Letter to AA Joffe
Written 13 September 1921
Editor’s note: At the beginning of August 1921, Adolph Joffe was sent to Turkestan by the Politburo to mediate the disagreement between Mikhail Tomsky and Georgii Safarov. The conflict, which was linked to the implementation of the New Economic Policy (of concessions to the market and the medium peasants), can be seen as a dress rehearsal for Lenin’s ‘last struggle’ against Stalin on the national question.
Tomsky, the then Chairman of the Turkestan Commission of the All-Russia CEC, was demanding the introduction of tax in kind (in line with the NEP), but this became identified as a defence of the privileges of Russian settlers. Safarov, the head of the Comintern’s ‘Eastern Department’, argued for the formation of committees of poor peasants, which should be given the land. He gathered support amongst the dispossessed Muslims because of his defence of the expropriation of the Russian colonists.
Lenin stressed that “the Muslim poor peasants should be treated with care and prudence, with a number of concessions”, in order to “consolidate the line of wisdom and prudence”; for what was at stake, he reminded them, extended beyond Turkestan, and affected “our ‘world policy’ throughout the East.”
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Comrade Joffe,
You will find that today’s Politbureau decision (which I enclose) largely meets your dispatch of 9 September.
Please be so kind as to send me a written report with more details.
In addition, as a personal request, to enable me to sort things out in this matter, I ask you to devote special attention (in your report or in a special annex to your report) to the question of protection of native interests against ‘Russian’ (Great-Russian or colonialist) exaggerations.
- What is the attitude of the natives to Safarov? Facts, facts and more facts.
- Who are the natives themselves (Safarov’s supporters)? Names? Record? Prestige? (Facts, facts…)
- Will they be able to stand up for themselves? Is that sure? Even against such a subtle and firm and stubborn man as Tomsky?
- How many of them are there?
- ‘The Union of the Poor’ (set up by Safarov?) – its composition? importance? strength? role? Is it true that the natives were ‘forcibly’ stratified?
- Cotton? Its future? Is it true that Safarov is ruining the cotton? Facts, facts.
- The fronts in Ferghana? The Basmachi? Their attitude to the Tomsky and the Safarov ‘line’?[1] Facts and exact decisions by Turkestan CEC concerning the Basmachi? The facts on what and when Tomsky and Safarov or their supporters differed in this question? (Extracts from relevant decisions, to show exactly when and on what precisely the formal differences occurred.)
There are some differences on this question inside the CC.
More exact information is highly important.
I personally very much suspect ‘Tomsky’s line’ (perhaps it would be more correct to say Peter’s line? or Pravdin’s line? etc.)[2] of engaging in Great-Russian chauvinism, or, to put it more correctly, in deviating in that direction.
It is terribly important for all our Weltpolitik [world policy] to win the confidence of the natives; to win it over again and again; to prove that we are not imperialists, that we shall not tolerate any deviation in that direction.
This is a world-wide question, and that is no exaggeration.
There you must be especially strict.
It will have an effect on India and the East; it is no joke, it calls for exceptional caution.
Endnotes
[1] Ferghana is a city in Uzbekistan and was the centre of the Basmachi movement.
The Basmachi movement was a movement of Islamic rebels who rose up against conscription into the tsarist army during the First World War. The movement later flared up again in 1918 against Soviet rule.
[2] “Peter’s line” is a reference to Tsar Peter I (Peter the Great). “Pravdin’s line” is a reference to the Bolshevik leader AG Pravdin in Ufa who refused recognition to the Bashkirian Republic. Both are shorthand for Great-Russian chauvinism.