from Kashgar took at least three weeks
to reach India by runner. On June 16, 1918, when Bailey and his party were
about to leave Kashgar Tsar Nicholas and his family were executed in cold blood
in the soviet territory. As they travelled towards Tashkent Bailey stopped to
catch butterflies. On 14 August 1918 Colonel Bailey and Major Blacker stepped
off the train in Tashkent and drove to Regina hotel. The two officers were
lucky enough not to get shot. Invisible ink and code was used to convey news of
their situation to Etherton in Kashgar. On September 1, 1918 Sir George
Macartney had arrived in Tashkent and both were summoned to the White House,
residence of the former Governor-General, to see President of the new republic.
One of the reasons why
forbearance was being shown to the mission was that Bolshevik’s desire for
recognition by the British, the then leading power of the world. At Tashkent
there was the American Consul named Roger Tredwell. The author of this book
says that Bailey finished his lunch and made his way home. Safely inside he
made the final plan and left for Tredwell’s, for supper. After supper he
entered a narrow row of houses nearby, after which he disappeared.
Another character in the great
game was Paul Nazaroff who was the ringleader of a White Russian plot to
overthrow the Tashkent Soviet and link up with the British to the West.
Nazaroff was caught by two Cheka agents. Osipov had overthrown the Tashkent
government and before the Revolution he was a junior officer in the Tsarist
army. ‘For months now those Russians opposed to Bolshevik rule in Central Asia
had been looking in desperation to the British for deliverance’, says Hopkirk.
Bailey was still on the run
from the Cheka and was out of touch with his government. Indian revolutionaries
had arrived in Tashkent with Bolshevik assistance and Bailey had noted them,
not for the first time. King Habibullah of Afghanistan strictly remained
neutral throughout the war from 1914-18. An Afghan mission had visited Moscow
and met Lenin, Trotsky and other senior Bolshevik leaders.
Bailey’s former companion in
Tashkent was now engaged in Bolshevik-watching from Meshed. To Bailey in
Tashkent it had become obvious that the British were not aiming to drive the
Bolsheviks out of Central Asia. He was simply wasting his time there and was at
considerable risk. Bailey with the help of Manditch, a Serbian police contact
got recruited in the Bolshevik Secret Service. Before leaving Tashkent Bailey managed
to obtain a letter of introduction from the Bokharan consul to his opposite
number in Kagan. It was acquired through mutual friends on ‘a solemn promise that
Bailey was not a Bolshevik’. It was the last Bolsheviks were ever to see of
Bailey.
It occurred to Bailey that
once established in Bokhara, with the Emir’s blessings, he would be well placed
to supply to Meshed regular intelligence about what was going on in Bolshevik
Central Asia, just as Etherton was doing from Kashgar. Bailey made his escape
to Persia on January 6, 1920. Bailey’s party crossed the river and narrowly
escaped Bolshevik arrest. After seventeen months Bailey was finally on friendly
soil. After Bailey, the author places Major (later Colonel) Etherton in the
Soviet order of villainy. Etherton spent four years as Consul General at
Kashgar. His book Across the Roof of the
World is also mentioned by Hopkirk. In January 1918 a wireless receiving
set was installed which intercepted Bolshevik radio traffic between Tashkent,
Moscow and elsewhere. Officially the Consul General was there in Kashgar to
protect the rights of British –Indian subjects in Chinese Turkestan. The Consul
staff included a Vice-Consul, British wireless monitors, chief clerk, an
assistant clerk, a Chinese secretary and numerous orderlies and servants. In
case of trouble this British outpost had thirty sepoys commanded by an Indian
officer who were changed annually.
The author describes the Chini
Bagh residence at Kashgar. In 1913 Chini Bagh was demolished and a new twenty
roomed European style residence was constructed. Before 1914-18, this English
home was the oasis for rare European travelers. Albert von Le Coq and Aurel
Stein also visited this place. The Bolsheviks were pressing the Chinese to be
allowed to open consulates in Sinkiang and handover those who still remained
loyal to the Tsarist cause. Etherton was determined to sabotage the Bolshevik
move. Etherton warned the Chinese that the Bolsheviks would foment trouble
among the Muslim population, which was already restless. Not until three years
after Etherton’s departure from Kashgar was Moscow allowed to reoccupy its own
Consulate-General at Kashgar.
On the second of March 1919,
fifty-two leading revolutionaries including Lenin and Trotsky met within the
walls of Kremlin to lay the foundations of the Communist International, which
became better known as Comintern. Lenin wanted Bolshevism to spread in India.
For this Manabendra Nath Roy was ready. He was a native of Bengal and from a
well-known Brahmin family. He began his revolutionary career in as anti-British
secret society. Wanted for treason by the British authorities Roy fled via
Japan and China to the United States. Roy had disagreed with Lenin on two
issues. First, Roy insisted that the colonies should first be liberated and
secondly Roy did not want cooperation with non-Marxist liberation movements.
Further in the book, Baron
Ungern-Sternberg who brought terror to Mongolia and Enver Pasha who dreamed of
a Turkish empire in Central Asia is well explained. Their photographs are also
published in the book. In 1921 Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement was mad, which
according to the author made partial recognition by the greatest of the
imperialist powers. The news of the agreement was a bombshell to Colonel Etherton,
who was at Kashgar. In India Mahatma Gandhi had appeared on the political
scene. Gandhi had transformed the Indian National Congress into a nationwide political
party. Mongolia on the other hand, was the second country to turn Communist.
Ungern-Sternberg had it made easy for the Russians, says the author.
The entire Muslim population
of Central Asia was alienated when the ancient Muslim town of Kokand was
brutally sacked by the Soviets in 1918. Basmachi bands were formed as a
reaction to this. Lenin chose Enver Pasha, a former Turkish General to break
the basmachi and persuade the Muslim masses to join the Bolshevik cause. Enver
wanted to deliver British India to the Bolsheviks in exchange their help in restoring
him to power in Turkey, which by now was in the grip of one of his former
colonels, Mustafa Pasha, better known as Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk showed himself
to be friendly towards the soviet neighbors and hostile towards the British.
Enver Pasha’s political fortunes
reached a low ebb on March 16, 1921 when Moscow finally signed a treaty with
his arch-foe Ataturk. The author says that: “But
it appears that the unsuspecting Lenin dispatched him to Central Asia hoping
that he would exert his considerable influence on the local Muslim population…”.
Enver arrived in Bohara which was now in firm Bolshevik hands. He made secret
contact with basmachi leaders. Enver is said to have found himself in the cradle
of the Turkish race. He was to lead against the Bolsheviks. Enver had to unite Uzbek,
Turkoman, Kirghiz and Kazakh. He sent messengers to Khiva, Samarkand and
Ferghana to invite basmachi leaders to join forces with him. On 14 February
1922 Enver captured Dushambe, in present-day Tajikistan.
On the other side, Roy
considered Gandhi’s ideas as ‘positively reactionary’ and not being revolutionary.
Ten of Roy’s Indian agents were picked up after entering the India across the
Pamir. They were charged under section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code. Satlin
who had been placed in charge of the Comintern’s eastern operations by Lenin,
was now becoming increasingly impatient at Roy’s lack of results. On May 8,
1923 Lord Curzon sent an ultimatum warning Moscow that unless, within ten days,
it withdrew all its agents operating against British interests in Asia, or
anywhere else, trade relations between the two countries would be terminated
forthwith. Moscow was momentarily stunned by Curzon’s bombshell but for the
Bolsheviks Soviet India remained the ultimate Prize in Asia, and Moscow had no
intention of abandoning its hopes. Comintern now aimed at expanding Eastwards
towards China as well as into French Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies.
Bolshevisk had links with China dated from 1920.
On February 1, 1924, Britain
accorded full diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union, becoming the first
major power to do so. Major George Gillan who took charge as Consul-General at
Kashgar pointed out to Taoyin that incase of trouble the British Consul-General
could become a refuge for the most obvious victims of the mobs. In Kashgar
Gillan and his Russian counterpart were indulging in these shadowy pursuits,
elsewhere in China there had been dramatic developments. Borodin wanted the
communists in China to go along with the Kuomintang and to seize victory from
them at the last moment, from within. The warlord-held territories could be
captured in this manner was what Borodin planned. Roy exited from the Soviet
Union with the help of Borodin. Roy was arrested in Bombay and was found guilty
and sentenced to twelve years of rigorous imprisonment. He argued in court and quoted Hume and
Bentham. His sentence was cut half.
Chapter sixteen is about the
last of the central Asian dreamers. In this chapter the political turmoil,
killings, conflicts and the last foreigners who observed the various changes in
that part of Central Asia are mentioned. Khotan, Kucha and Yarkand are
mentioned in the next chapter, serving as important positions in the great
game. Colonel Reginald Schomberg, after travelling through Chinese Central Asia
produced a twelve-page report. He warned that there is great threat of ‘Red
intrigue’ in ‘India, Tibet, Chitral and Punial’.
Peter Hopkirk espouses that
the East fails to ignite as he says that: “Lenin’s
great dream of an empire in Asia, like those of Sternberg, Enver and Ma, had
ended in failure”. Hopkirk considers that the only permanent gain has been
Mongolia. Bailey described as the last player in the Great Game was to serve
the British government for another eighteen years. First as political officer in
Sikkim, later resident in Srinagar and lastly as Minister Plenipotentiary to
the Royal Court of Nepal. Bailey passed away in 1967 at the age of eighty-five.
The author considers him as the last survivor of those stirring days in Asia’s
back.
The bloody struggle is a story
of British intelligence officers, armed communists of the Communist
International, Muslim leaders, Chinese political figures and other regional
stakeholders. A very interesting read for all those interested in understanding
Great Game in the Central Asian region.
