'Middle East. Turco-Bolshevik Activities: Note by Political Intelligence Officer attached to India Office.' [‎84r] (1/8)

VERY SECRET.
B. 360.
MIDDLE
EAST.
32
Turco-Bolshevik Activities : Note by Political Intelligence Officer attached to
India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
I.— The Turkish Unionists (O.U.P.).
1. Before we can arrive at any just appreciation of the political situation in
Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. it will be necessary first to study the aims of three important political groups
which have now formed a sort of triple alliance, namely, the C.U.P., the Bolsheviks,
and the Turkish Nationalists. Until we have arrived at a clear appreciation of the
aims of these different groups we can form no possible estimate as to the future trend
of events.
2. No clearer definition of the O.U.P. policy has come into our possession than
that furnished in a report submitted to the Finnish Government by Wetterhoff of a
conversation with Talaat Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. . The importance of this report lies in the
confirmation we have received from other sources, confirming to a remarkable degree
the policy therein enunciated. The following are relevant extracts :—
(a) “ The time for active measures had not yet arrived, but now was the time to
prepare, because everything should be ready when the time for action
arrives. ’
“ That time would have arrived when the internal unity of the Entente should
have finally broken down.”
The period of waiting is being organised by the Turks to disorganise and weaken
England’s power in Asia.
(h) Object.—The forces of Mustafa Keinal form the positive part of the
“ programme which is to build up again the ancient Turkish power.
“ But no less important is the policy which seeks in other Moslem
“ countries to use their powerful national personality in the fight against
“ England. Representatives of the Turks are in Azerbaijan, Afghanistan,
“ Persia, even in South-East Asia, organising and inciting the national
“ conflict.
“ Another part of Turkish preparations was the search for contact
“ with other nations which have had enough of England’s protection.”
(c) Bolshevik, —“He hinted that England’s greatest danger would come from
“ Bolshevik Russia, where the hostility to England is boundless. The
“ Bolsheviks, in order to weaken England’s power in Asia, have put into
“ operation a powerful Bolshevik propaganda in the colonies and vassal
“ countries, especially India.
“ The ideas which the Bolsheviks are stimulating there differ in part
“ from the Socialist programme which they use in the industrial countries
“ of Europe. In Asia they cultivate the idea of nationality and freedom
“ of religion.
“ In this way Russia is at this moment the best and most valuable ally
“ of all Mohammedans.”
This may be summed up very briefly as follows:—Talaat and his party aim at
reconstituting the Turkish Empire, and consider England to be the real stumbling
block in their way. Being unable to oppose a united Entente, they seek to limit
concerted action and opposition to their aims by producing misunderstandings among
the Entente and to weaken England’s position by using the Nationalist movements to
embarrass her, and to use temporarily Russia’s hostility to the British to further their
schemes.
3. There is one other point of extreme importance hinted at in the above and
made clear from our information from other sources. This group (the C.l .1\) seeks
to reconstitute Turkey by adding to her territories Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkestan,
thus obtaining contact with central Asia. It seeks to gain control of the Bolshevik
organisations in these regions and use them for its own purpose. It is this latter
policy which is fully realised by the Soviet Government and accounts for the
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