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Yu.N. Guseva
THE CROSS-BORDER RELATIONS OF RUSSIAN MUSLIMS AND THEIR ASSESSMENT BY SOVIET STATE SECURITY
IN THE 1920s
ЮН. Гусева
Трансграничные связи российских мусульман и их оценка советскими органами государственной безопасности в 1920-е годы
Given its contemporary relevance and the limited number of studies devoted to it, the history of the mass migration of Muslim peoples across Eurasia possesses tremendous potential for future research. The Turkic and Tatar migration of the first third of the 20th century is not an entirely new subject in Russian and foreign historiography. The circumstances under which Muslims from different regions abandoned the Russian Empire during the First Russian Revolution (1905 - 1907) and the war between Japan and Russia (1904 - 1905) are generally known, as is the process, then underway, of relocating the Tatars from the Volga and Ural regions to Turkey.
The works that most closely touch on the topic of this paper are those of the Kazan historian, I.A. Gilyazov, which rely mainly on data from German archives, and on the research of German specialists into the various aspects of state-Islam relations in the USSR, problems of nationalism, and the "war of Russia's Turks for freedom."1 Also well-known are the numerous publications about the outstanding leaders of the Turkic emigration to Europe.2
Identifying our research objectives requires explaining their relation to a wide variety of historical problems. It is important to understand how Russian (Soviet) officials evaluated the processes underway within the emigrant community, the mechanisms by which they interacted with their environment, and the consequences of such mutual influences. The spectrum of this evaluation, in large degree, determined the political and administrative agenda, and shaped the culture of perception of Islam and its followers within Russia in the different historical periods. The published documents of the Imperial administration make it clear that state officials understood the Muslim emigration as constituting actual "hotbeds" of influence, sites from which foreign centers could affect the mood of "Russian citizens."3 These documents describe the emigration itself as possessing a "nature that is intensive and even threatening to the historical objectives of Russian national identity."4 This notion arose from the migrants' intimate involvement in the effort to penetrate Russian territory with ideas of Muslim activism and unification under various nationalist and religious slogans (the so-called "pan-isms": pan-
Islamism, pan-Turkism etc.).
S.Yu. Witte wrote in 1900, "Our internal policy on the Muslim question is an important factor of our external policy."5 Following his logic, special attention must be paid to the Russian Muslims' foreign contacts, through which they became voluntary or involuntary actors in the internal and external policy of Russia. Indeed, the connections between the diaspora and the mother country greatly influenced the image of Islam that emerged both within the country and abroad.
This article also addresses the following question: Given the new historical situation following the October Revolution, as the vectors of Russian external policy underwent transformation, did early Soviet policymakers reevaluate foreign emigrant sites as centers of influence on the Russian Muslim community? From the state's standpoint, did these sites remain threatening and destructive or did they acquire some qualitatively new features?
To arrive at well-founded conclusions, maximum attention must be given to the specific means and forms of interaction among subjects and, in order to get at the "state" perspective, to analyze the concerns of outside observers.
Adequately addressing these questions necessitates work with a singular resource base. This is the first published article to draw information and facts on the relations between "Russian" and "European" Muslims from the unique and invaluable materials of the Eastern Department of the GPU (State Political Administration (or Directorate); from November 1923 - OGPU - Unified State Political Administration). The Eastern Department (Vostochnyy Otdel) of GPU (OGPU) was founded on June 2, 1922 within the structure of the Secret Operative Directorate of the GPU. It actually performed the functions of military intelligence and counter-intelligence: its sphere of interest was the questions of "specific Eastern counterrevolution and Eastern espionage". By the late 1922 it had three departments: the 1st (Near East and the Caucasus, director: E.A. Styrne); the 2nd (Middle East and Middle Asia, director: F.I. Eichmans); the 3rd (Far East, director: M.M. Kazas; from December 1922 - G.V. Andreev; until July 1923 - N.L. Wollenberg). Bolshevik Jakov Kh. Peters headed the Eastern Department from April 1922 until October 1929.
The reports of the Tatar Department of the GPU (Kazan), and the communiqués of the Tatar and Bashkir (Ufa) Departments, contain the names of many Russian Turkic and Muslim leaders who had either fled abroad or remained in the USSR. The materials for the reports were forwarded to Moscow, to the Eastern Department of GPU (OGPU), where they were analyzed and summarized. This data often served as the basis for serious administrative decisions taken in Soviet and Communist Party organs, and in the organs of political intelligence.
The social and political activity of Muslim and Turkic leaders in the years from 1919 to 1923 may be reconstructed by studying the voluminous (in their content) "memoranda on the cultivation of the East
(vostrazrabotka)." These are summary materials made on the basis of extracts from reports, materials from the press and censored mail, data from informers, extracts from the instructions of various governmental and Party organs, and the resolutions of the Eastern Department of the GPU (OGPU) itself.6
The political police collected various personal (age, education, distinctive marks) and social data on the table named as "Tatar and Bashkir nationalists and Muslim clergy." The last three columns in the table , which were most important and had the most dramatic consequences for the people in question, were entitled "Where is / What status has in the national and pan-Islamic movement", and "Belongs to which movement." Opposite individual surnames, comments indicated that person's degree of social and political activism (e.g., "one of pan-Islamist leaders", "one of prominent pan-Islamists", "founder of pan-Turkism").
The means of surveillance over the emigrants, and the analysis of their activity are given in exhaustive detail in the Eastern Department documents. The department was required "to organize a strictly covert surveillance over the correspondence and movements of specific leaders within Tataria, outside its borders, as well as abroad, and to pay special attention to the identification of all followers abroad; to discover what preparations were underway to organize mass pilgrimages to Mecca, Turkey and other Eastern countries; to ensure surveillance over the staffs of governmental, private trade, industrial, and other societies, companies and commissions etc. involving Tatars of a nationalist or bourgeois cast."7 It is clear that the department not only tracked the internal and external relations of intellectual and religious circles, but the migrants' contacts with business representatives as well.
Needless to say, the evaluations contained in these documents cannot be accepted unconditionally, without critical analysis. They require thorough comparative analysis against data from published sources and documents of a personal nature. Even with all their evident drawbacks, these sources, given their syncretic nature, remain highly informative though largely unknown. Most are being brought to scholarly attention for the first time.
We will focus in more detail on a few outstanding people and narratives, keeping in mind that many of the emigrants from the period in question (early 1920s) were in constant motion and changed their location frequently for one reason or another.
* * *
Typically, Turkic emigrants (their money and ideas with them) left Russia via the Petrograd - Helsingfors (Helsinki since 1917) - Berlin route. Many Muslims - the prominent and the ordinary - crossed the Russian-Finnish (later Soviet-Finnish) border to settle in Finland or to continue on to Europe.
Here follows a description of the flight of the famous Tatar intellectual Gabdullah Battal from Petrograd to Finland: "To meet the boatmen from Finland, G. Battal together with one child and one middle-aged Mishar went to Oranienbaum. Here, he was walking by the wooded shore until the evening fell, and then, in an abandoned house, he was waiting for the time of transfer to come. Then, on a boat with two Finnish smuggler oarsmen, between 9 and 10 on a foggy night, across an unquiet sea he was taken to the Finnish shore, where there had been no Bolshevism. On the shore he was taken by the soldiers and sent to quarantine. Some time passed and he was let go..." 8
Finnish cities appealed to the emigrants for another reason: Tatar communities had appeared here before the revolution.9 Konigsberg served as another, less popular, point of departure. A document from 1923 states: "Attention must be paid to a German steamer from Konigsberg because, according to available information, it is allegedly the means for carrying people abroad. Those being transported are said to be given special identification cards attesting that they are agents supervising the loading of cargo; in this way they board ship, hide, and never disembark."10
In 1922, Mamed Emin Rasulzade (1884 - 1955) was making his way through Finland. He was one of the founders of the "Gummat" (1904) and "Musavat" (1913) parties. In 1918 he becomes the Head of the Azerbaijani National Council which proclaimed the creation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). In 1922 he emigrated from the USSR. While in emigration, he lived in Finland, Turkey, Poland, Romania and other countries.
Information shows that he lived in Helsinki for some time and, before that, in Moscow under the name Abdullah Rahimov. Lutfullah Ishaki also lived in the Finnish capital for a considerable length of time. G. Battal played a notable role in establishing their residence in Finland. The practice of travels using false documents was widely used in the Turkic and Muslim community both before and after the events of 1917. G. Battal remembered having traveled within Russia and beyond using false papers. Noteworthy is the phrase of prof. Birindji saying that Battal's journey to Egypt to study was "more appropriate and necessary" than military service in the years of the Russo-Japanese War.11
Lutfullah Fatkulovich Ishakov was born in the village of Novo-Musina in the Orenburg Gubernia. Studied religious sciences in Cairo. In 1904 he received a certificate from the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly (OMDS) which entitled him to hold the office of an Imam. Imam-khatib of the Mosque of Irkutsk (1904 - 1905). Imam of the 4th (unofficial) Muslim congregation in St.-Petersburg (since 1906). In the years 1911-1917 L. Ishakov taught the Tatar language on the Islamic studies under the Imperial Oriental Studies Society. In 1914 he was a candidate to the vacant office of the Imam of the Second Mosque of Moscow after the death of the Akhoond Safa Alimov. Ishakov's social and political activity is widely known: he was a honorary member and officer of
the Muslim Charity Society in St. Petersburg and took an active part in the All-Russian Muslim Conventions. In 1916 L. Ishakov was arrested on charges of pan-Islamism. After the October Revolution he worked for some time in the Tatar (Muslim) Department of the Commissariat for Nationalities and dealt with the problems of prisoners of war. In 1922 L. Ishakov emigrated to Finland where he became famous as an educator and teacher. He taught in Tatar schools and organized a school for Tatar girls (he died in 1925 during a journey to Turkey).12
Both Rasulzade and Ishakov visited Petrograd under the good offices of yet another prominent member of the Muslim community in Russia, Musa Bigeev. Thus, on July 10, 1923, the Deputy Head of the Eastern Department, L. Wollenberg, informed his colleagues in Petrograd that there had arrived in their city "under a different surname, that Rasulzade to whom we had referred, probably holding a Turkish passport. His identification is very significant, for in connection with the arrival of Begiev [sic] in Petrograd a meeting of a group of pan-Islamists is planned for the 20 of July, for which Mullah [i.e. Lutfullah] Ishakov is expected to arrive from Finland."13
For many Muslims who had emigrated from Russia in the early 20th century, Bigeev was a person of importance. He had numerous contacts with the most prominent representatives of the emigrant community. Judging by the materials of the GPU Eastern Department, he and his entourage were trying to provide all sorts of assistance to the emigrants. The documents of the Eastern Department focus particularly on his activities in 1922-1923. The following is an excerpt from a report compiled by Wollenberg:
"Following our previous message... we hereby report that the persons arriving at the house by the mosque receive lodgings and food at no cost. At the same time it has become clear that Begiev [sic] seldom meets the new arrivals in person for the sake of safety, but usually relates [communicates] with them through clergy who report to him. According to the available data, a shipment of Muslim counterrevolutionary literature is soon to be expected from Finland. Allegedly it will be delivered to the Finland Station in the restaurant car and will be brought to the house by the mosque. If the same is confirmed by your observations, we ask you not to affect any operations without our sanction14. It is alleged that Begiev [sic] helps hide in Petrograd an ex-official of the Turkish embassy, a well-known pan-Turkist who had served as a naval officer, Osman Tokumbetov. We ask you to start identifying the address and establish surveillance over same."15
A telegram sent from Moscow to Petrograd on October 8, 1923 contained a request to ".organize foot surveillance of Bigeev and on departure accompany him to Moscow, where the said surveillance shall be handed over to our intelligence; notice of departure to be communicated by telephone immediately."16 Members of the organizer's entourage were also subject to check-ups. On October 15, 1923, Kaul, the Head of
the District Counterintelligence Department of the Plenipotentiary Office of the GPU for the Petrograd Military District, received an order from Moscow:
"Forwarded herewith is Memorandum No. 9389. VOGPU [Eastern Department of GPU] hereby reports that the group of Tatars mentioned in the Memorandum is planning to depart Berlin en route to Petrograd on Oct. 16, 1923. We request a thorough search of all persons named in the Memorandum be conducted at the border. Give special attention to No. 9, Sharafutdin Ilias [i.e. Ilyas]. Should the search yield no results, establish uninterrupted surveillance of them. Take note of the connections of same with Musa Begiev [sic]. On their departure from Russia, intelligence is to accompany them to their destination and immediately inform the respective Gubernia Department. Results shall be communicated to VOGPU."17
Clearly, prominent representatives of the Turkic Muslim national and religious movements who remained in Soviet Russia in the early 1920s had retained their public influence, had close contacts with one another, and, at the same time, were kept under close surveillance by the authorities who suspected them of anti-Soviet ideas and practices.
* * *
In the context of our research, materials reflecting the different forms and methods of emigrant interaction with those who stayed in Russia are of paramount interest. Not surprisingly, most contacts were informal, and rested on pre-Revolutionary personal and business relations. Many emigrants relied on the support and supervision of their fellow believers in Russian cities either during their migration trek or on their periodic returns.
In late 1921 and early 1922, "Gayaz Ishaki, en route to the meeting of Constituent Assembly deputies in Paris, stayed at the Moscow house of Mahmut Gainutdinovich Yumaev, who, in our correspondence is noted as the person linked with the emigrants Tuktarov and Maksudov. Yumaev is at the address: Zabalkanskiy Prospekt [Moscovskiy Prospect in St. Petersburg], bldg. 22, apt. 32."18 Yumaev was a close friend of Bigeev's. In the 1920's he was a member of the congregation council - "the Group of 20" under the Leningrad mosque. He was arrested in February 1931 with other leaders of the Tatar and Muslim community of the city.
Muslims from Kazan, Petrograd, and Finland had very active contacts with Berlin "...where at the present time there is a gathering of the cream of the foreign Tatar counterrevolution. Just how closely these groups are related is indicated by the publication in Berlin of the book by M. Bigeev which relates the basics of Islam in a consistent manner ... (There is a suggestion that the book was published with the financial support of the Ankara government since it presents the Kamalists as a model). The Berlin groups are in regular correspondence with their relatives in the USSR and ask about dispatches of Tatar literature while send-
ing the same from Berlin, in their turn. Thus, the communist Baimetova received Bigeev's book and the newspapers 'Rul,' 'Nakanune,' 'Berliner Morgen Post,' and an invitation to come for the laying of the foundation stone of a mosque in Berlin"19.
It is generally known that Berlin was the center of the Tatar and Bashkir political emigration, and that their leaders were working on establishing contacts with "Muslim anti-colonialist movements."20 "All in all, in Berlin [in 1923], there are approximately 35 Tatars who maintain a permanent connection with each other, and all the Tatar bourgeoisie living in Harbin are moving to Germany and some to America."21 Despite its insignificant numbers, the Berlin group did consist of the most prominent and active representatives of the Turkic and Muslim elite.
In moving from Petrograd and Finland to Berlin, many emigrants were seeking more favorable conditions, but archive documents and witness accounts reveal that Turkic emigrants clashed among themselves as well as with their external environment. The Berlin group of migrants from Russia in the 1920's (and later) was rife with discord and mutual suspicion. The fate of its leaders is generally known, and we shall not dwell on lesser-known stories.
The "Society for the Assistance to Russian-Muslim Students," headed by A. Idrisi, played a very important role in maintaining numerous contacts between the migrants and the motherland (as a rule, it was referred to in our sources as the "Union of Turkic Learners"). Founded in 1918 in Berlin, it is known to have worked until 1923 in accordance with special agreements concluded between the governments of Germany, Russia (Soviet Union), and the Bukhara (Uzbek) Republic. Under these agreements, young people would be sent to the German capital to pursue a European education. Their tuition was partially financed by their respective governments. On behalf of the "Society," A. Idrisi "was in permanent contact with the Embassies and Representative Offices in Moscow, and with the national republics, received moneys from them for the education of Tatar students who have personal connections with prominent (10-15 people) emigrants in Berlin."22 In 1922/1923 (?), Idrisi travelled to the Volga Region with the objective of gathering money for the "Society's" operations.23 Later, having lost support from both Germany and Russia, it experienced severe financial difficulties and ceased to exist in 1924, but its role in maintaining the emigrants' ties with their former motherland should not be underestimated.24
At the end of 1922, a group of children who hailed from intelligentsia families left Kazan and Ufa, and passed through Moscow on their way to study in Berlin. These were the children of M. Bobinsky; Haducha, daughter of A. Mustafin; S. Almaeva, daughter of G. Ishakov; and Saadat, son of K. Tardzhimanov.25 Naturally enough, they corresponded with their parents back home, and informed the Berlin emigrants about life in Soviet Russia.26
The Cheka reasonably viewed the Tatar intelligentsia's desire to give
their children a European education at government expense as a way of preparing a cadre of young nationalists. In his telegram of 16 April 1923, Ya. Peters requested that his Kazan colleagues pay special attention to the behavior and the correspondence of those who had left to study in Berlin. "It must be remembered," he wrote, "that the German sojourn of the sons of the most chauvinistic part of the Tatar and Bashkir intelligentsia has one major goal - the education of these handpicked youths in a purely chauvinistic spirit."27 Observers noted with regret, that the "old-school" intelligentsia retained its parental and social authority among Tatar youth.28
The available documents demonstrate that Bolshevik party officials also viewed the situation negatively. "At the request of the political swindler and counterrevolutionary, Gayaz Ishakov," a telegram from the center to Kazan declared, "his daughter, who has grown up in the same spirit, was sent to study, allegedly, in Germany."29 At the same time the Central Bureau of the Tatar and Bashkir organizations under the Central Committee of the VKP(b) (Bolshevik party) in a Directive of October 30, 1922 ordered that students sent to study in Germany at government expense be "carefully filtered," because "objectionable individuals" had been sent there, in particular, Ishaki Saadat's daughter, the sister of S. Maksoudi's wife.30
Clearly, connections between emigrants and Russian citizens proceeded along a Helsinki - Petrograd - Moscow axis. In Helsinki the intermediate was "a person named Konikov [Kanyukov] (a merchant), enjoying the patronage of the Finnish authorities and helping the emigrants in their difficulties. Konikov, in his turn, is connected with Turkey through the ex-captain of the Baltic Fleet now residing there, a participant in the organization of Muslim sailors (in 1917). In Moscow, contact persons are Muhtakov and [Osman] Tokumbetov, who organized Muslim regiments in Germany in 1918 for their advance into the Caucasus.. ,"31 According to the documents:
"The leaders of pan-Islamic, anti-Soviet work are: Ishakov (Turkey), Battalov (Finland), Maksoudov (Paris), Tuktarov, Teregulov, Idrisov (Berlin). Berlin still remains the center from which all work is de-ployed."32
In characterizing the work of the most active members of the Berlin emigrant community in 1923, Cheka agents identified the following people:
"Musa Bigiev (Petrograd) - makes monthly visits to different regions and republics - in Tashkent, Kazan, Bukhara, and Orenburg departments of the organization exist.
Fuad Tuktarov, Allam Idris - most influential in the organization among the emigrants in Germany (Berlin).
Amina Hadi (Helsinki) - receives moneys from English Muslims.
Sadri Maksoudi (Berlin) - is planning to go to Helsingfors.
Abdrashit Ibragimov - a Siberian Mullah, very influential, has con-
nections with Japanese and Chinese Muslims.
Gayaz Ishakov (Berlin) - together with Idrisi sends Tatars to Finland for future work, together they are printing brochures"33.
It is worth dwelling on the Eastern Department's assessments of these connections as these evaluations would later be adopted by Soviet scholars of Islam. Emigrants in Berlin were labeled "the advanced element of the Tatar pan-Islamic organization," and "the leading center of the pan-Islamic movement and its work in Europe." They were linked with Muslims in Kazan, Moscow, and Petrograd, who, in turn, "also represent a kind of organization, an auxiliary headquarters in Russia itself, or the central organ of the Russian pan-Islamists (I. Alkin, U. Muzafarov, O. Tokumbetov and some others)." The Berlin group regularly asked their friends and relatives in Kazan to send them official and unofficial literature, and to inform them of all manner of affairs.34
Significantly, the people who most actively moved across Europe and Asia in the early 1920s worked to establish close contacts between the national and religious migrant groups. For example, "the connection of the Harbin organization with Japan is made via the permanent representative, Gumer Teregulov, and with Berlin, where moneys collected by Muspomgol through the organization of concerts and stage plays are sent [In the late 1921 - early 1922 the "Provisions for the Activity of the Central Muslim Spiritual Board of Inner Russia and Siberia to Render Assistance to the Starving" ("Muspomgol") were elaborated and approved.35]. At the same time all the directors of the Harbin organizations are in regular correspondence with public Muslim leaders and nationalists in the USSR."36 Thus, the department came to the following conclusion:
"All of these routes are used to ensure the permanent communication of the emigrant community with local groups, which sometimes results in a definite organizational information system that enables the emigration to know what is happening inside the USSR, and to provide a quick reaction to Russian events. The emigrant community, which itself has no organizational linkage, does become interconnected and brought together with common Muslim interests, so that every kopek of financial assistance contributed by a Japanese Muslim to Teregulov, both of whom have developed a common system of operation of Muslim emigrant circles, and elaborated a common platform of actions despite differences of political opinions and ideas that have existed in the past between certain groups."37
* * *
The horizontal linkages between the leaders of the Russian Muslim national and religious elite, already well developed before 1917, did not break after the Revolution. On the contrary, they became more active in the politically turbulent, post-revolutionary environment. At the same
time, their distinctiveness is noteworthy. Evidently, there was no single, unified center towards which all immigrants would be drawn and through which they could interact, as is illustrated in the following table.
City Name and Surname Period of residence Comments
Ufa Fehretdinov Rizaetdin Tardzhimanov Kasshafutdin Abyzgildin Dzhihangir Bobinskaya (Bubi) Muhlisa Permanent residence Members of the Central Muslim Spiritual Board
Kazan Bobinsky (Bubi) Gubaidullah Ishakov Hassan Gugaidullin Gaziz Maksoudov Gadyi Kurbangaleev Mohammad Walidov Zamaletdin Permanent residence Active religious, social and political figures of Russia, had contacts with emigrants
Moscow Teregulov Gumer 1921-1922, temporary Connection, transfers moneys from Petrograd to Moscow and back
Tokumbetov Osman 1920-1922, temporary Worked with Enver Pasha; was hiding in Petrograd with false papers and assistance of Bigeev
Jun-Jul 1923 Came to Petrograd from Helsinki for a meeting
Ishaki Gayaz 1917, in transit Went to Turkestan from Moscow and came back to Russia
Rasulzade Mamed Emin Summer 1921 Was living in Moscow under the false name of Gabdullah (Abdullah) Rahimov
June-July 1923 Came from Helsinki for a meeting
Petrograd Bigeev Musa Jarullah 1905-1923, 1925-1930 After 1917 lived in Petrograd, Moscow, etc. Emigrated in 1930. Lived in India, Finland, Egypt, etc.
Bayazitov Mokhammed-Safa Permanent Russian Mufti in 19151917
Yumaev Makhmut Permanent Arrested in 1931
Osman Tokumbetov 1920-1922 Worked with Enver Pasha; was hiding in Petrograd with false papers and assistance of Bigeev
Helsinki Hassan Kanukov Permanent Lived in Helsinki and Jarvenpaa (Finland).
Zinetullah Ashan Boren 1919-1945 Born in the village of Aktukovo of the Nizhny Novgorod Gubernia. Resided in Finland from 1910. From 1922 lived in Tampere. One of the main sponsors of the Leningrad Tatar and Muslim community in the 1920's.
Berlin Ishaki Gayaz Leader of the Tatar emigration community in Germany
Tuktarov Fuad Temporary In 1917, Head of the Muslim Committee, delegate of Muslim conferences, member of the former Constituent Assembly in Paris. Died in Ankara in 1938.
Battal Gabdullah Summer of 1921, temporary
Teregulov Gumer Temporary Connection, transfers moneys from Petrograd to Moscow and back
Alimzhan Idrisi From 1916 Many trips, in 1922/1923(?) came to the Volga Region to collect moneys for the "Society of Turkic Learners"
Sadri Maksoudi 1921(?), Temporary Came to Berlin from Krasnoyarsk
Rasulzade Mamed Emin Summer of 1922, temporary Came from Helsinki; was on route to Paris through Berlin, then to Istanbul
Walidi Ahmet-Zaqi After 1923 Came to Berlin from Paris
* * *
The majority of Turkic emigrants were young or middle-aged, quite active and practical minded. As noted above, they made use of both legal and illegal means to leave the country and move about. Naturally, they sometimes faced financial difficulties, particularly given the unfavorable economic situation in Germany in the early 1920's when the country experienced hyperinflation that worsened the emigrants' already difficult situation.
Memoirs written by leaders of the Tatar emigration often refer to financial problems.38 Writing to his brother in Kazan, the prominent national leader, Gayaz Ishaki, explained, "Paper money is worth nothing, as happens among Berlin students when Soviet billions in Berlin turn to dust." In 1923 he lamented, "Must each writer complete 12 plays a year not to die of starvation?"39
The search for income often became their sole pursuit. Some (e.g.,
G. Battal) did manage to find profitable opportunities and channels to conduct trade on the territories of Finland and Russia. More than one Chekist noted that "many Tatar [migrants] carry on speculative deals, buying and selling."40 According to the Eastern Department:
"It follows from our sensitive information, that one of the handover points between Berlin and Petrograd is Helsingfors, where there lives a businessman Hassan Kanikov [Kanukov], born in the town of Sergach in the Nizhny Novgorod Gubernia. He has been living there since before the war. At present, he is a big authority for the Finnish Government and for the Finnish police in particular. Many counterrevolutionary individuals, before crossing the border, obtain a permit to leave for Finland allegedly with assistance and consent of Kanikov. He is in permanent contact with Petrograd... It is supposed he has direct communication with Sergach and Kazan through Kronstadt and Petrograd using Safa Khussainov who often travels between Kazan and Petrograd allegedly with the goal of speculative trade."41
Some very prominent migrants preferred to live off their customary intellectual work, earning money lecturing, selling plays, articles, books etc. A. Idrisi travelled to Finland several times in the late 1920's to deliver lectures.42
Nevertheless, as the migrants, themselves, admitted and as seen in the situation of the "Society of Turkic Learners," many lived in woeful conditions. Funds to aid emigrants and emigrant organizations were solicited among foreign and Russian co-religionists. Just as before the revolution, money was collected in both capitals, at fairs, and in large commercial cities located in the Volga Region, in Siberia, as well as abroad (e.g. Finland and Harbin).43 The funds then passed through connections and intermediaries via Moscow, Petrograd, Berlin, Paris, and so on.
In the summer of 1923, Soviet agents traced the financial flow from Helsinki to Petrograd and Moscow:
"It is possible that funds were collected among the Finnish Tatar diaspora for the benefit of the Berlin Tatars through Kanyukov [i.e. Kanukov]. The funds were given to Battalov, who was in transit from Berlin."
"The fact that Begiev [sic] received money from abroad is confirmed. In the month of May, 10-15 thousand rubles in gold was received. It must be noted that often the money is used by Begiev's entourage for their personal needs."44
"Arrival of uncertain sums of money is expected from Finland. The money will be given to Ibragimov, the pantry-man of the Beloostrov station, and it will be brought to Moscow by some ex-sergeant major [Gumer] Teregulov, through whom funds were sent more than once. In addition, it is possible that Rasulzade had brought money from Finland." It was Gumer Teregulov who got in the focus of the Russian intelligence more than once: in 1922-1923 he was seen giving money from the Russian Muslims to the emigrants visiting Moscow or Petrograd ("brings money from Moscow to Petrograd and vice versa").45
"Battal, who is living in Finland, is collecting money from Finnish monarchists and thinking of providing the same to the Ufa, Kazan, and Orenburg counterrevolutionaries on the territory of the Russian SFSR."46
Clearly, many prominent migrants did not limit their activity to smuggling literature and correspondence alone, but also conveyed money to Russia and transported gold abroad.
Cooperation with the intelligence services of various countries may have ensured a steady, rather than a sporadic, source of income. It is known that members of migrant groups expressed suspicion about contacts with the OGPU on the part of O. Tokumbetov, and A. Idrisi.47 According to Polish intelligence, O. Tokumbetov's wife and her sister both worked for OGPU. 48 "According to evidence from Polish intelligence," writes S.M. Ishakov, "A.Z. Walidov received money from an OGPU resident agent in Berlin."49
Clearly, as intelligence services in those countries where the emigrants resided well understood, ideological rejection of developments in the Soviet Union, not material interests, drove this interaction. "In the late 1920's, Ishaki, as well as other emigrants among the Russian Muslim leaders came into view of Polish intelligence and contacts began in 1929"50
The emigrants used some of the money garnered from foreign secret services to finance their publishing efforts: A.Z. Walidov's "Modern Turkestan and its Recent Past" (Bugunkii Turkestan ve Yakin Tarihi) was published in Cairo in 1928.51 As mentioned above, the works of Bigeev could have been published with Turkish money, and Soviet propagandists, following the lead of the intelligence services, claimed that the magazine, "Milli Yul," edited by Gayaz Ishaki, was published in Berlin using money from the Polish General Staff.52
Some representatives of the emigration depended on Japan for financial support. Gumer Teregulov lived in Japan in 1919 "at the expense of an important Japanese bourgeois, one Yakub Kuji, who became a Muslim, and who is helping Teregulov even now."53 It is of interest that Yakub Kuji received his education in Turkey and maintained links with Turkish co-religionists.54 At the same time, it is known that part of the Tatar elite, including those who left and those who remained in Soviet Russia, often confirmed in word and deed their support of pan-Turkic and pan-Islamic ideas, which Turkey promoted.
During the First World War, Tatar emigrants who cooperated with both Germany and Turkey propagated the idea of Muslim unity among prisoners of war.55 The same practice, we suggest, might have continued into the period under discussion. Data from the OGPU Eastern Department record contacts between Berlin emigrants and Turkish political parties and the Afghanistan consulate in Berlin.56 The Ahmadiya movement, that emerged in mid-1920's among the Berlin Muslim community and that attracted some emigrants from Russia, was financed with British money.57
* * *
This article has established the high incidence of informal, personal communication between the Muslim diaspora and the motherland in the absence of a single coordinating center. In the early 1920's, the forms of communication between the migrants and the motherland were quite varied encompassing educational, trade, and intellectual contacts.
The documents reveal a conscious effort by Soviet analysts to identify a single organizational structure, to construct an integrated system of communication between different Turkic and Muslim circles. Our reconstruction, on the contrary, convincingly shows the presence of individuals who performed ideological and financial exchanges between varied groups of national and religious leaders (G. Teregulov, H. Kanukov) in both the migrant and domestic Russian communities, but it does not point to the presence of any stable network or organizational forms between them. No formal Islamic, anti-Bolshevik organization connected to the migrant community existed either in the Volga-Urals Region or within Russia in the early 1920's. Neither was there a single organizational center of Turkic migrants or a generally recognized leader.
Official documents, oral histories, and memoirs indicate the existence of multiple informal links, but do these sources support the vision of a pan-Islamic, pan-Turkic movement held by the staff of the OGPU Eastern Department, a vision that in the later years would provide the grounds for mass repressions?
Certainly "the Turkic nationalists who had gone abroad in the 1917-1919 period remained implacable enemies of the idea of Russia one and indivisible, open adversaries of the Russian government, and not just "ideological opponents of Bolshevism."58 One may hold to R. Gainetdinov's conclusion regarding the ideological and organizational unity of the emigration around the general non-acceptance of Bolshevism in which differences arose only in regard to the tactical approaches toward the Turkic peoples of Russia.59 Yet, the Muslim emigration, like that of the Russians, was not homogenous. Those who left their homeland saw the future of the country and of the Muslim peoples after the fall of Bolshevism in different ways, and the majority of emigrants held to this vision until the beginning of 1930's.
The numerous internal conflicts and financial problems that plagued the diaspora rendered anti-Bolshevik activity ineffective, and turned the emigrants into inviting targets for the secret services of various countries.
While identifying the correct source of their unity - rejection of the Soviet system - Soviet researchers failed to clearly understand the basic links between the migrants, according those links national or religious features (pan-Turkists, pan-Islamists, etc.), without recognizing the artificiality of such distinctions.
When compared with the Imperial period, the research that followed
shows that it had inherited the principal pre-revolutionary approaches to the phenomenon (emigration was still seen as a direct hazard to the interests of state), and misunderstood the needs and interests of expatriate national leaders. In this last circumstance, one may see a resemblance between the "Imperial" and the "early Soviet" "Muslim discourse." At the same time, the Bolsheviks went beyond the Imperial administration, suggesting the existence of organized groups within Russia that acted in concert with emigrants and pursued anti-state objectives. This supposition would later serve as grounds for the mass repression of Muslims and accusations against them of pan-Islamism or pan-Turkism.
Notes Примечания
1 Гилязов И.А. Контакты российских татар-мусульман с Западной Европой: поиск новых цивилизационных ориентиров? // Ислам в Евразии: Современные этические и эстетические концепции суннитского ислама, их трансформация в массовом сознании и выражение в искусстве мусульманских народов России. Москва, 2001. С. 136-161.
2 Гилязов И.А. Шафи Алмас - личность и судьба // Научный Татарстан. 2010. № 3. С. 106-114; Биринджи А. Габдулла Баттал-Таймас: История жизни одного ученого из Казани // Научный Татарстан. 2001. № 2. С. 7289; 2001.№ 3. С. 185-190.
3 Императорская Россия и мусульманский мир (конец XVIII - начало XX в.): Сборник материалов. Москва, 2006. С. 318.
4 Там же. С. 348.
5 Там же. С. 318.
6 Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (CA FSB RF). F. 2. Op. 1 D. 690. L.1.
7 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 686. L. 14rev.
8 Биринджи А. Габдулла Баттал-Таймас: История жизни одного ученого из Казани // Научный Татарстан. 2001. № 2. С. 89.
9 Сенюткина О.Н. Нижегородские корни татаро-мишарской общины Финляндии // Ислам на Нижегородчине: Энциклопедический словарь. Нижний Новгород, 2007. С. 132-134; Беккин Р.И. Штрихи к портрету мусульманских общин на Карельском перешейке // LiteraruS - Литературное слово. 2014. № 3 (44). С. 8-14.
10 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 656. L. 13.
11 Биринджи А. Габдулла Баттал-Таймас: История жизни одного ученого из Казани // Научный Татарстан. 2001. № 2. С. 74, 85.
12 Беккин Р.И., Тагиржанова А.Н. Мусульманский Петербург: Исторический путеводитель: Жизнь мусульман в городе на Неве и в его окрестностях. Москва; Санкт-Петербург, 2016. С. 289, 290.
13 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 656. L. 13.
14 Ibidem. L. 13, 13rev.
15 Ibidem. L. 14.
16 Ibidem. L. 25.
17 Ibidem. L. 31.
18 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 662. L. 15rev.
19 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689.
20 Цвиклински С. Татары и башкиры в Германии на фоне катаклизмов XX в. // Диаспоры. 2005. № 2. С. 81-95.
21 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689.
22 Ibidem. L.157.
23 Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI). F. 17. Op. 61. D. 165. L. 97.
24 Гайнетдинов Р.Б. Тюрко-татарская политическая эмиграция: Начало XX века - 30-е годы. Набережные Челны, 1997. С. 159; Гилязов И.А. Общество поддержки российско-мусульманских студентов в Берлине, 1918 - 1925 // Гасырлар авазы = Эхо веков. 1996. № 3/4. С. 193-199.
25 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689.
26 Ibidem. L. 94.
27 Ibidem. L. 67.
28 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 661. L. 30.
29 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689. L. 20.
30 RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 61. D. 145. L. 100.
31 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 662. L. 4rev.
32 Ibidem. L. 66.
33 Ibidem. L. 7.
34 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 690. L. 12-15.
35 Гусева Ю.Н. «Исламская политика» советского государства и голод начала 1920-х гг. в Поволжье: Неизвестные страницы деятельности Комиссии Центрального Духовного Управления Мусульман по борьбе с голодом // Известия Самарского научного центра Российской академии наук. 2013. Т. 15. № 1-1. С. 79-83.
36 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689. L. 158.
37 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 690. L. 66.
38 Гайнетдинов Р.Б. Тюрко-татарская политическая эмиграция: Начало XX века - 30-е годы. Набережные Челны, 1997. С. 64.
39 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689. L. 182.
40 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 690. L. 14-15.
41 Ibidem.
42 Гилязов И.А. Судьба Алимжана Идриси // Гасырлар авазы = Эхо веков. 1999. № 3/4. С. 158-172.
43 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 656. L. 18; D. 662. L. 5.
44 Ibidem. L. 13rev.
45 Ibidem. L. 13, 13rev.
46 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689. L. 20.
47 Исхаков С.М. Ахмед-Закки Валидов: Новейшая литература и факты его политической биографии // Вопросы истории. 2003. № 10. С. 147-159; Гилязов И.А. Судьба Алимжана Идриси // Гасырлар авазы = Эхо веков. 1999. № 3/4. С. 158-172; Гусева Ю.Н. Организация «Джамият-Ашарихуль-
Исламия» в контексте «мусульманской» политики советского государства (1928 г.) // Гасырлар авазы = Эхо веков. 2013. № 3/4 (72/73). С. 61-66.
48 Гайнетдинов Р.Б. Тюрко-татарская политическая эмиграция: Начало XX века - 30-е годы. Набережные Челны, 1997. С. 64.
49 Исхаков С.М. Ахмед-Закки Валидов: Новейшая литература и факты его политической биографии // Вопросы истории. 2003. № 10. С. 147-159.
50 Исхаков С.М. Вопросы истории тюркских народов первой четверти XX века в неопубликованных трудах Мухамметгаяза Исхаки // Гасырлар авазы = Эхо веков. 2000. № 3/4. С. 29-37.
51 Исхаков С.М. Ахмед-Закки Валидов: Новейшая литература и факты его политической биографии // Вопросы истории. 2003. № 10. С. 147-159.
52 Касымов Г. Пантюркистская контрреволюция и ее агентура - сул-тангалиевщина. Казань, 1931. С. 53.
53 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 689. L. 159.
54 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 662. L. 15rev.; D. 690. L.70.
55 Гилязов И. А., Гатауллина Л.Р. Российские солдаты-мусульмане в германском плену в годы Первой мировой войны. Казань, 2014.
56 CA FSB RF. F. 2. Op. 1. D. 662. L. 7.
57 Гусева Ю.Н. Деятельность мусульманского движения «Ахмадийа» в 20-е гг. XX в. // Восток. Афро-азиатские общества: история и современность. 2013. № 5. С. 67-74.
58 Сенюткина О.Н. Тюркизм как историческое явление (на материалах истории Российской империи 1905 - 1916 гг.). Нижний Новгород, 2007. С. 109.
59 Гайнетдинов Р.Б. Тюрко-татарская политическая эмиграция: Начало XX века - 30-е годы. Набережные Челны, 1997. С. 60.
Author, Abstract, Key words
Yulia N. Guseva - Doctor of History, Senior Lecturer, Deputy Director, Samara Branch, Moscow City University (Samara, Russia)
j.guseva@mail.ru
The author focuses attention on the formal and informal contacts between representatives of the Turkic and Islamic national and religious elites residing in Petrograd, Moscow, and Kazan, and their co-religionists in Germany and Finland. These contacts involved financial and organizational assistance, as well as exchanges of ideas. Research employing foreign and domestic sources - above all intelligence data from the GPU (OGPU) Eastern Department archive - makes it possible to reconstruct the architecture of links and channels of mutual influence. To analyze the potential and actual effectiveness of these exchanges, a table is provided that depicts the informal networking between Soviet Muslims, migrant communities, and local believers. The conclusions provide a comparative analysis of the principal approaches of Imperial and Soviet authorities in assessing these interrelationships. The author finds that these assessments are marked by continuity from one period to another, and
that this resulted in strengthening negative perceptions of those national and religious elites abroad, and in a failure on the part of the Eastern Department (as opposed to the Western secret services) to exercise direct and systematic influence on the migrants. The article's conclusion is about the inconsistency of the idea foreign movement in defense of the Idel-Ural State which will become a basic reason for repression against the national-religious Volga-Ural leaders in the 1930s.
Muslims in Russia, Tatars, Turkic and Tatar emigration, pan-Islamism, Idel-Ural State, Soviet intelligence, Soviet counterintelligence, Unified State Political Administration (OGPU).
References (Articles from Scientific Journals)
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2. Birindzhi A. Gabdulla Battal-Taymas: Istoriya zhizni odnogo uchenogo iz Kazani [The Beginning.]. [Gabdulla Battal-Taymas: A Life History of a Scientist from Kazan.]. Nauchnyy Tatarstan, 2001, no. 2, pp. 72-89. (In Russian).
3. Birindzhi A. Gabdulla Battal-Taymas: Istoriya zhizni odnogo uchenogo iz Kazani [The End.]. [Gabdulla Battal-Taymas: A Life History of a Scientist from Kazan.]. Nauchnyy Tatarstan, 2001, no. 3, pp. 185-190. (In Russian).
4. Cwiklinski, Sebastian. Tatary i bashkiry v Germanii na fone kataklizmov XX v. [Tatars and Bashkirs in Germany against the Background of Cataclysms of the Twentieth Century.]. Diaspory, 2005, no. 2, pp. 81-95. (In Russian).
5. Gilyazov I.A. Obshchestvo podderzhki rossiysko-musulmanskikh stu-dentov v Berline, 1918 - 1925 [Society for the Assistance to Russian Muslim Students in Berlin, 1918 - 1925.]. Gasyrlar avazy = Ekho vekov, 1996, no. 3/4, pp. 193-199. (In Russian).
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7. Gilyazov I.A. Sudba Alimzhana Idrisi [The Fate of Alimzhan Idrisi.]. Gasyrlar avazy = Ekho vekov, 1999, no. 3/4, pp. 158-172. (In Russian).
8. Guseva Yu.N. Deyatelnost musulmanskogo dvizheniya "Akhmadiyya" v 20-e gg. XX v. [Activity of the "Ahmadiya" Muslim Movement in the 1920s.]. Vostok. Afro-aziatskiye obshchestva: istoriya i sovremennost [Vostok- Oriens], 2013, no. 5, pp. 67-74. (In Russian).
9. Guseva Yu.N. "Islamskaya politika" sovetskogo gosudarstva i golod nachala 1920-kh gg. v Povolzhe: Neizvestnye stranitsy deyatelnosti Komissii Tsentralnogo Dukhovnogo Upravleniya Musulman po borbe s golodom [The "Islamic Policy" of the Soviet State and the Famine in the Volga Region in the Early 1920s: Unknown Pages from the Activity of the Commission of the Central Muslim Spiritual Board in the Struggle against Famine.]. Izvestiya Samarskogo nauchnogo tsentra Rossiyskoy akademii nauk, 2013, vol. 15, no.
1-1, pp. 79-83. (In Russian).
10. Guseva Yu.N. Organizatsiya "Dzhamiyat-Asharikhul-Islamiya" v kon-tekste "musulmanskoy" politiki sovetskogo gosudarstva (1928 g.) ["Jamiyat-Asharihul-Islamiya" Organization in the Context of "Muslim" Policy of the Soviet State (1928).]. Gasyrlar avazy = Ekho vekov, 2013, no. 3/4 (72/73), pp. 61-66. (In Russian).
11. Iskhakov S.M. Akhmed-Zakki Validov: Noveyshaya literatura i fakty ego politicheskoy biografii [Ahmed-Zaqi Walidov: The Newest Literature and Facts of his Political Biography.]. Voprosy istorii, 2003, no. 10, pp. 147-159. (In Russian).
12. Iskhakov S.M. Voprosy istorii tyurkskikh narodov pervoy chetverti XX veka v neopublikovannykh trudakh Mukhammetgayaza Iskhaki [Questions of History of Turkic peoples if the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century in the Unpublished Works of Mokhammethayaz Ishaki.]. Gasyrlar avazy = Ekho vekov, 2000, no. 3/4, pp. 29-37. (In Russian).
(Articles from Proceedings and Collections of Research Papers)
13. Gilyazov I.A. Kontakty rossiyskikh tatar-musulman s Zapadnoy Evropoy: poisk novykh tsivilizatsionnykh oriyentirov? [Contacts of Russian Tatar Muslims with the Western Europe: A Search for New Civilization Guidelines?]. Islam v Evrazii: Sovremennyye eticheskiye i esteticheskiye kont-septsii sunnitskogo islama, ikh transformatsiya v massovom soznanii i vyr-azheniye v iskusstve musul'manskikh narodov Rossii [Islam in Eurasia: Modern Ethic and Aesthetic Concepts of the Sunni Islam and their Transformation in the Mass Consciousness and Expression in the Art of the Muslim Peoples of Russia.]. Moscow, 2001, pp. 136-161. (In Russian).
14. Senyutkina O.N. Nizhegorodskiye korni tataro-misharskoy obshchiny Finlyandii [The Nizhniy Novgorod Roots of the Tatar and Mishar Community of Finland.]. Islam na Nizhegorodchine: Entsiklopedicheskiy slovar [Islam in the Nizhniy Novgorod Area: Encyclopedic Dictionary.]. Nizhniy Novgorod, 2007, pp. 132-134. (In Russian).
(Monographs)
15. Bekkin R.I., Tagirzhanova A.N. Musulmanskiy Peterburg: Istoricheskiy putevoditel: Zhizn musulman v gorode na Neve i v ego okrestnostyakh [The Muslim St. Petersburg: A Historical Guide-book: The Life of Muslims in the City on the Neva and its Surroundings.]. Moscow; St. Petersburg, 2016, pp. 289, 290. (In Russian).
16. Gaynetdinov R.B. Tyurko-tatarskaya politicheskaya emigratsiya: Nachalo XX veka - 30-e gody [Turko-Tatar Political Emigration: The Beginning of the Twentieth Century to the 1930s.]. Naberezhnye Chelny, 1997, pp. 60, 64, 159. (In Russian).
17. Gilyazov I.A., Gataullina L.R. Rossiyskie soldaty-musulmane v ger-manskom plenu v gody Pervoy mirovoy voyny [Russian Muslim Soldiers
in German Captivity during the First World War.]. Kazan, 2014, 303 p. (In Russian).
18. Senyutkina O.N. Tyurkizm kak istoricheskoye yavleniye (na mate-rialakh istorii Rossiyskoy imperii 1905 - 1916 gg.) [Turkism as a Historical Phenomenon (Based on the Materials of the History of the Russian Empire of 1905 - 1916).]. Nizhniy Novgorod, 2007, p. 109. (In Russian).
Автор, аннотация, ключевые слова
Гусева Юлия Николаевна - докт. ист. наук, доцент, заместитель директора Самарского филиала Московского городского университета (МГПУ)
В центре внимания автора - неформальные и формализованные контакты представителей национально-религиозной элиты тюрко-исламского мира России, проживавших в Петрограде, Москве и Казани, с татарами Германии и Финляндии. Содержание взаимодействий - финансовая, организационная подпитка и обмен разноплановыми идеями. На основании свидетельств внешних и внутренних наблюдателей, прежде всего материалов разведки, содержащихся в фонде Восточного отдела ГПУ-ОГПУ, выстраивается архитектура связей, каналов взаимовлияния. С целью анализа потенциальной и реальной эффективности обмена предлагается таблица, отражающая рассматриваемые неформальное сетевое взаимодействие мусульман Советской России с эмигрантскими кругами и местными верующими. Выводы статьи содержат сравнительный анализ принципиальных подходов российских властей в имперский и советский период в отношении данного явления. Устанавливается преемственность оценок и дальнейшее углубление негативного восприятия национально-религиозной элиты, оказавшейся за рубежом, а также отсутствие явных попыток со стороны Восточного отдела (в отличие от зарубежных спецслужб) оказывать непосредственное систематическое влияние на мигрантов. Делается вывод о несостоятельности идеи о формировании заграничного движения в защиту Идель-Урала, которая в 1930-е гг. станет серьезным основанием для репрессий в отношении национально-религиозных лидеров татар Волго-Уральского региона.
Мусульмане в России, татары, Волго-Уральский регион, тюркско-та-тарская эмиграция, панисламизм, Идель-Урал, советская разведка, советская контрразведка, ОГПУ.
