SOCIAL UNREST AND BOLSHEVISM
Unrest is the natural concomitant of change--particularly of sudden
change. Every break with past, however normal and inevitable, implies a
necessity for readjustment to altered conditions which causes a
temporary sense of restless disharmony until the required adjustment has
been made. Unrest is not an exceptional phenomenon; it is always latent
in every human society which has not fallen into complete stagnation,
and a slight amount of unrest should be considered a sign of healthy
growth rather than a symptom of disease. In fact, the minimum degrees of
unrest are usually not called by that name, but are considered mere
incidents of normal development. Under normal circumstances, indeed, the
social organism functions like the human organism: it is being
incessantly destroyed and as incessantly renewed in conformity with the
changing conditions of life. These changes are sometimes very
considerable, but they are so gradual that they are effected almost
without being perceived. A healthy organism well attuned to its
environment is always plastic. It instinctively senses environmental
changes and adapts itself so rapidly that it escapes the injurious
consequences of disharmony.
Far different is the character of unrest's acuter manifestations. These
are infallible symptoms of sweeping changes, sudden breaks with the
past, and profound maladjustments which are not being rapidly rectified.
In other words, acute unrest denotes social ill-health and portends the
possibility of one of those violent crises known as "revolutions."
The history of the Moslem East well exemplifies the above
generalizations. The formative period of Saracenic civilization was
characterized by rapid change and an intense idealistic ferment. The
great "Motazelite" movement embraced many shades of thought, its radical
wing professing religious, political, and social doctrines of a violent
revolutionary nature. But this changeful period was superficial and
brief. Arab vigour and the Islamic spirit proved unable permanently to
leaven the vast inertia of the ancient East. Soon the old traditions
reasserted themselves--somewhat modified, to be sure, yet basically the
same Saracenic civilization became stereotyped, ossified, and with this
ossification changeful unrest died away. Here and there the radical
tradition was preserved and secretly handed down by a few obscure sects
like the Kharidjites of Inner Arabia and the Bettashi dervishes; but
these were mere cryptic episodes, of no general significance.
With the Mohammedan Revival at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
however, symptoms of social unrest appeared once more. Wahabism aimed
not merely at a reform of religious abuses but was also a general
protest against the contemporary decadence of Moslem society. In many
cases it took the form of a popular revolt against established
governments. The same was true of the correlative Babbist movement in
Persia, which took place about the same time.[284]
And of course these nascent stirrings were greatly stimulated by the
flood of Western ideas and methods which, as the nineteenth century wore
on, increasingly permeated the East. What, indeed, could be more
provocative of unrest of every description than the resulting
transformation of the Orient--a transformation so sudden, so intense,
and necessitating so concentrated a process of adaptation that it was
basically revolutionary rather than evolutionary in its nature? The
details of these profound changes--political, religious, economic,
social--we have already studied, together with the equally profound
disturbance, bewilderment, and suffering afflicting all classes in this
eminently transition period.
The essentially revolutionary nature of this transition period, as
exemplified by India, is well described by a British economist.[285]
What, he asks, could be more anachronistic than the contrast between
rural and urban India? "Rural India is primitive or mediæval; city India
is modern." In city India you will find every symbol of Western life,
from banks and factories down to the very "sandwichmen that you left in
the London gutters." Now all this co-exists beside rural India. "And it
is surely a fact unique in economic history that they should thus exist
side by side. The present condition of India does not correspond with
any period of European economic history." Imagine the effect in Europe
of setting down modern and mediæval men together, with utterly disparate
ideas. That has not happened in Europe because "European progress in the
economic world has been evolutionary"; a process spread over centuries.
In India, on the other hand, this economic transformation has been
"revolutionary" in character.
How unevolutionary is India's economic transformation is seen by the
condition of rural India.
"Rural India, though chiefly characterized by primitive usage, has been
invaded by ideas that are intensely hostile to the old state of things
It is primitive, _but not consistently primitive_. Competitive wages are
paid side by side with customary wages. Prices are sometimes fixed by
custom, but sometimes, too, by free economic causes. From the midst of a
population deeply rooted in the soil, men are being carried away by the
desire of better wages. In short, economic motives have suddenly and
partially intruded themselves in the realm of primitive morality. And,
if we turn to city India, we see a similar, though inverted, state of
things.... In neither case has the mixture been harmonious or the fusion
complete. Indeed, the two orders are too unrelated, too far apart, to
coalesce with ease....
"India, then, is in a state of economic revolution throughout all the
classes of an enormous and complex society. The only period in which
Europe offered even faint analogies to modern India was the Industrial
Revolution, from which even now we have not settled down into
comparative stability. We may reckon it as a fortunate circumstance for
Europe that the intellectual movement which culminated in the French
Revolution did not coincide with the Industrial Revolution. If it had,
it is possible that European society might have been hopelessly wrecked.
But, as it was, even when the French Revolution had spent its force in
the conquests of Napoleon, the Industrial Revolution stirred up enough
social and political discontent. When whole classes of people are
obliged by economic revolution to change their mode of life, it is
inevitable that many should suffer. Discontent is roused. Political and
destructive movements are certain to ensue. Not only the Revolutions of
'48, but also the birth of the Socialist Party sprang from the
Industrial Revolution.
"But that revolution was not nearly so sweeping as that which is now in
operation in India. The invention of machinery and steam-power was, in
Europe, but the crowning event of a long series of years in which
commerce and industry had been constantly expanding, in which capital
had been largely accumulated, in which economic principles had been
gradually spreading.... No, the Indian economic revolution is vastly
greater and more fundamental than our Industrial Revolution, great as
that was. Railways have been built through districts where travel was
almost impossible, and even roads are unknown. Factories have been
built, and filled by men unused to industrial labour. Capital has been
poured into the country, which was unprepared for any such development.
And what are the consequences? India's social organization is being
dissolved. The Brahmins are no longer priests. The ryot is no longer
bound to the soil. The banya is no longer the sole purveyor of capital.
The hand-weaver is threatened with extinction, and the brass-worker can
no longer ply his craft. Think of the dislocation which this sudden
change has brought about, of the many who can no longer follow their
ancestral vocations, of the commotion which a less profound change
produced in Europe, and you will understand what is the chief
motive-power of the political unrest. It is small wonder. The wonder is
that the unrest has been no greater than it is. Had India not been an
Asiatic country, she would have been in fierce revolution long ago."
The above lines were of course written in the opening years of the
twentieth century, before the world had been shattered by Armageddon and
aggressive social revolution had established itself in semi-Asiatic
Russia. But even during those pre-war years, other students of the
Orient were predicting social disturbances of increasing gravity. Said
the Hindu nationalist leader, Bipin Chandra Pal: "This so-called unrest
is not really political. It is essentially an intellectual and spiritual
upheaval, the forerunner of a mighty social revolution, with a new
organon and a new philosophy of life behind it."[286] And the French
publicist Chailley wrote of India: "There will be a series of economic
revolutions, which must necessarily produce suffering and
struggle."[287]
During this pre-war period the increased difficulty of living
conditions, together with the adoption of Western ideas of comfort and
kindred higher standards, seem to have been engendering friction between
the different strata of the Oriental population. In 1911 a British
sanitary expert assigned "wretchedness" as the root-cause of India's
political unrest. After describing the deplorable living conditions of
the Indian masses, he wrote: "It will of course be said at once that
these conditions have existed in India from time immemorial, and are no
more likely to cause unrest now than previously; but in my opinion
unrest has always existed there in a subterranean form. Moreover, in the
old days, the populace could make scarcely any comparison between their
own condition and that of more fortunate people; now they can compare
their own slums and terrible 'native quarters' with the much better
ordered cantonments, stations, and houses of the British officials and
even of their own wealthier brethren. So far as I can see, such misery
is always the fundamental cause of all popular unrest.... Seditious
meetings, political chatter, and 'aspirations' of babus and demagogues
are only the superficial manifestations of the deeper disturbance."[288]
This growing social friction was indubitably heightened by the lack of
interest of Orientals in the sufferings of all persons not bound to them
by family, caste, or customary ties. Throughout the East, "social
service," in the Western sense, is practically unknown. This fact is
noted by a few Orientals themselves. Says an Indian writer, speaking of
Indian town life: "There is no common measure of social conduct....
Hitherto, social reform in India has taken account only of individual or
family life. As applied to mankind in the mass, and especially to those
soulless agglomerations of seething humanity which we call cities, it is
a gospel yet to be preached."[289] As an American sociologist remarked
of the growing slum evil throughout the industrialized Orient: "The
greatest danger is due to the fact that Orientals do not have the high
Western sense of the value of the life of the individual, and are,
comparatively speaking, without any restraining influence similar to our
own enlightened public opinion, which has been roused by the struggles
of a century of industrial strife. Unless these elements can be
supplied, there is danger of suffering and of abuses worse than any the
West has known."[290]
All this diffused social unrest was centring about two recently emerged
elements: the Western-educated _intelligentsia_ and the industrial
proletariat of the factory towns. The revolutionary tendencies of the
_intelligentsia_, particularly of its half-educated failures, have been
already noted, and these latter have undoubtedly played a leading part
in all the revolutionary disturbances of the modern Orient, from North
Africa to China.[291] Regarding the industrial proletariat, some writers
think that there is little immediate likelihood of their becoming a
major revolutionary factor, because of their traditionalism, ignorance,
and apathy, and also because there is no real connection between them
and the _intelligentsia_, the other centre of social discontent.
The French economist Métin states this view-point very well. Speaking
primarily of India, he writes: "The Nationalist movement rises from the
middle classes and manifests no systematic hostility toward the
capitalists and great proprietors; in economic matters it is on their
side."[292] As for the proletariat: "The coolies do not imagine that
their lot can be bettered. Like the ryots and the agricultural
labourers, they do not show the least sign of revolt. To whom should
they turn? The ranks of traditional society are closed to them. People
without caste, the coolies are despised even by the old-style artisan,
proud of his caste-status, humble though that be. To fall to the job of
a coolie is, for the Hindu, the worst declassment. The factory workers
are not yet numerous enough to form a compact and powerful proletariat,
able to exert pressure on the old society. Even if they do occasionally
strike, they are as far from the modern Trade-Union as they are from the
traditional working-caste. Neither can they look for leadership to the
'intellectual proletariat'; for the Nationalist movement has not emerged
from the 'bourgeois' phase, and always leans on the capitalists....
"Thus Indian industry is still in its embryonic stages. In truth, the
material evolution which translates itself by the construction of
factories, and the social evolution which creates a proletariat, have
only begun to emerge; while the intellectual evolution from which arise
the programmes of social demands has not even begun."[293]
Other observers of Indian industrial conditions, however, do not share
M. Métin's opinion. Says the British Labour leader, J. Ramsay Macdonald:
"To imagine the backward Indian labourers becoming a conscious regiment
in the class war, seems to be one of the vainest dreams in which a
Western mind can indulge. But I sometimes wonder if it be so very vain
after all. In the first place, the development of factory industry in
India has created a landless and homeless proletariat unmatched by the
same economic class in any other capitalist community; and to imagine
that this class is to be kept out, or can be kept out, of Indian
politics is far more vain than to dream of its developing a politics on
Western lines. Further than that, the wage-earners have shown a
willingness to respond to Trades-Union methods; they are forming
industrial associations and have engaged in strikes; some of the social
reform movements conducted by Indian intellectuals definitely try to
establish Trades-Unions and preach ideas familiar to us in connection
with Trades-Union propaganda. A capitalist fiscal policy will not only
give this movement a great impetus as it did in Japan, but in India will
not be able to suppress the movement, as was done in Japan, by
legislation. As yet, the true proletarian wage-earner, uprooted from his
native village and broken away from the organization of Indian society,
is but insignificant. It is growing, however, and I believe that it will
organize itself rapidly on the general lines of the proletarian classes
of other capitalist countries. So soon as it becomes politically
conscious, there are no other lines upon which it can organize
itself."[294]
Turning to the Near East--more than a decade ago a French Socialist
writer, observing the hard living conditions of the Egyptian masses,
noted signs of social unrest and predicted grave disturbances. "A
genuine proletariat," he wrote, "has been created by the multiplication
of industries and the sudden, almost abrupt, progress which has
followed. The cost of living has risen to a scale hitherto unknown in
Egypt, while wages have risen but slightly. Poverty and want abound.
Some day suffering will provoke the people to complaints, perhaps to
angry outbursts, throughout this apparently prosperous Delta. It is true
that the influx of foreigners and of money may put off the hour when the
city or country labourer of Egyptian race comes clearly to perceive the
wrongs that are being done to him. He may miss the educational influence
of Socialism. Yet such an awakening may come sooner than people expect.
It is not only among the successful and prosperous Egyptians that
intelligence is to be found. Those whose wages are growing gradually
smaller and smaller have intelligence of equal keenness, and it has
become a real question as to the hour when for the first time in the
land of Islam the flame of Mohammedan Socialism shall burst forth."[295]
In Algeria, likewise, a Belgian traveller noted the dawning of a
proletarian consciousness among the town working-men just before the
Great War. Speaking of the rapid spread of Western ideas, he wrote:
"Islam tears asunder like rotten cloth on the quays of Algiers: the
dockers, coal-passers, and engine-tenders, to whatever race they belong,
leave their Islam and acquire a genuine proletarian morality, that of
the proletarians of Europe, and they make common cause with their
European colleagues on the basis of a strictly economic struggle. If
there were many big factories in Algeria, orthodox Islam would soon
disappear there, as old-fashioned Catholicism has disappeared with us
under the shock of great industry."[296]
Whatever may be the prospects as to the rapid emergence of organized
labour movements in the Orient, one thing seems certain: the unrest
which afflicted so many parts of the East in the years preceding the
Great War, though mainly political, had also its social side. Toward the
end of 1913, a leading Anglo-Indian journal remarked pessimistically:
"We have already gone so far on the downward path that leads to
destruction that there are districts in what were once regarded as the
most settled parts of India which are being abandoned by the rich
because their property is not safe. So great is the contempt for the law
that it is employed by the unscrupulous as a means of offence against
the innocent. Frontier Pathans commit outrages almost unbelievable in
their daring. Mass-meetings are held and agitation spreads in regard to
topics quite outside the business of orderly people. There is no matter
of domestic or foreign politics in which crowds of irresponsible people
do not want to have their passionate way. Great grievances are made of
little, far-off things. What ought to be the ordered, spacious life of
the District Officer is intruded upon and disturbed by a hundred
distracting influences due to the want of discipline of the people. In
the subordinate ranks of the great services themselves, trades-unions
have been formed. Military and police officers have to regret that the
new class of recruits is less subordinate than the old, harder to
discipline, more full of complaints."[297]
The Great War of course enormously aggravated Oriental unrest. In many
parts of the Near East, especially, acute suffering, balked ambitions,
and furious hates combined to reduce society to the verge of chaos. Into
this ominous turmoil there now came the sinister influence of Russian
Bolshevism, marshalling all this diffused unrest by systematic methods
for definite ends. Bolshevism was frankly out for a world-revolution and
the destruction of Western civilization. To attain this objective the
Bolshevist leaders not only launched direct assaults on the West, but
also planned flank attacks in Asia and Africa. They believed that if the
East could be set on fire, not only would Russian Bolshevism gain vast
additional strength but also the economic repercussion on the West,
already shaken by the war, would be so terrific that industrial collapse
would ensue, thereby throwing Europe open to revolution.
Bolshevism's propagandist efforts were nothing short of universal, both
in area and in scope. No part of the world was free from the plottings
of its agents; no possible source of discontent was overlooked. Strictly
"Red" doctrines like the dictatorship of the proletariat were very far
from being the only weapons in Bolshevism's armoury. Since what was
first wanted was the overthrow of the existing world-order, any kind of
opposition to that order, no matter how remote doctrinally from
Bolshevism, was grist to the Bolshevist mill. Accordingly, in every
quarter of the globe, in Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, as
in Europe, Bolshevik agitators whispered in the ears of the discontented
their gospel of hatred and revenge. Every nationalist aspiration, every
political grievance, every social injustice, every racial
discrimination, was fuel for Bolshevism's incitement to violence and
war.[298]
Particularly promising fields for Bolshevist activity were the Near and
Middle East. Besides being a prey to profound disturbances of every
description, those regions as traditional objectives of the old Czarist
imperialism, had long been carefully studied by Russian agents who had
evolved a technique of "pacific penetration" that might be easily
adjusted to Bolshevist ends. To stir up political, religious, and racial
passions in Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, especially against
England, required no original planning by Trotzky or Lenin. Czarism had
already done these things for generations, and full information lay both
in the Petrograd archives and in the brains of surviving Czarist agents
ready to turn their hands as easily to the new work as the old.
In all the elaborate network of Bolshevist propaganda which to-day
enmeshes the East we must discriminate between Bolshevism's two
objectives: one immediate--the destruction of Western political and
economic supremacy; the other ultimate--the bolshevizing of the Oriental
masses and the consequent extirpation of the native upper and middle
classes, precisely as has been done in Russia and as is planned for the
countries of the West. In the first stage, Bolshevism is quite ready to
respect Oriental faiths and customs and to back Oriental nationalist
movements. In the second stage, religions like Islam and nationalists
like Mustapha Kemal are to be branded as "bourgeois" and relentlessly
destroyed. How Bolshevik diplomacy endeavours to work these two schemes
in double harness, we shall presently see.
Russian Bolshevism's Oriental policy was formulated soon after its
accession to power at the close of 1917. The year 1918 was a time of
busy preparation. An elaborate propaganda organization was built up from
various sources. A number of old Czarist agents and diplomats versed in
Eastern affairs were cajoled or conscripted into the service. The
Russian Mohammedan populations such as the Tartars of South Russia and
the Turkomans of Central Asia furnished many recruits. Even more
valuable were the exiles who flocked to Russia from Turkey, Persia,
India, and elsewhere at the close of the Great War. Practically all the
leaders of the Turkish war-government--Enver, Djemal, Talaat, and many
more, fled to Russia for refuge from the vengeance of the victorious
Entente Powers. The same was true of the Hindu terrorist leaders who had
been in German pay during the war and who now sought service under
Lenin. By the end of 1918 Bolshevism's Oriental propaganda department
was well organized, divided into three bureaux, for the Islamic
countries, India, and the Far East respectively. With Bolshevism's Far
Eastern activities this book is not concerned, though the reader should
bear them in mind and should remember the important part played by the
Chinese in recent Russian history. As for the Islamic and Indian
bureaux, they displayed great zeal, translating tons of Bolshevik
literature into the various Oriental languages, training numerous secret
agents and propagandists for "field-work," and getting in touch with all
disaffected or revolutionary elements.
With the opening months of 1919 Bolshevist activity throughout the Near
and Middle East became increasingly apparent. The wave of rage and
despair caused by the Entente's denial of Near Eastern nationalist
aspirations[299] played splendidly into the Bolshevists' hands, and we
have already seen how Moscow supported Mustapha Kemal and other
nationalist leaders in Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and elsewhere. In the
Middle East, also, Bolshevism gained important successes. Not merely was
Moscow's hand visible in the epidemic of rioting and seditious violence
which swept northern India in the spring of 1919,[300] but an even
shrewder blow was struck at Britain in Afghanistan. This land of
turbulent mountaineers, which lay like a perpetual thundercloud on
India's north-west frontier, had kept quiet during the Great War, mainly
owing to the Anglophile attitude of its ruler, the Ameer Habibullah
Khan. But early in 1919 Habibullah was murdered. Whether the Bolsheviki
had a hand in the matter is not known, but they certainly reaped the
benefit, for power passed to one of Habibullah's sons, Amanullah Khan,
who was an avowed enemy of England and who had had dealings with
Turco-German agents during the late war. Amanullah at once got in touch
with Moscow, and a little later, just when the Punjab was seething with
unrest, he declared war on England, and his wild tribesmen, pouring
across the border, set the North-West Frontier on fire. After some hard
fighting the British succeeded in repelling the Afghan invasion, and
Amanullah was constrained to make peace. But Britain obviously dared not
press Amanullah too hard, for in the peace treaty the Ameer was released
from his previous obligation not to maintain diplomatic relations with
other nations than British India. Amanullah promptly aired his
independence by maintaining ostentatious relations with Moscow. As a
matter of fact, the Bolsheviki had by this time established an important
propagandist subcentre in Russian Turkestan, not far from the Afghan
border, and this bureau's activities of course envisaged not merely
Afghanistan but the wider field of India as well.[301]
During 1920 Bolshevik activities became still more pronounced throughout
the Near and Middle East. We have already seen how powerfully Bolshevik
Russia supported the Turkish and Persian nationalist movements. In fact,
the reckless short-sightedness of Entente policy was driving into
Lenin's arms multitudes of nationalists to whom the internationalist
theories of Moscow were personally abhorrent. For example, the head of
the Afghan mission to Moscow thus frankly expressed his reasons for
friendship with Soviet Russia, in an interview printed by the official
Soviet organ, _Izvestia_: "I am neither Communist nor Socialist, but my
political programme so far is the expulsion of the English from Asia. I
am an irreconcilable enemy of European capitalism in Asia, the chief
representatives of which are the English. On this point I coincide with
the Communists, and in this respect we are your natural allies....
Afghanistan, like India, does not represent a capitalist state, and it
is very unlikely that even a parliamentary régime will take deep root in
these countries. It is so far difficult to say how subsequent events
will develop. I only know that the renowned address of the Soviet
Government to all nations, with its appeal to them to combat capitalists
(and for us a capitalist is synonymous with the word foreigner, or, to
be more exact, an Englishman), had an enormous effect on us. A still
greater effect was produced by Russia's annulment of all the secret
treaties enforced by the imperialistic governments, and by the
proclaiming of the right of all nations, no matter how small, to
determine their own destiny. This act rallied around Soviet Russia all
the exploited nationalities of Asia, and all parties, even those very
remote from Socialism." Of course, knowing what we do of Bolshevik
propagandist tactics, we cannot be sure that the Afghan diplomat ever
said the things which the _Izvestia_ relates. But, even if the interview
be a fake, the words put into his mouth express the feelings of vast
numbers of Orientals and explain a prime cause of Bolshevik propagandist
successes in Eastern lands.
So successful, indeed, had been the progress of Bolshevik propaganda
that the Soviet leaders now began to work openly for their ultimate
ends. At first Moscow had posed as the champion of Oriental "peoples"
against Western "imperialism"; its appeals had been to "peoples,"
irrespective of class; and it had promised "self-determination," with
full respect for native ideas and institutions. For instance: a
Bolshevist manifesto to the Turks signed by Lenin and issued toward the
close of 1919 read: "Mussulmans of the world, victims of the
capitalists, awake! Russia has abandoned the Czar's pernicious policy
toward you and offers to help you overthrow English tyranny. She will
allow you freedom of religion and self-government. The frontiers
existing before the war will be respected, no Turkish territory will be
given Armenia, the Dardanelles Straits will remain yours, and
Constantinople will remain the capital of the Mussulman world. The
Mussulmans in Russia will be given self-government. All we ask in
exchange is that you fight the reckless capitalists, who would exploit
your country and make it a colony." Even when addressing its own people,
the Soviet Government maintained the same general tone. An "Order of the
Day" to the Russian troops stationed on the borders of India stated:
"Comrades of the Pamir division, you have been given a responsible task.
The Soviet Republic sends you to garrison the posts on the Pamir, on the
frontiers of the friendly countries of Afghanistan and India. The Pamir
tableland divides revolutionary Russia from India, which, with its
300,000,000 inhabitants, is enslaved by a handful of Englishmen. On this
tableland the signallers of revolution must hoist the red flag of the
army of liberation. May the peoples of India, who fight against their
English oppressors, soon know that friendly help is not far off. Make
yourselves at home with the liberty-loving tribes of northern India,
promote by word and deed their revolutionary progress, refute the mass
of calumnies spread about Soviet Russia by agents of the British
princes, lords, and bankers. Long live the alliance of the revolutionary
peoples of Europe and Asia!"
Such was the nature of first-stage Bolshevik propaganda. Presently,
however, propaganda of quite a different character began to appear. This
second-stage propaganda of course continued to assail Western
"capitalist imperialism." But alongside, or rather intermingled with,
these anti-Western, fulminations, there now appeared special appeals to
the Oriental masses, inciting them against all "capitalists" and
"bourgeois," native as well as foreign, and promising the "proletarians"
remedies for all their ills. Here is a Bolshevist manifesto to the
Turkish masses, published in the summer of 1920. It is very different
from the manifestoes of a year before. "The men of toil," says this
interesting document, "are now struggling everywhere against the rich
people. These people, with the assistance of the aristocracy and their
hirelings, are now trying to hold Turkish toilers in their chains. It is
the rich people of Europe who have brought suffering to Turkey.
Comrades, let us make common cause with the world's toilers. If we do
not do so we shall never rise again. Let the heroes of Turkey's
revolution join Bolshevism. Long live the Third International! Praise be
to Allah!"
And in these new efforts Moscow was not content with words; it was
passing to deeds as well. The first application of Bolshevism to an
Eastern people was in Russian Turkestan. When the Bolsheviki first came
to power at the end of 1917 they had granted Turkestan full
"self-determination," and the inhabitants had acclaimed their native
princes and re-established their old state-units, subject to a loose
federative tie with Russia. Early in 1920, however, the Soviet
Government considered Turkestan ripe for the "Social Revolution."
Accordingly, the native princes were deposed, all political power was
transferred to local Soviets (controlled by Russians), the native upper
and middle classes were despoiled of their property, and sporadic
resistance was crushed by mass-executions, torture, and other familiar
forms of Bolshevist terrorism.[302] In the Caucasus, also, the social
revolution had begun with the Sovietization of Azerbaidjan. The Tartar
republic of Azerbaidjan was one of the fragments of the former Russian
province of Transcaucasia which had declared its independence on the
collapse of the Czarist Empire in 1917. Located in eastern
Transcaucasia, about the Caspian Sea, Azerbaidjan's capital was the city
of Baku, famous for its oil-fields. Oil had transformed Baku into an
industrial centre on Western lines, with a large working population of
mixed Asiatic and Russian origin. Playing upon the nascent
class-consciousness of this urban proletariat, the Bolshevik agents made
a _coup d'état_ in the spring of 1920, overthrew the nationalist
government, and, with prompt Russian backing, made Azerbaijan a Soviet
republic. The usual accompaniments of the social revolution followed:
despoiling and massacring of the upper and middle classes, confiscation
of property in favour of the town proletarians and agricultural
labourers, and ruthless terrorism. With the opening months of 1920,
Bolshevism was thus in actual operation in both the Near and Middle
East.[303]
Having acquired strong footholds in the Orient, Bolshevism now felt
strong enough to throw off the mask. In the autumn of 1920, the Soviet
Government of Russia held a "Congress of Eastern Peoples" at Baku, the
aim of which was not merely the liberation of the Orient from Western
control but its Bolshevizing as well. No attempt at concealment of this
larger objective was made, and so striking was the language employed
that it may well merit our close attention.
In the first place, the call to the congress, issued by the Third
(Moscow) International, was addressed to the "peasants and workers" of
the East. The summons read:
"Peasants and workers of Persia! The Teheran Government of the Khadjars
and its retinue of provincial Khans have plundered and exploited you
through many centuries. The land, which, according to the laws of the
Sheriat, was your common property, has been taken possession of more and
more by the lackeys of the Teheran Government; they trade it away at
their pleasure; they lay what taxes please them upon you; and when,
through their mismanagement, they got the country into such a condition
that they were unable to squeeze enough juice out of it themselves, they
sold Persia last year to English capitalists for 2,000,000 pounds, so
that the latter will organize an army in Persia that will oppress you
still more than formerly, and so the latter can collect taxes for the
Khans and the Teheran Government. They have sold the oil-wells in South
Persia and thus helped plunder the country.
"Peasants of Mesopotamia! The English have declared your country to be
independent; but 80,000 English soldiers are stationed in your country,
are robbing and plundering, are killing you and are violating your
women.
"Peasants of Anatolia! The English, French, and Italian Governments hold
Constantinople under the mouths of their cannon. They have made the
Sultan their prisoner, they are obliging him to consent to the
dismemberment of what is purely Turkish territory, they are forcing him
to turn the country's finances over to foreign capitalists in order to
make it possible for them better to exploit the Turkish people, already
reduced to a state of beggary by the six-year war. They have occupied
the coal-mines of Heraclea, they are holding your ports, they are
sending their troops into your country and are trampling down your
fields.
"Peasants and workers of Armenia! Decades ago you became the victims of
the intrigues of foreign capital, which launched heavy verbal attacks
against the massacres of the Armenians by the Kurds and incited you to
fight against the Sultan in order to obtain through your blood new
concessions and fresh profits daily from the bloody Sultan. During the
war they not only promised you independence, but they incited your
merchants, your teachers, and your priests to demand the land of the
Turkish peasants in order to keep up an eternal conflict between the
Armenian and Turkish peoples, so that they could eternally derive
profits out of this conflict, for as long as strife prevails between you
and the Turks, just so long will the English, French, and American
capitalists be able to hold Turkey in check through the menace of an
Armenian uprising and to use the Armenians as cannon-fodder through the
menace of a pogrom by Kurds.
"Peasants of Syria and Arabia! Independence was promised to you by the
English and the French, and now they hold your country occupied by their
armies, now the English and the French dictate your laws, and you, who
have freed yourselves from the Turkish Sultan, from the Constantinople
Government, are now slaves of the Paris and London Governments, which
merely differ from the Sultan's Government in being stronger and better
able to exploit you.
"You all understand this yourselves. The Persian peasants and workers
have risen against their traitorous Teheran Government. The peasants in
Mesopotamia are in revolt against the English troops. You peasants in
Anatolia have rushed to the banner of Kemal Pasha in order to fight
against the foreign invasion, but at the same time we hear that you are
trying to organize your own party, a genuine peasants' party that will
be willing to fight even if the Pashas are to make their peace with the
Entente exploiters. Syria has no peace, and you, Armenian peasants, whom
the Entente, despite its promises, allows to die from hunger in order to
keep you under better control, you are understanding more and more that
it is silly to hope for salvation by the Entente capitalists. Even your
bourgeois Government of the Dashnakists, the lackeys of the Entente, is
compelled to turn to the Workers' and Peasants' Government of Russia
with an appeal for peace and help.
"Peasants and workers of the Near East! If you organize yourselves, if
you form your own Workers' and Peasants' Government, if you arm
yourselves, if you unite with the Red Russian Workers' and Peasants'
Army, then you will be able to defy the English, French, and American
capitalists, then you will settle accounts with your own native
exploiters, then you will find it possible, in a free alliance with the
workers' republics of the world, to look after your own interests; then
you will know how to exploit the resources of your country in your own
interest and in the interest of the working people of the whole world,
that will honestly exchange the products of their labour and mutually
help each other.
"We want to talk over all these questions with you at the Congress in
Baku. Spare no effort to appear in Baku on September 1 in as large
numbers as possible. You march, year in and year out, through the
deserts to the holy places where you show your respect for your past and
for your God--now march through deserts, over mountains, and across
rivers in order to come together to discuss how you can escape from the
bonds of slavery, how you can unite as brothers so as to live as men,
free and equal."
From this summons the nature of the Baku congress can be imagined. It
was, in fact, a social revolutionist far more than a nationalist
assembly. Of its 1900 delegates, nearly 1300 were professed communists.
Turkey, Persia, Armenia, and the Caucasus countries sent the largest
delegations, though there were also delegations from Arabia, India, and
even the Far East. The Russian Soviet Government was of course in
control and kept a tight hand on the proceedings. The character of these
proceedings were well summarized by the address of the noted Bolshevik
leader Zinoviev, president of the Executive Committee of the Third
(Moscow) International, who presided.
Zinoviev said:
"We believe this Congress to be one of the greatest events in history,
for it proves not only that the progressive workers and working peasants
of Europe and America are awakened, but that we have at last seen the
day of the awakening, not of a few, but of tens of thousands, of
hundreds of thousands, of millions of the labouring class of the peoples
of the East. These peoples form the majority of the world's whole
population, and they alone, therefore, are able to bring the war
between capital and labour to a conclusive decision....
"The Communist International said from the very first day of its
existence: 'There are four times as many people living in Asia as live
in Europe. We will free all peoples, all who labour.'... We know that
the labouring masses of the East are in part retrograde, though not by
their own fault; they cannot read or write, are ignorant, are bound in
superstition, believe in the evil spirit, are unable to read any
newspapers, do not know what is happening in the world, have not the
slightest idea of the most elementary laws of hygiene. Comrades, our
Moscow International discussed the question whether a socialist
revolution could take place in the countries of the East before those
countries had passed through the capitalist stage. You know that the
view which long prevailed was that every country must first go through
the period of capitalism ... before socialism could become a live
question. We now believe that this is no longer true. Russia has done
this, and from that moment we are able to say that China, India, Turkey,
Persia, Armenia also can, and must, make a direct fight to get the
Soviet System. These countries can, and must, prepare themselves to be
Soviet republics.
"I say that we give patient aid to groups of persons who do not believe
in our ideas, who are even opposed to us on some points. In this way,
the Soviet Government supports Kemal in Turkey. Never for one moment do
we forget that the movement headed by Kemal is not a communist movement.
We know it. I have here extracts from the verbatim reports of the first
session of the Turkish people's Government at Angora. Kemal himself says
that 'the Caliph's person is sacred and inviolable.' The movement headed
by Kemal wants to rescue the Caliph's 'sacred' person from the hands of
the foe. That is the Turkish Nationalist's point of view. But is it a
communist point of view? No. We respect the religious convictions of
the masses; we know how to re-educate the masses. It will be the work of
years.
"We use great caution in approaching the religious convictions of the
labouring masses in the East and elsewhere. But at this Congress we are
bound to tell you that you must not do what the Kemal Government is
doing in Turkey; you must not support the power of the Sultan, not even
if religious considerations urge you to do so. You must press on, and
must not allow yourselves to be pulled back. We believe the Sultan's
hour has struck. You must not allow any form of autocratic power to
continue; you must destroy, you must annihilate, faith in the Sultan;
you must struggle to obtain real Soviet organizations. The Russian
peasants also were strong believers in the Czar; but when a true
people's revolution broke out there was practically nothing left of this
faith in the Czar. The same thing will happen in Turkey and all over the
East as soon as a true peasants' revolution shall burst forth over the
surface of the black earth. The people will very soon lose faith in
their Sultan and in their masters. We say once more, the policy pursued
by the present people's Government in Turkey is not the policy of the
Communist International, it is not our policy; nevertheless, we declare
that we are prepared to support any revolutionary fight against the
English Government.
"Yes, we array ourselves against the English bourgeoisie; we seize the
English imperialist by the throat and tread him underfoot. It is against
English capitalism that the worst, the most fatal blow must be dealt.
That is so. But at the same time we must educate the labouring masses of
the East to hatred, to the will to fight the whole of the rich classes
indifferently, whoever they be. The great significance of the revolution
now starting in the East does not consist in begging the English
imperialist to take his feet off the table, for the purpose of then
permitting the wealthy Turk to place his feet on it all the more
comfortably; no, we will very politely ask all the rich to remove their
dirty feet from the table, so that there may be no luxuriousness among
us, no boasting, no contempt of the people, no idleness, but that the
world may be ruled by the worker's horny hand."
The Baku congress was the opening gun in Bolshevism's avowed campaign
for the immediate Bolshevizing of the East. It was followed by increased
Soviet activity and by substantial Soviet successes, especially in the
Caucasus, where both Georgia and Armenia were Bolshevized in the spring
of 1921.
These very successes, however, awakened growing uneasiness among Soviet
Russia's nationalist protégés. The various Oriental nationalist parties,
which had at first welcomed Moscow's aid so enthusiastically against the
Entente Powers, now began to realize that Russian Bolshevism might prove
as great a peril as Western imperialism to their patriotic aspirations.
Of course the nationalist leaders had always realized Moscow's ultimate
goal, but hitherto they had felt themselves strong enough to control the
situation and to take Russian aid without paying Moscow's price. Now
they no longer felt so sure. The numbers of class-conscious
"proletarians" in the East might be very small. The communist philosophy
might be virtually unintelligible to the Oriental masses. Nevertheless,
the very existence of Soviet Russia was a warning not to be disregarded.
In Russia an infinitesimal communist minority, numbering, by its own
admission, not much over 600,000, was maintaining an unlimited despotism
over 170,000,000 people. Western countries might rely on their popular
education and their staunch traditions of ordered liberty; the East
possessed no such bulwarks against Bolshevism. The East was, in fact,
much like Russia. There was the same dense ignorance of the masses; the
same absence of a large and powerful middle class; the same tradition of
despotism; the same popular acquiescence in the rule of ruthless
minorities. Finally, there were the ominous examples of Sovietized
Turkestan and Azerbaidjan. In fine, Oriental nationalists bethought them
of the old adage that he who sups with the devil needs a long spoon.
Everywhere it has been the same story. In Asia Minor, Mustapha Kemal has
arrested Bolshevist propaganda agents, while Turkish and Russian troops
have more than once clashed on the disputed Caucasus frontiers. In Egypt
we have already seen how an amicable arrangement between Lord Milner and
the Egyptian nationalist leaders was facilitated by the latter's fear of
the social revolutionary agitators who were inflaming the fellaheen. In
India, Sir Valentine Chirol noted as far back as the spring of 1918 how
Russia's collapse into Bolshevism had had a "sobering effect" on Indian
public opinion. "The more thoughtful Indians," he wrote, "now see how
helpless even the Russian _intelligentsia_ (relatively far more numerous
and matured than the Indian _intelligentsia_) has proved to control the
great ignorant masses as soon as the whole fabric of government has been
hastily shattered."[304] In Afghanistan, likewise, the Ameer was losing
his love for his Bolshevist allies. The streams of refugees from
Sovietized Turkestan that flowed across his borders for protection,
headed by his kinsman the Ameer of Bokhara, made Amanullah Khan do some
hard thinking, intensified by a serious mutiny of Afghan troops on the
Russian border, the mutineers demanding the right to form Soldiers'
Councils quite on the Russian pattern. Bolshevist agents might tempt him
by the loot of India, but the Ameer could also see that that would do
him little good if he himself were to be looted and killed by his own
rebellious subjects.[305] Thus, as time went on, Oriental nationalists
and conservatives generally tended to close ranks in dislike and
apprehension of Bolshevism. Had there been no other issue involved,
there can be little doubt that Moscow's advances would have been
repelled and Bolshevist agents given short shrift.
Unfortunately, the Eastern nationalists feel themselves between the
Bolshevist devil and the Western imperialist deep sea. The upshot has
been that they have been trying to play off the one against the
other--driven toward Moscow by every Entente aggression; driven toward
the West by every Soviet _coup_ of Lenin. Western statesmen should
realize this, and should remember that Bolshevism's best propagandist
agent is, not Zinoviev orating at Baku, but General Gouraud, with his
Senegalese battalions and "strong-arm" methods in Syria and the Arab
hinterland.
Certainly, any extensive spread of Bolshevism in the East would be a
terrible misfortune both for the Orient and for the world at large. If
the triumph of Bolshevism would mean barbarism in the West, in the East
it would spell downright savagery. The sudden release of the ignorant,
brutal Oriental masses from their traditional restraints of religion and
custom, and the submergence of the relatively small upper and middle
classes by the flood of social revolution would mean the destruction of
all Oriental civilization and culture, and a plunge into an abyss of
anarchy from which the East could emerge only after generations, perhaps
centuries.
FOOTNOTES:
[284] For these early forms of unrest, see A. Le Chatelier, _L'Islam au
dix-neuvième Siècle_, pp. 22-44 (Paris, 1888).
[285] D. H. Dodwell, "Economic Transition in India," _Economic Journal_,
December, 1910.
[286] Bipin Chandra Pal, "The Forces Behind the Unrest in India,"
_Contemporary Review_, February, 1910.
[287] J. Chailley, _Administrative Problems of British India_, p. 339
(London, 1910--English translation).
[288] Dr. Ronald Ross, "Wretchedness a Cause of Political Unrest," _The
Survey_, 18 February, 1911.
[289] A. Yusuf Ali, _Life and Labour in India_, pp. 3, 32 (London,
1907).
[290] E. W. Capen, "A Sociological Appraisal of Western Influence on the
Orient," _American Journal of Sociology_, May, 1911.
[291] P. Khorat, "Psychologie de la Révolution chinoise," _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, 15 March, 1912; L. Bertrand, _Le Mirage orientale_, pp.
164-166; J. D. Rees, _The Real India_, pp. 162-163.
[292] Albert Métin, _L'Inde d'aujourd'hui: Étude sociale_, p. 276
(Paris, 1918).
[293] Albert Métin, _L'Inde d'aujourd'hui: Étude sociale_, pp. 339-345.
[294] J. Ramsay Macdonald, _The Government of India_, pp. 133-134
(London, 1920).
[295] Georges Foucart. Quoted in _The Literary Digest_, 17 August, 1907,
pp. 225-226.
[296] A. Van Gennep, _En Algérie_, p. 182 (Paris, 1914).
[297] _The Englishman_ (Calcutta). Quoted in _The Literary Digest_, 21
February, 1914, p. 369.
[298] For these larger world-aspects of Bolshevik propaganda, see Paul
Miliukov, _Bolshevism: An International Danger_ (London, 1920); also, my
_Rising Tide of Colour against White World-Supremacy_, pp. 218-221, and
my article, "Bolshevism: The Heresy of the Under-Man," _The Century_,
June, 1919.
[299] See Chapter V.
[300] See Chapter VI.
[301] For events in Afghanistan and Central Asia, see Sir T. H. Holdich,
"The Influence of Bolshevism in Afghanistan," _New Europe_, December 4,
1919; Ikbal Ali Shah, "The Fall of Bokhara," _The Near East_, October
28, 1920, and his "The Central Asian Tangle," _Asiatic Review_, October,
1920. For Bolshevist activity in the Near and Middle East generally, see
Miliukov, _op. cit._, pp. 243-260; 295-297; Major-General Sir George
Aston, "Bolshevik Propaganda in the East," _Fortnightly Review_, August,
1920; W. E. D. Allen, "Transcaucasia, Past and Present," _Quarterly
Review_, October, 1920; Sir Valentine Chirol, "Conflicting Policies in
the Near East," _New Europe_, July 1, 1920; L. Dumont-Wilden, "Awakening
Asia," _The Living Age_, August 7, 1920 (translated from the French);
Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen, "Moslems and the Tangle in the
Middle East," _National Review_, December, 1919; Paxton Hibben, "Russia
at Peace," _The Nation_ (New York), January 26, 1921; H. von Hoff, "Die
nationale Erhebung in der Türkei," _Deutsche Revue_, December, 1919; R.
G. Hunter, "Entente--Oil--Islam," _New Europe_, August 26, 1920;
"Taira," "The Story of the Arab Revolt," _Balkan Review_, August, 1920;
"Voyageur," "Lenin's Attempt to Capture Islam," _New Europe_, June 10,
1920; Hans Wendt, "Ex Oriente Lux," _Nord und Süd_, May, 1920; George
Young, "Russian Foreign Policy," _New Europe_, July 1, 1920.
[302] Ikbal Ali Shah, _op. cit._
[303] For events in the Caucasus, see W. E. D. Allen, "Transcaucasia,
Past and Present," _Quarterly Review_, October, 1920; C. E. Bechhofer,
"The Situation in the Transcaucasus," _New Europe_, September 2, 1920;
"D. Z. T.," "L'Azerbaidjan: La Première République musulmane," _Revue du
Monde musulman_, 1919; Paxton Hibben, "Exit Georgia," _The Nation_ (New
York), March 30, 1921.
[304] Sir V. Chirol, "India in Travail," _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1918.
Also see H. H. The Aga Khan, _India in Transition_, p. 17 (London,
1918).
[305] Ikbal Ali Shah, _op. cit._
CONCLUSION
Our survey of the Near and Middle East is at an end. What is the
outstanding feature of that survey? It is: Change. The "Immovable East"
has been moved at last--moved to its very depths. The Orient is to-day
in full transition, flux, ferment, more sudden and profound than any it
has hitherto known. The world of Islam, mentally and spiritually
quiescent for almost a thousand years, is once more astir, once more on
the march.
Whither? We do not know. Who would be bold enough to prophesy the
outcome of this vast ferment--political, economical, social, religious,
and much more besides? All that we may wisely venture is to observe,
describe, and analyse the various elements in the great transition.
Yet surely this is much. To view, however empirically, the mighty
transformation at work; to group its multitudinous aspects in some sort
of relativity; to follow the red threads of tendency running through the
tangled skein, is to gain at least provisional knowledge and acquire
capacity to grasp the significance of future developments as they shall
successively arise.
"To know is to understand"--and to hope: to hope that this present
travail, vast and ill-understood, may be but the birth-pangs of a truly
renascent East taking its place in a renascent world.
INDEX
Aali Pasha, Pan-Islam agitation of, 54
Abbas Hilmi, Khedive, pro Turkish views of, 155;
deposition of, 156;
Pan-Arabianism supported by, 170
Abd-el-Kader, French resisted by, 41
Abd-el-Malek Hamsa, Pro-Germanism of, 156
Abd-el-Wahab, Mohammedan revival begun by, 21, 40;
birth of, 21;
early life of, 22 _ff._;
influence of, 22;
death of, 22
Abdul Hamid, despotism of, 32;
as caliph, 39;
Sennussi's opposition to, 39, 46;
Djemal-ed-Din protected by, 53 _ff._;
Pan-Islam policy of, 53 _ff._;
character of, 54 _ff._;
government of, 55;
deposition of, 56, 119;
tyrannical policy of, 116;
nationalism opposed by, 139, 165;
Arabs conciliated by, 142 _ff._
Abu Bekr 22;
policy of, 114 _ff._
Abyssinian Church, Mohammedan threat against, 50
Afghanistan, religious uprisings in, 41;
nineteenth-century independence of, 118;
Bolshevism in, 286 _ff._;
rebellion of, 286_ff._
Africa, Mohammedan missionary work in, 49 _ff._
_See_ also North Africa
Agadir crisis, 57
Ahmed Bey Agayeff, Pan-Turanism aided by, 165
Alexandria, massacre of Europeans in, 149
Algeria, French conquest of, 40, 158;
Kabyle insurrection in, 41;
compulsory vaccination in, 95;
liberal political aspirations in, 118 _ff._;
need for European government in, 122
Allenby, General, Egypt in control of, 177
Amanullah Khan, Bolshevism of, 286;
war on England declared by, 286;
present policy of, 298
Anatolia, Bolshevist manifesto to, 292
Anglo-Russian Agreement, terms of, 159 _ff._
Arabi Pasha, Djemal-ed-Din's influence on, 148;
revolution in Egypt headed by, 148
Arabia, description of natives of, 21;
Turks fought by, 23;
defeat of, 23;
political freedom of, 113;
democracy in, 127;
nationalist spirit in, 140 _ff._;
Turkish rulers opposed by, 140 _ff._;
suppression of, 143;
1905 rebellion of, 143;
effect of Young-Turk revolution on, 145 _ff._;
1916 revolt of, 146;
Pan-Arabism in, 145;
religious character of Pan-Arab movement in, 169 _ff._;
effect of Great War on, 170, 183 _ff._;
Allied encouragement of, 184;
peace terms and, 185;
English agreement with, 185 _ff._;
revolt against Turks of, 185;
secret partition of, 185 _ff._;
Colonel Lawrence's influence in, 186;
secret treaties revealed to, 187;
France and England in, 187 _ff._;
Mustapha Kemal aided by 194, _ff._;
English negotiations with, 198;
Bolshevist manifesto to, 292
Arabian National Committee, creation of, 143
Archer William, on over-population in India, 263
Argyll, Duke of, over-population in India, 263
Armenia, Bolshevist manifesto to, 292
Arya Somaj, 208
Atchin War, 41
Azerbaidjan, Bolshevist revolution in, 290 _ff._
Babbist movement in Persia, 274
Baber, Mogul Empire founded by, 204
Baku, Congress of Eastern Peoples at, 291, 297
Balkan War, 57;
Mohammedans roused by, 58
Barbary States, French conquest of, 158
Bérard, Victor, on the enmity of Turks and Arabs, 141 _ff._;
France's Syrian policy criticised by, 199
Bertrand, Louis, anti-Western feeling in Orient described by, 95 _ff._;
on social conditions in the Levant, 269, 271
Bevan, Edwyn, nationalist views of, 125 _ff._
Bin Saud, Ikhwan movement led by, 72
Bolshevism, effects on Orient of, 175;
Mustapha Kemal aided by, 196 _ff._;
the East a field for, 283 _ff._;
propaganda of, 284 _ff._, 288 _ff._;
Oriental policy of, 285;
in Afghanistan, 286 _ff._;
manifesto to Mohammedans issued by, 288 _ff._;
manifesto to Turks issued by, 289 _ff._;
"Congress of Eastern Peoples" held by, 291 _ff._
Bombay, English character of, 100;
social conditions in, 270 _ff._
Bose, Pramatha Nath, on economic conditions in India, 245 _ff._
Brahminism, illiberalism of, 120
Brailsford, H. N., on modern industry in Egypt, 236 _ff._;
on social conditions in Egypt, 269 _ff._
British East India Company, 205
Bukhsh, S. Khuda, reform work of, 31 _ff._;
nationalism in India opposed by, 125 _ff._;
on Indian social conditions, 253 _ff._
Caetani, Leone, 63
Cahun, Léon, Turanism and, 163
Cairo, revolt in, 178;
modern women in, 258
Calcutta, English character of, 100;
social conditions in, 270
Caliphate, Islam strengthened by, 38 _ff._;
history of, 39;
Turkey the head of, 39 _ff._
Chelmsford, Lord, report of, 216 _ff._
China, Mohammedan insurrection in, 41, 51 _ff._;
Mohammedan missionary work in, 50;
number of Mohammedans in, 51;
Mohammedan agitation in, 60
Chirol, Valentine, Western influence in Orient described by, 79 _ff._;
on Egyptian situation, 179 _ff._;
Montagu-Chelmsford Report approved by, 220;
on Egyptian conditions since the war, 271 _ff._;
on Bolshevism in India, 298
Congress of Eastern Peoples, 291 _ff._
Constantine, King, recalled, 194
Constantinople, Allied occupation of, 192 _ff._;
changes since 1896 in, 251 _ff._;
status of women in, 258
Cox, Sir Percy, English-Arabian negotiations made by, 198;
influence of, 200
Cromer, Lord, on Islam, 29, 32;
Western influence in Orient described by, 80;
ethics of imperialism formulated by, 84, 102, 120 _ff._;
Egyptian administration of, 149;
resignation of, 152;
on western-educated Egypt, 257;
on over-population in India, 263
Curtis, Lionel, nationalism in India supported by, 130 _ff._;
Montagu-Chelmsford Report approved by, 220
Curzon-Wyllie, Sir, assassination of, 212
Damascus, French in, 191 _ff._
Dar-ul-Islam, 171 _ff._
Dickinson, G. Lowes, on Eastern economics, 249
Djemal-ed-Din, birth of, 52;
character of, 52;
anti-European work of, 52;
in India, 52;
in Egypt, 53;
Abdul Hamid's protection of, 53 _ff._;
death of, 53;
teachings of, 53 _ff._;
nationalism taught by, 138;
Egypt influenced by, 148;
in Russia, 285
Dutch East Indies, Mohammedan uprisings in, 41;
Mohammedan missionary work in, 52
Egypt, nationalism in, 32, 118 _ff._;
Mahdist insurrection in, 41;
1914 insurrection of, 61;
exiled Arabs in, 143;
characteristics of people of, 147 _ff._;
early European influences in, 147;
nationalist agitation in, 148 _ff._;
influence of Djemal-ed-Din in, 148;
1882 revolution in, 148 _ff._;
Lord Cromer's rule of, 149;
France's influence in, 150 _ff._;
failure of English liberal policy in, 153 _ff._;
Lord Kitchener's rule in, 153 _ff._;
effect of outbreak of World War on, 155 _ff._;
made English protectorate, 156 _ff._;
Pan-Arabism in, 169;
Versailles conference's treatment of, 174;
nationalist demands of, 177;
Allenby in control of, 177;
rebellion of, 178 _ff._;
martial law in, 178;
situation after rebellion in, 179 _ff._;
English commission of inquiry in, 181;
English compromise with, 182;
opposition to compromise in, 182 _ff._;
modern factories in, 234, 236;
industrial conditions in, 236 _ff._;
social conditions in, 269;
social revolution in, 281 _ff._
El-Gharami, 30
El Mahdi, 42
England, Egypt's rebellion against, 175 _ff._;
Commission of Inquiry into Egyptian affairs appointed by, 181;
Egyptian compromise with, 182;
opposition to compromise in, 182;
Arabia and, 184 _ff._;
in Mesopotamia, 185 _ff._;
in Palestine, 186;
French disagreement with, 188 _ff._;
at San Remo conference, 190;
Mesopotamian rebellion against, 192 _ff._;
Sèvres Treaty and, 193;
Greek agreement with, 193;
Arabian negotiation with, 198;
in India, 204 _ff._
Enver Pasha, Pan-Turanism and, 167;
in Russia, 285
Feisal, Prince, at peace conference, 187 _ff._;
peace counsels of, 188;
made king of Syria, 191
Fisher, on social conditions in India, 270 _ff._
France, Morocco seized by, 57;
anti-British propaganda of, 150 _ff._;
Arabia and, 184;
Syrian aspirations of, 185 _ff._;
at San Remo conference, 190;
Syrian rebellion and, 191 _ff._;
Sèvres Treaty and, 193;
Greek agreement with, 193;
present Syrian situation of, 198 _ff._
Gandhi, M. K., boycott of England advocated by, 224
Gorst, Sir Eldon, Lord Cromer succeeded by, 152;
failure of policy of, 153 _ff._
Gouraud, General, Feisal subdued by, 191;
danger in methods of, 299
Greece, anti-Turk campaign of, 193;
Venizelos repudiated by, 194;
Constantine supported by, 194
Habibullah Khan, Ameer, England supported by, 286;
death of, 286
Haifa, to be British, 186
Hajj, Islam strengthened by, 38 _ff._
Halil Pasha, Pan-Turanism and, 168
Hanotaux, Gabriel, 57
Harding, Lord, Indian nationalist movement supported by, 215
Hedjaz, Turkish dominion of, 140
Hindustan, Islam's appeal to 60;
anti-Western feeling in, 99 _ff._;
illiberal tradition of, 120
Hunter, Sir William, on over-population in India, 263 _ff._
Hussein Kamel, made Sultan of Egypt, 156
Ikhwan, beginning of, 71;
progress of, 71
Imam Yahya, 199
India, reform of Islamism in, 30;
English mastery of, 40;
Islam's missionary work in, 52;
1914 insurrection in, 61;
English towns and customs in, 100;
effect of Russo-Japanese War in, 105, 210 _ff._;
liberal political aspirations in, 118 _ff._;
democracy introduced by England in, 122 _ff._;
opposition to nationalism in, 124 _ff._, 218 _ff._;
support of nationalism in, 129 _ff._, 136 _ff._;
history of, 201;
Aryan invasion of, 201 _ff._;
beginning of caste system in, 202 _ff._;
Mohammedan invasion of, 203 _ff._;
Mogul Empire founded in, 204;
British conquest of, 205 _ff._;
beginning of discontent in, 206 _ff._;
Hindu nationalist movement in, 208 _ff._, 212 _ff._;
English liberal policy in, 213 _ff._;
result of outbreak of war in, 214;
Montagu-Chelmsford Report in, 216 _ff._;
militant unrest in, 220 _ff._;
effect of Rowlatt Bill in, 222 _ff._;
English boycotted by, 223 _ff._;
present turmoil in, 224;
industries in, 233 _ff._;
industrial conditions in, 237 _ff._;
industrial future of, 239 _ff._;
agriculture in, 243 _ff._;
Swadeshi movement in, 244 _ff._;
social conditions in, 253 _ff._;
status of women in, 254, 258 _ff._;
education in, 255 _ff._;
over-population in, 262 _ff._;
condition of peasants in, 269;
city and rural life in, 275 _ff._;
economic revolution in, 276 _ff._;
attitude of Bolshevists toward, 289 _ff._
Indian Councils Act, terms of, 213;
effect of 213
Indian National Congress, 206
Islam, eighteenth-century decadence of, 20 _ff._;
revival of, 21;
Christian opinions of, 26 _ff._;
present situation of, 27 _ff._;
agnosticism in, 32 _ff._;
fanatics in, 33 _ff._;
solidarity of, 37 _ff._;
Hajj an aid to, 38 _ff._;
caliphate an aid to, 38 _ff._;
Western successes against, 40;
proselytism of, 48 _ff._;
effect of Balkan War on, 58 _ff._;
effect of Russo-Japanese War on, 59, 105 _ff._;
Western influence on, 75 _ff._;
anti-Western reaction of, 88 _ff._;
race mixture in, 102 _ff._;
tyranny in, 111 _ff._;
early equality in, 113 _ff._;
political reformation in, 115 _ff._;
birth of nationalism in, 137 _ff._;
Bolshevist propaganda in, 284 _ff._
_See_ also Pan-Islam
Ismael, Hamet, on scepticism among Moslems, 32
Ismael, Khedive, tyrannical policy of, 116;
Egypt Europeanized by, 147 _ff._
Italy, Tripoli attacked by, 57;
San Remo Treaty opposed by, 190, 193
Japan, Mohammedan missionary work in, 59 _ff._
Jowf, Sennussi stronghold, 45
Kabyle insurrection, 41
Khadjar dynasty, Persian revolution against, 160
Kharadjites, Islamic spirit preserved by, 274
Khartum, capture of, 41
Kheir-ed-Din, attempt to regenerate Tunis made by, 89
Kitchener, Lord, Mahdist insurrection suppressed by, 41;
anti-nationalist beliefs of, 122;
nationalism in Egypt suppressed by, 153 _ff._
Krishnavarma, S., assassination commended by, 211
Lawrence, Colonel, influence of, 186;
Arab-Turk agreement, views of, 194 _ff._;
Mesopotamia, views of, 197
Lebanon, France's control of, 184
Lenine, manifesto to Mohammedans issued by, 288 _ff._
Low, Sidney, modern imperialism described by, 86 _ff._;
on Egyptian situation, 154
Lyall, Sir Alfred, on Western education in India, 256 _ff._
Lybyer, Professor A. H., democracy in Islam described by, 114, 127
Macdonald, J. Ramsay, on economic conditions in India, 245;
on social revolution in India, 280 _ff._
McIlwraith, Sir M., on Egyptian situation, 180
McMahon, Sir Henry, agreement with Arabs made by, 185 _ff._
Madras, English character of, 100
Mahdism, definition of, 42 _ff._
Mahdist insurrection, 42
Mahmud II, Sultan, liberal policy of, 115
Mahmud of Ghazni, India invaded by, 204
Mecca, decadence of, 21;
Abd-el-Wahab's pilgrimage to, 22;
Saud's subjugation of, 23;
Turkish reconquest of, 23;
aid to strength of Islam, 38 _ff._;
post cards sold at, 251
Medina, decadence of, 21;
Abd-el-Wahab's studies at, 22;
Saud's subjugation of, 23;
Turkish reconquest of, 23;
electricity at, 251
Mehemet Ali, army of, 23;
Turks aided by, 23;
Wahabi defeated by, 23;
liberal policy of, 115;
Egypt Europeanized by, 147
Mesopotamia, Turkish dominion of, 140;
England in, 184 _ff._;
rebellion against England of 192 _ff._;
denunciation of English policy in, 197;
Bolshevists' manifesto issued to, 292
Métin, Albert, on nationalist movement in India, 279 _ff._
Midhat Pasha, liberal movement aided by, 32
Milner, Lord, Egyptian inquiry commission headed by, 181;
character of, 181;
compromise agreed on by, 182 _ff._;
resignation of, 182;
influence of, 200
Mogul Empire, foundation of, 204
Mohammed Abdou, Sheikh, liberal movement aided by, 32;
Djemal-ed-Din's influence on, 148;
conservative teachings of, 150
Mohammed Ahmed, Sennussi's scorn of, 46
Mohammed Farid Bey, anti-English policy of, 152;
mistakes of, 152 _ff._;
pro German policy of, 156
Mohammedan Revival. _See_ Pan-Islam
Mollahs, anti-liberalism of, 30
Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 217 _ff._
Montagu, liberal policy of, 216 _ff._
Morison, Sir Theodore, on Moslem situation, 67, 70 _ff._;
on modern industry in India, 234 _ff._, 245
Morley, John, liberal policy of, 213
Morocco, French seizure of, 57, 158;
in nineteenth century, 118
Motazelism, re-discovery of, 26;
influence of, 30
Moulvie Cheragh Ali, reform work of, 31
Muhammed Ali, Shah, revolt in Persia against, 119
Muir, Ramsay, European imperialism described by, 83
Mustapha Kemal, character of, 150;
beliefs of, 151 _ff._;
death of, 151;
Allies defied by, 191;
Turkish denunciation of, 193;
Greek campaign against, 193 _ff._;
Arab aid given to, 194 _ff._;
policy of, 196;
Bolshevists allied with, 196 _ff._;
French negotiations with, 199;
Bolshevist support of, 286, 295
Mutiny of 1857, 205
Nair, Doctor T. Madavan, anti-nationalist opinions of, 124, 219
Nakechabendiya fraternity, 41
Namasudra, anti-nationalist organization, 124, 219
Nejd, birth of Abd-el-Wahab in, 21 _ff._;
description of, 21 _ff._;
return of Abd-el-Wahab to, 22;
conversion of, 22;
consolidation of, 23
Nitti, Premier, San Remo Treaty opposed by, 190 _ff._
North Africa, "Holy Men" insurrection in, 41;
lack of nationalism in, 157 _ff._;
races in, 158 _ff._
Nyassaland, Mohammedanism in, 49 _ff._
Orient, _See_ Islam
Pal, Bepin Chander, on Montagu-Chelmsford Report, 218;
on social revolution in India, 277
Palestine, Sykes-Picot Agreement and, 185;
England in, 185
Pan-Islam, fanatics' scheme for, 33 _ff._;
definition of, 37 _ff._;
Hajj an aid to, 38 _ff._;
caliphate an aid to, 39 _ff._;
anti-Western character of, 41 _ff._;
fraternities in, 43 _ff._;
Abdul Hamid's support of, 54 _ff._;
Young-Turk interruption of, 56;
renewal of, 57 _ff._;
effect of Balkan War on, 58 _ff._;
Great War and, 61 _ff._;
Versailles Treaty and, 62 _ff._;
press strength of, 67;
propaganda of, 67;
menacing temper of, 70 _ff._;
economic evolution in, 72 _ff._
Pan-Syrian Congress, 191
Pan-Turanism. _See_ Turanians
Pan-Turkism, _See_ Turkey, rise of nationalism in
Persia, 1914 insurrection in, 61;
an English protectorate, 62;
tyranny in, 116;
independence of, 118;
liberal movement in, 118;
1908 revolution in, 119, 159 _ff._;
need for European government in, 122;
nineteenth-century conditions in, 159;
Versailles conference's treatment of, 174 _ff._;
war conditions in, 196;
Bolshevism in, 196 _ff._, 287 _ff._;
Bolshevist manifesto issued to, 291
_Population Problem of India, The_, 264
Ramsay, Sir William, on economic conditions in Asia Minor, 241 _ff._
_Realpolitik_, treatment of Orient by, 86, 106
Reshid Pasha, liberal movement aided by, 32
Roushdi Pasha, nationalist demands of, 177 _ff._
Rowlatt Bill, nationalist opposition to, 222 _ff._
Russia, Turanian antagonism for, 167 _ff._
_See_ also Bolshevism and Soviet Russia
Russo-Japanese War, Islam roused by, 59, 105
Salafî, rise and growth of, 72;
spirit of, 72
San Remo, conference at, 190 _ff._
Saud, Abd-el-Wahab succeeded by, 22;
power and character of, 22;
government of, 22, 40;
holy cities subdued by, 23;
death of, 23
Saud, clan of, converted, 24
Schweinfurth, Georg, Egyptian nationalism described by, 149 _ff._
Sennussi-el-Mahdi, leadership won by, 44;
power of, 45
Sennussiya, foundation of, 43 _ff._;
leadership of, 45;
present power of, 45 _ff._;
government of, 45;
policy of, 46 _ff._;
proselytism of, 48 _ff._
Sèvres Treaty, 193, 199
Seyid Ahmed, state in India founded by, 24;
conquest of, 24
Seyid Ahmed Khan, Sir, reforms of, 30
Seyid Amir Ali, reform work of, 31
Seyid Mahommed ben Sennussi, in Mecca, 24, 39;
Abdul Hamid opposed by, 39, 44;
birth of, 44;
education of, 44;
"Zawias" built by, 44;
power of, 44 _ff._
Shamyl, Russia opposed by, 41
Shiah Emir, 199
Shuster, W. Morgan, Persia's political capacity described by, 127 _ff._
South Africa, Mohammedan threat against, 49
Soviet Russia, Afghanistan allied with, 287 _ff._;
Kemal supported by, 295;
success of, 297 _ff._
Sun-Yat-Sen, Doctor, 60
Sydenham, Lord, Montagu-Chelmsford Report criticised by, 219
Swadeshi movement, 244 _ff._
Sykes-Picot Agreement, terms of, 185 _ff._;
French opposition to, 189 _ff._;
fulfilment of, 190
Syria, Turkish dominion of, 140;
nationalist agitation in, 142 _ff._;
France in, 184 _ff._;
declaration of independence of, 191;
French suppression of, 191;
present situation in, 198 _ff._;
Bolshevist manifesto issued to, 293
Tagore, Rabindranath, on economic conditions in India, 248
Talaat, in Russia, 285
Tartars, liberal movement among, 32;
Mohammedan missionary work among, 50 _ff._;
nationalist revival of, 163 _ff._;
Bolshevism among, 285
Tekin Alp, on Pan-Turanism, 167
Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 149
Tewfik Pasha, anti-English feeling of, 92
Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, nationalist work of, 210, 218
Townsend, Meredith, anti-Western feeling in Orient explained by, 102, 104
Transcaucasia, Russian conquest of, 40;
after-the-war situation in, 196;
Mustapha Kemal supported by, 196
Tripoli, Italy's raid on, 57;
Mohammedan resistance in, 57;
1914 insurrection in, 61
Tunis, Kheir-ed-Din's reforms in, 89 _ff._
Turanians, peoples composing, 162 _ff._;
nationalist movement among, 163 _ff._;
effect of Young-Turk Revolution on, 165;
effect of Balkan Wars on, 166 _ff._;
effect of Great War on, 167 _ff._
Turkestan, Bolshevism in, 286;
social revolution in, 290
Turkestan, Chinese, Mohammedans in, 51;
revolt of, 51
Turkey, Islam conquered by, 23;
Arabs war against, 23 _ff._;
Mehemet Ali's aid of, 28;
liberal movement in, 31 _ff._;
1908 revolution in, 32, 119;
Balkan attack on, 57 _ff._;
anti-Western feeling in, 90 _ff._;
effect of Russo-Japanese War in, 106;
independence of, 118;
liberal movement in, 118;
democracy in, 126;
birth of nationalism in, 138;
language of, 138;
Pan-Turanism in, 140 _ff._, 161 _ff._, 183 _ff._;
Arabian rebellion against, 141 _ff._;
Allied treaty with, 193;
Arab aid given to, 194 _ff._;
Western educational methods in, 256;
status of women in, 258;
Bolshevists' manifesto to, 289 _ff._
_Turkish and Pan-Turkish Ideal, The_, 167
Vambéry, Arminius, warning against Mohammedans uttered by, 65 _ff._, 107;
Moslem politics described by, 114, 126;
Young-Turk party described by, 117;
Turanism and, 63;
on changes at Constantinople, 251 _ff._;
on native officials in East, 257 _ff._;
on status of woman in East, 259;
Venizelos, Allied agreement with, 193;
Greek repudiation of, 194
Versailles Peace, Islam affected by 107 _ff._, 173;
secret treaties revealed by, 174 _ff._
Victoria, Queen, made Empress of India, 205
Wacha, Sir Dinshaw, on Montagu-Chelmsford Report 217 _ff._
Wahabi, formation of state of, 22, 40;
government of, 22, 41;
successful fighting of, 23;
defeat of, 23;
end of political power of, 23;
spiritual power of, 24;
in India, 24;
English conquest of, in India, 24;
influence of, 24;
characteristics of, 25 _ff._
Wattal, P. K., on over-population in India, 264 _ff._
Willcocks, Sir William, on Egyptian situation, 179
Yahya Siddyk, on pro-war Mohammedan situation, 68 _ff._
Yakub Beg, Turkestan insurrection led by, 51
Young Arabia, 143 _ff._
Young-Turk party, rise of, 116 _ff._;
nationalist policy of, 140;
Arabian nationalism and, 145 _ff._
Young-Turk revolution, 56, 119
_Yugantar_, anti-English organ, 211 _ff._
Yunnan, Mohammedan insurrection in, 41, 51 _ff._;
Chinese Mohammedans in, 51
Yusuf Bey Akchura Oglu, Pan-Turanian society founded by, 165
Zagloul Pasha, Milner's discussions with, 181;
Milner's compromise with, 182;
opposition to, 182 _ff._
Zaidite Emir, 199
Zawia Baida, Sennussi's founding of, 44
Zinoviev, on Third International, 294 _ff._
[Illustration: THE WORLD OF ISLAM]
TRANSCRIBERS' NOTES
General: Accents and capitalisation, particularly on cited sources, have
been left as in the original.
Pages 8, 274, 303: Spelling of Kharijites/Kharidjites/Kharadjites left
as in source.
Page 21: Inquity replaced with iniquity.
Page 39: Hyphen added to El-Afghani for consistency.
Page 45: Zawais corrected to Zawias.
Page 49: Hyphen removed from repercussions for consistency.
Page 94: Hyphen removed from easy-going.
Footnote 257: Italicisation removed from March following The Century.
Footnotes 257 and 259 (originally on page 261): Full-stop (period) added
after op (in op. cit.) for consistency.
Page 290: Hyphen added to oil-fields for consistency.
End of Project Gutenberg's The New World of Islam, by Lothrop Stoddard