WORLD'S WORST DANGER IN EAST.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14007, 11 March 1920, Page 2

WORLD'S WORST DANGER IN EAST.

(By Clair-'Price.) - Writing from Constantinople recently I called- attention to. the .fact that the ' most~imiu:neiitdanger~to a. reasonably durable peace was, the danger of. a Bolshevist coalition with the Mohani-" niedan world. ■ , Since I returned to London the game, which was in its first innings last September, has hecn steadily developing. The whisperings that simmered Through the native bazaars at that time, have risen to unmistakable rumblings. The little groups of longr.osed Turks- who sat about the coffeehouses of typhus-ridden Turkish towns, mouthing over "the dirty English/', ''the poor ' Moslem," and "the good Russian," have been joined by hundreds of'paid agitators; scores of subsidised newspapers which have mushroomed into being over night, have been shoved into their.hands to stimulate" their hatred against "western exploitation." t The game has already developed to a point at which even the most staid London newspapers are contemplating the- possibility of ''serious disturbances'.' in India, Afghanistan. Persia, -Mesopotamia and elsewhere in-Moham-medan lands. ' Lately I had a talk with an American who made a tour of three months from the Caucasus down through the interior of Asia Minor, and out agam at the port of Samsun on the Black Sea. His reliability is beyond question. "The west will not be ready for another great war for 40 years," he said, "but the east is ready now. The trouble will begin as soon as the Bolshevik! are ready: to have it begin." In abating or aggravating the danger of war which, now looms in the ..east; the Turkish peace settlement, which is expected to be made some time in Februarv, will* play a large part. Should the 'settlement- fail to command . the support of Turkish leaders, the disafie te«l elements'which now control the unoccupied interior of Asia Minor will go over bag and baggage to the Bolsheviki. - Not that Bolshevism has anything like a good prospect of. ever exercising any great hold on the Moslem mind"; since the essentially conserva- " tive mental habit of Islam does not lend itself to purely economic propaganda. It is the manipulation of Moslem unrest by the Bblsheviki to suit their own schemes of subverting law and order all over the world which just now so seriously menaces peace. The field, of Bolshevist propaganda

is a vast one. It begins in Germany, for Bolshevism- was German in its origin and is still German. It beats aspinst the British control in Turkey, British control in Persia and British control in India. Its aim is to attack England at its weakest spot, India. '_-.'■ Bolshevism is essentially a continuation of Germany'ejvar on England. In his order of November 6 last to the Bolshies' army and navy Trotsky said: "On every front-we encoxinter the intrigues of England. English guns are firing against us. The prisoners wl.-om we take are dressed in English uniforms. English dynamite is killing women aud children at Astrakhan and Krons tacit. English ships are_ bombarding our coasts. English wireless telegrams aro poisoning the whole world with lying accusations." ' Last August, when word of the signing of the "Anglo-Persian agreement reached Mosgow, N. Tchitcherin, the Bolshevik Commissary for Foreign Affairs, addressed a message to the Persian people, expressing the hope that the time would soon come when they would be delivered from "the yoke ol English, capitalism." • : '■ The Bolsheviks have opened a special school in Moscow, at which courses are held to teach students to become specialists in Eastern agitation. Four hundred Hindus recently completed their training there and were promptly dispatched to India to play the Bolshevik game. Until 1917 Russia had no relations with Afghanistan beyond the usmil intercourse of the border authorities. Last Rummer,;,,however, . it". became, known that Nicholas Sakhnroviicli Bravin, who had been an official in the. Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs since 1904, had entered Afghanistan with an escort of 20, men, as a special envoy from .Moscow. Presumably,* as a result of his 'work in Kabul, an Afghan mission was received with considerably pomp in Moscow, and there been much talk of Afghanistan as the ally of Soviet Russia against England, "the common enemy.' J The Afghans' hopes —and the Afghans, it must be remembered, are a strong, fighting people—in thus alloying themselves with the Russian Bolshevik were ably set forth by the Hindu Professor Barautulla, in an interview which the Moscow , Izvestya published not Jony: ago,_ Baranatuira. who was head of the "first Afghan mission to Moscow, said: "I am neither a communist nor a socialist, but'my political programme entails .the expulsion of the British from Asia. I am an implacable foe of

the European capitalisation of -Asia, die principal representatives of which are the British. In this I approximate to the communists, and. in this ■ re-

spect, we are natural comrades." In addition the Izverstya contained, an interview with Voznessensky, for 15 \-ears_ a member of the Russian'foreign Office, and who is now manager of the eastern section of the Bolshevik Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. Speaking of Barantdlla, he said that although he was not air official representative of Afghanistan, whoso ..independence the Bolsheviks recognise, the latter will enter into diplomatic negotiations with him as soon as they hear officially from the Afghan Government. "Afghanistan," he adds, "is of pri-mary'-importance 'for propaganda, in Asia." This vast game, in which Germanv is continuing- its war on England, by way of Bolshevism and the East, is the background which lends enormous meaning to the chatter heard in coffee houses in- the sun-scorched, half-wreck-ed villages of Asia Minor, to the words of fez-wearing, scowling Mohammedans who sit at their tables mouthing about "the dirty English." . v' - My American informant found on his tour that 5000 rifles a week are being smuggled from Bolshevist Russian into Black Sea ports' by small sailing craft. From the sea. "coast these rides are. spirited awav to the- hills and hidden there awaiting the moment when they are needed in a Turkish uprising. ■■'.''■

The same American found that atwtiis, which was the Ilea do, ua iters of the, Turkish Third Armv corps during the war, the manager' of the local agency of the Ottoman bank was a Hungarian who had been demobilised from the German army in order that he might resume* his bank job. 'This

man was very close to Cantain Ahmed Noun Bey, head <% the Turkish, disaffected elements at Bivas, who was a notorious pro-German during the war. Some time last summer the British authorities at Constantinople tried to deport the Hungarian as "a spy,, but a missionary, is said to have saved him by

a personal appeal guaranteeing his harmlessuess.

My informant found that Bolshevjk made no attempt to conceal their, Efforts in the- interior of Turkey in Asia—despite the fact that Turkey and Russia have been proverbial enemies for generations. The burden of this propaganda,'besides the usual stories of strikes and revolutions in all western countries, was that Tnrkev and Russia were both "down ami out,'"' and that it was now necessary therefore for them to make common cause. Almost daily during his tour my American informant saw Turkish regular officers and Russian agents—men who had last encountered each other as enemies, at the time of the great Russian advance into Armenia during the -winter of 1915-16—falling upon each other's necks and kissing and blubbering in a fashion which he described as "embarrassing" to an American. His own opinion was that the- Mustapah Kemal movement, which last summer had spread over the interior of Asia Minor is "a remarkable demonstration of Turkish ability lo recover from defeat, had run its course and that the diversion of its strength into Bolshevist channels was now Droceeding. This movement, it will "be,remember-, ed, was- headed by* Mstanih Kemal Pasha, commander of the .-Third Avmv eorps at Sivas. "A counter movement restored "British control over the interior, but it is nrobable that more'will be heard from MustaTHfh and other Turkish nationalists before long. V" \ v

Turkey occupies • a highly, strategic I position in" the Mohammedan* jvorld, and liolshevik influence in Turkey, which will-reveal iis full strength only after the settlement of,- the Turkish question, is playing for .very high stakes. -* Among tho Russian Moslems, the Bolshevists' programme need .wait on no peace settlement. There are more than 30,000,000 Russian Moslems, concentrated lor the most part on the Volga, in the Urals", in Turkestan and in the eastern Caucasus. For the last 20 years these Russian Moslems have engaged m a movement, turkey's entrance into the war as .an enemy of Russia was a sev.ere strain en-their loyalty, and, even during the war, manj of "them were openly proGerniaii. Tho Azerbaijan Tartar republic, which holds "Baku and the surrounding oil fields, is, in large part, a result dt the" attraction which "German and Turkish intrigue- have held tor the.-Ti Russian Moslems since long before the Turkish armistice. Somewhere South of the Azerbaijan - republic, Enver Pasha, the sleek young Minister of war who was the righthand man of Germany in Constantinople during hostilities, is at large. Recent news said that -he" had been crowned King of Kurdistan. Thus far, nothing has been done to apprehend him; &e- ---' spite the fact that- the vicinity is one where trouble might prove serious. Ami nobodv knows better thaiig Enver how to malco-trouble. One consequence of the campaign of tho Bolsheriki among j;he Russian Moslems is the extraordinary rise of scorns

of subsidised Bolshevik newspapers along,'the Volga, in the Orals, and. in the Azerbaijan! republic. They preach, revolution constantly and are aided by hundreds of agitators, travelling from village to village, making speeches, founding Moslem communist centres, committees and the rest, of the machinery of revolution.

Yes, the Bolshevik game is developing and will bear watching: Germany is still arrayed against England. The war is not yet over.