Sultan Galicv's Ghost
Laqueur, Walter
Sultan Galiev's Ghost By Walter Z. Laqueur At the Cairo Conference Anew International was created at last month's Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in Cairo. The meeting, which stressed the common...
...The permanent secretariat will be located in Cairo and the secretary general will be an Egyptian...
...Sultan Galiev's ideas about colonial revolution, later developed by his friends and disciples, were first set forth in a series of articles in the October and November 1919 issues of Zhizn Natsionalnostei...
...Indeed, an analysis of the resolutions adopted in Cairo shows the decisive role played by Communist slogans...
...Finally, Sultan Galiev's outline for the new colonial International is being followed quite closely...
...Thus Al Mujtahid, organ of the Algerian rebels, recently declared that there is no link between its followers and the French Left because the French worker is also participating in the exploitation of Algerians...
...The meeting, which stressed the common struggle against the imperialist West, was attended by official delegations from Egypt, Syria and the Communist countries...
...There is no longer any reason for Moscow to shun contact with the nationalist movements in Moslem countries...
...by unofficial representatives, drawn largely from Communist-front groups, of most other Asian and African nations...
...Here are his basic arguments: 1. Classical Marxists are making a mistake by concentrating their attention and hopes on the industrially developed West...
...The USSR will participate, but will not take a leading role...
...Is the new International another Comintern...
...Straight Leninism cannot be applied in these areas...
...And almost all of his basic tenets have been accepted by the rulers of such countries as Syria, Egypt and Indonesia...
...After his release from prison he did not return to Soviet politics, and in the purges of 1936-1938 he disappeared...
...When the policy was first presented, Pan-Islamism was a disruptive force in Russia...
...it would only mean the perpetuation of Western rule over the rest of the world...
...Even the resolution dealing with economic cooperation opposes all Western economic assistance and calls for a struggle against the European Common Market...
...The new International, which is little more than a Soviet-Arab alliance at the moment, is a convenient and powerful agency for the dissemination of Soviet propaganda...
...3. The establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat in the West would not be tantamount to world revolution...
...Similarly, radical nationalist leaders in the Arab world and North Africa now contend that their people are on the whole more progressive than those who belong to left-wing movements in the West...
...Damascus and Cairo see this as a permanent condition, though in the Kremlin it can only be considered a transient stage in the development of Middle East Communism...
...The backward countries of the Orient provide a far more fertile territory for Communism...
...Certainly not, and as far as Moscow is concerned it should not be...
...The work will be done by others under the semi-respectable cloak of anti-imperialism, positive neutralism, uncommitted Arab nationalism, etc...
...and by exiles (e.g., from Jordan) who were self-appointed delegates from their native lands...
...they are the real proletarian nations...
...4. Since all classes in the Eastern countries have been subjected to Western rule and exploitation, there is no room for a class struggle...
...The new colonial International, therefore, is to provide a pre-Communist ideological and organizational framework which combines nationalist and anti-Western motifs with some Leninist ideas and support for the Soviet Union...
...This should be independent of the Comintern, but Russia should participate in it...
...The Kremlin wants to create a new framework for the backward countries of Asia and Africa, where strong Communist parties do not yet exist...
...The conference established a permanent secretariat in Cairo—in effect, the nucleus of a new International...
...In time, it is presumed, this will lead to something along more orthodox Communist lines...
...It is now one of the assumptions of Moscow's foreign policy that the opportunities for expanding Soviet influence are much more promising in the Middle East and Asia than in the "industrial West...
...It is extremely doubtful that any community of interest exists between these Eastern countries and the Western working class...
...For the first time in Soviet history, a Communist of Moslem origin, Nuritdin Mukhitdi-nov, is a member of the Presidium...
...Moscow could not rely on Moslem Communists like Sultan Galiev, not to mention fellow-travelers like Enver Pasha, who at a decisive moment deserted and joined the Basmatch revolt in Turkestan...
...Sultan Galiev, as he was known in Russian, was born in Kazan around 1890...
...Before long, Sultan Galiev was accused of "nationalist deviations," and in 1923 he was arrested...
...Why are the Soviet rulers now willing to accept a policy they rejected 35 years ago...
...In February 1918, he became one of Stalin's chief lieutenants in the Comissariat for Nationalities...
...they are still too primitive to understand it...
...2. The backward nations of the East are more truly progressive than the working class in the West...
...The leading roles in this new International, however, must be taken by the ex-colonial peoples themselves, above all by the Moslems...
...Less than forty years later, his ideas have been adopted, at least on the tactical level, by Soviet leaders...
...On the other hand, the planned Asian Writers Congress in Tashkent will doubtless be held...
...As a young man he joined the Socialist Revolutionaries, then the Mensheviks, and finally, in the autumn of 1917, the Bolsheviks...
...Today these articles make almost prophetic reading...
...For a time, Sultan Galiev was Commissar for Education and Nationalities in the Tatar Bolshevik republic...
...One of his chief tasks was editing the Commissariat's organ, Zhizn Natsio-nalnostei...
...The new International will not be in a position to make any important political decisions, since most of the Bandung nations have refused to participate in it...
...Since the other representatives in the leading councils of the new International will be Commmunists or fellow-travelers, there is no need for Soviet representation at the top level...
...Nor does it appear likely that any of the major projects for economic cooperation which the conference discussed will be carried out...
...Real change can be brought about only by a dictatorship of the colonial countries over the metropolitan nations...
...In 1958, Soviet Central Asia is largely tamed and de-Islamized...
...No mention was made at Cairo of the man who many years ago originated the idea and worked out the strategy for this colonial International—Mir Sayid Sultan Oglu...
...Communist policy should be based on an alliance among all classes, including the upper and middle classes...
...5. There should be a new International of colonial peoples...
...In the Soviet Union of 1919, these views were an anathema...
...Sultan Galiev's strictures against class war have been accepted by the Syrian and Egyptian regimes and tacitly approved, for the time being, by Moscow...
Vol. 41 • February 1958 • No. 5
