Russia Restudies the Orient

...Of particular interest is the stand taken by Soviet Oriental experts risa-vis the Indian national movement...

...But the Egyptian Communists have for several years regarded the Brotherhood as a close ally, only recently calling for the release from prison of the Brotherhood leaders, "staunch fighters for the national cause...

...However, these concessions to reality are definitely the exception rather than the rule...

...They mercilessly suppressed the national-liberation movements of the non-Turkish nationalities...

...They suppressed in the cruelest manner the slightest manifestations of the democratic movement...

...But more important than such minor gaffes were the ideological problems emerging from this new literature: first and foremost, the question of the Communist attitude toward Asian national movements...

...The chapter on Egypt ends with the warning that Egyptian workers "will have to fight many more battles before real democracy prevails in their country...

...The most striking example of the schizoid Soviet approach to Asian nationalism is the Kremlin's current attitude toward Indian Prime Minister Nehru...

...These "pseudo-leftists" included men like Nehru, who "ostentatiously came out for full national independence, for a united anti-imperialist front, who insisted that the demands of the workers and peasants be satisfied and that India become a socialist republic...

...Coming after a break of almost twenty years, this revival reflects the growing Soviet interest in the Middle East and Southeast Asia...

...Yet, the Soviet press only recently attacked an American news magazine for making disparaging remarks about Ataturk, whom Pravda described as "a great leader of his people...

...The reality refuted these mistaken views...

...In their attempts to deal with basic issues, the authors become embroiled in numerous contradictions...

...Judging from the recent Kommunist editorial reproaching Soviet Orientalists for "not always taking into account the concrete historical situation in India" and forgetting the "progressive kernel in each national movement...

...he is suspect because of his Western education and is further reproved for having renounced other than peaceful methods in the struggle for national independence...

...The Barooda resolution of the Indian Congress party in is described as one of the most loathsome documents of Gandhi's traitorous activities...

...Morocco, the Sudan and the Central African Federation...

...However, this was a minor flaw in a work "permeated with the spirit of sympathy and benevolence toward the Soviet Union and China...

...Thus, Kwame Nkrumah, now Prime Minister of the Gold Coast, is praised for his activity up to 1951, when the Gold Coast won its independence...

...Yet, the basic dilemma remains...

...Even such an ostentatiously "progressive" action of the "pseudo-left wing" as its decision to join the International Anti-Imperialist League in the late Twenties is criticized as a maneuver to bring pressure on the British and thus create more favorable conditions for collaboration with British imperialism...

...which is in "sharp contradiction to the national interests of Egypt and the Arab countries in general...

...while the first volume of the Recent History of the Peoples of the East, published by Moscow University several months ago, has interesting chapters on Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt but nothing whatever on Palestine...

...Historians and theoreticians are attempting to fashion a new view of the struggles among colonial peoples Russia Restudies the Orient By W Z. Laqueur Soviet Oriental studies, which suffered sudden and total eclipse during the purges of the late Thirties, have made a no less sudden comeback in the past few months...

...All signs indicate that the Soviet Union and the Asian Communist parties are modifying their hostility toward non-Communist nationalist movements...

...There is a glaring discrepancy between Soviet propaganda to Asia and Soviet Oriental studies, designed for domestic consumption by a small group of experts...

...Nehru was specifically upbraided for his authorship of the Madras resolution adopted by the Congress party congress in 1927, whose "main aim was to maintain the [party's] declining prestige...

...Similarly, the first issue of the newly revived Palestinski Zbornik does not contain a single reference to the historical connection of the Jews with Palestine, nor do the words "Jew" or "Hebrew" appear even once, except in a bibliographical note...

...Nehru, according to Balabushevich and Dyakov, was a staunch anti-imperialist fighter who had often suffered in the past for his principles...

...British colonialism is denounced for its system of indirect rule, while the French are blamed for their policy of "forcible cultural assimilation'--a policy which the Kremlin has always pursued in dealing with the non-Russian peoples of Central Asia...

...There we find that Gandhi, far from being a leader in the "anti-imperialist struggle," is a "traitor...

...The leaders of the Indian Congress party, wrote Balabushevich, were so discredited by the 1920s that they had to be replaced by a new "pseudo-leftist" leadership lest the masses free themselves from their pernicious "national reformist" influence...

...But they refused to be drawn into discussion of details, for the simple reason that there were no authoritative Soviet statements or publications to guide them...

...the word is used some thirty times in as many pages...

...Israel has so far been less affected by the new trend than have the Arab countries, though there are reports that a modest revival of Yiddish literature is planned in the Soviet Union...

...As the authors put it in their preface: "This is the first attempt in Russian science to describe the peoples of Africa on the basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology, their culture, their life, and their struggle against colonialism and for national independence...

...The conflicts between the Communist party line and Soviet propaganda abroad can be played down, but they cannot be eliminated completely...

...Azikiwe, the Nigerian stormy petrel, is branded "a capitalist, a scion of an aristocratic family...

...The publication of Nehru's book in Russia," the review concluded, "will contribute toward further strengthening the friendship between India and the Soviet Union...

...the writer had overlooked the embarrassing fact that, during this period, the gentleman had advanced to the post of Ambassador to the Soviet Union...

...Thus, the West is accused of sowing disunity wherever possible as part of a policy of divide-and-rule...

...The Congress party's "pseudo-left wing," headed at that time by Nehru, does not fare much better...

...At the same time, the authors successfully sidestep the most important issue now facing the Sudan: whether it is to become independent or unite with Egypt...

...Following an extremely unfriendly survey of Kemalism and its "superficial reforms," the author writes: "The Kemalists lived in deadly fear of their own people...

...Scanning the pages of three Soviet textbooks on the history of the ancient East (published in 1952-53), I found that two did not mention Jewish history and religion at all, while the third devoted two pages to the subject...

...In the new book on the study of Islam in the USSR, the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt is called a reactionary, anti-people's movement and a tool of the imperialists...

...They will probably remain the chief stumbling-block to Communist progress in Asia--barring a major ideological reorientation, which seems unlikely at this point...

...The Soviet writers were approving of Nehru's attachment to Gandhi, since the latter "played an important role in the Indian national movement...

...This has happened before, in the 1920s and in the Popular Front period of the 1930s, and the ultimate objectives are undoubtedly the same today...

...At the time of Nehru's visit, a Russian edition of his long volume, Discovery of India, was brought out by the State Publishing House for Foreign Literature...

...The present Egyptian Government is sharply attacked for the Suez agreement of July 1954...

...To be sure, the Kommunist reviewers declared, Nehru's book underestimated somewhat the role of the working class and the Indian Communist party...

...The latter, it develops, contributed the first chapter to Volume I of the Recent History of the Peoples of the East...

...In the recently published standard textbook, Gandhi is still called a "traitor.' "Gandhi," we are told, "justified entirely the oppression of the country by the imperialists": he never wanted to achieve Indian independence but was acting in the interest of the exploiting classes...

...This organization with a religious cloak had existed for many years but had never been a reason for particular disquiet to the authorities...

...It is anything but academic...

...In general, the authors of The Peoples of Africa take a favorable view of nationalist movements so long as they are in opposition...

...Gandhi appealed to the religious prejudices of the masses and exploited the most reactionary dogma of Hinduism...

...This sudden flood of studies following a prolonged break has, of course, created some difficulties...

...The Russian reader is left completely in the dark as to what suddenly made this "mythical danger" a matter of such vital concern starting some four years ago...

...Balabushevich's and Dyakov's split personality is soon to be resolved...

...For the first time since 1938, Soviet Orientalists have a monthly journal of their own, Sovietskoye Vostokovedeniye (Soviet Eastern Studies), while the new Palestinski Zbornik (Palestine Journal) is designed "to intensify cultural relations between Russia and the Middle East.' The Zbornik is actually a revival of a journal published by the "Russian Palestine Society" in Tsarist Russia back in the Eighteen Eighties...

...In between, there is little to be seen of a "new spirit...

...This was, of course, a mistake...

...Of late, attempts have been made to curb Leninist excesses by Soviet scholars, and a recent unsigned editorial in the Moscow Kommunist asked the latter to bear in mind that there is a "progressive kernel in each national movement...

...The Peoples of Africa opens and closes with a quotation from Stalin...

...Paralleling the tale of Balabushevich is a similar one involving his colleague, A. Dyakov...

...The National party headed by Nkrumah owes its achievements solely to the working class, but it has not shown that it is really worthy of the confidence of the people...

...Among the few historians who still dealt with the Orient, most preferred the relative security of ancient or medieval history to the slippery problems of today...

...The present Egyptian government, ironically enough, is rather favorably treated in Soviet Orientalist literature, while the Egyptian Communists bitterly attack its members as agents of Western imperialism...

...The authors describe the Mau Mau movement in Kenya as "an altogether mythical danger...

...That the newly-awakened interest of Soviet ideologues--and policymakers--extends farther than Asia is clear from the recently published The Peoples of Africa, first in a twelve-volume series referred to above...

...Similarly, the Democratic Union in French Equatorial Africa and its leader Ufue Bouani are denounced as "traitors" for having refused in recent years to collaborate with the local Communists...

...The hostile line which the new textbook takes toward Kemalism in Turkey is also noteworthy...

...The obvious aim is to leave Soviet policy-makers the greatest possible freedom of maneuver, regardless of the future course of Soviet-Egyptian relations...

...But in reality they were protagonists of the class interests of India's big bourgeoisie and big landowners, helped perpetuate the feudal remnants, and actively opposed the class struggle of workers and peasants...

...In several articles, these 'leftist' leaders were described as real heads of the leftist lower-middle-class wing, which had emerged in effect within the Congress party at that time as representatives of the national-revolutionary trends within the Indian national-liberation movement...

...He was also accused of demanding full independence for India but not actually meaning it...

...Once they are in power, the book complains in a naive but revealing statement, "the leaders of the national movement engage mainly in construction...

...A change began to be felt after Stalin's death, and in recent months a spate of literature has been published...

...800 pages in length and equipped with an index of names--something almost unheard-of in Soviet publishing--the new book presents an authoritative Soviet viewpoint for the first time on such subjects as the Mau Mau...

...A year ago, it was almost impossible to determine Soviet views on specific Asian problems with any degree of accuracy...

...This state of affairs had lasted for almost twenty years...

...The Peoples of Africa also takes a dim view of the new Central African nationalist movements...

...Elsewhere, the authors declare that the new labor code adopted in French Equatorial Africa will probably bring an improvement in the standard of living...

...Since Nehru's recent visit to Moscow, the Soviet campaign to win India over to at least benevolent neutrality has moved into high gear...

...Yet, in those cases where colonial powers have been instrumental in uniting various regions and provinces, this too is set down as an imperialist maneuver...

...So much for the Balabushevich-Dyakov accolade to Nehru...

...The first of the "learned essays" was signed by none other than V. Balabushevich, and dealt with the relations between the Indian national movement and the working class (i.e., Communist party) in the 1920s...

...In this instance, however, the author took a markedly different tack...

...He was critical not only of British imperialism but of the native Indian bourgeoisie, they noted appreciatively, and he attached little importance to religion in the struggle for national liberation...

...At this point, Balabushevich explicitly recanted previous Soviet praise of Nehru and his associates: "It must be said at this point that several Soviet Indian experts, including the present writer, took a wrong position in appraising the 'leftist' leaders of the Congress in the mid-Thirties...

...According to the tenets of Leninism, there can be peaceful coexistence during a given period between states --but not between parties and political movements...

...he knew the masses and spoke to them in a language they understood...

...There is the amusing story of the Egyptian field marshal described as a wartime "Axis agent" in the Soviet monthly Problems of History...

...Books published recently include a survey of the study of Islam in the USSR, the first volume of a four-volume Recent History of the Peoples of the East (since 1918), and the first in a twelve-volume series on the peoples of the world, dealing with Africa...

...General Nasser has apparently been forgiven for Suez in view of his strong neutralism and opposition to any Middle East defense link with the West, and he is now on the Moscow visitors' list...

...Clearly, the scholarly denunciations of Asian nationalism have become a source of embarrassment to the planners and makers of Soviet policy in the East...

...While holding no brief for former French Premier Mendes-France, the authors acknowledge that the Franco-Tunisian agreements of July 1954 represented a step forward...

...There had been Soviet experts on Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian affairs in the Twenties and early Thirties, but most of them disappeared in 1936-8, when Soviet periodicals dealing with the East (e.g...

...As for the "pseudo-leftists" like Nehru, their objective was "to disorganize the masses, to weaken their really leftist wing [the Communists], to get hold of the various mass organizations, and to prevent the masses from fully understanding Gandhi's and the Congress's traitorous role...

...In a comparatively short period, fifteen separate brief volumes have been brought out by the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and another, more substantial series is under way...

...In recent weeks, Moscow's attitude toward the Cairo junta seems to have shifted...

...Just a few months before its appearance in Kommunist, two newly published Soviet books had been received in England: Volume 10 of Learned Essays of the Institute of Oriental Studies and the first volume of the Recent History of the Peoples of the East...

...It conspicuously fails, however, to take due notice of the great change that has occurred sin world War H: the achievement of independence by many of the former subject nations and the steady advance toward freedom of those that remain...

...The task of introducing Nehru to the Russian reader was assigned to V. Balabushevich and A. Dyakov, the two leading Soviet authorities on India, who published an extremely laudatory review (or rather preview) of his book in the June issue of the magazine Kommunist...

...The Peoples of Africa is, of course, highly critical of Western colonial rule as practiced during the last century...

...Gandhi, they quoted Nehru as saying, had lent "fresh impetus to the national struggle, roused the masses to new struggles...

...Since then, however, "nothing has changed in the position of the exploited and subjugated masses...

...Hence, the Communist parties in Asia cannot give up their opposition to the nationalist movements...

...A long, detailed section on the Sudan seeks to prove that the British have no intention of evacuating that country??a thesis effectively refuted by events since the book appeared...

...Contradictions in the Kremlin line on Asia have become the rule rather than the exception...

...As the second most populous state in Asia, India has been the object of energetic wooing by both of the world's two great power blocs...

...Indeed, an entire chapter is devoted to the "struggle against the new 'Central African Federation.'" True, the book does contain scattered indications that some realization of the changes now under way in Africa may be dawning on Soviet ideologists, and there are feeble attempts to adjust old theories to inconvenient new facts...

...Communist spokesmen argued that, in Asia as elsewhere, Russia stood for freedom, national independence, social progress and so on...

...At the time, these accords were opposed by the French as well as Tunisian Communists...

...New East, Revolutionary East, The Pacific) also ceased to appear...