File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎339v] (326/1080)

December 17th to 22nd.
34. The Turkmen of the Sarakhs region believe that the Bolsheviks will
cede Bairam Alij Merv, iCushk, Takhta Bazar, Tejen, and Sarakhs to
Afghanistan. The belief is chimerical as such a renunciatory policy would be
tantamount to ar gift of that section of the Central. Asian .Kailway included
between Bairam Ali and Merv to say nothing of the interposition of alien and
potentially hostile territory between Transcaspia and Turkestan. ,
35. It is said that Babrov, the Chief of the Special Department at Russian
Sarakhs, who absconded to Persia was in. possession of an order from Tashkent
permitting Karim Khan Baloch to raid into Persia. The Governor of Persian
Sarakhs confirms this and says he sent the document under seal to Meshed,
Bobrov denies he had such a document.
36., Kurliant, the successor of Bobrov, a Jew and at one time a tailor in
London, stated when drunk lately that Bobrov’s absconding into Persia was a
stratagem calculated to deceive the Persian and British authorities into helieT-
ing him to be a fugitive when all the time he is in Bolshevik employ..
TKANS-PKONTIEK.
37. TraKScaspia .—Travellers and fugitives alike repeat ad nausecm
appalling stories of the confusion and suffering in all Bolshevik administrated
territories. Little else in the matter of information is afforded by them. It is
possible that famine and attendant cold are overshadowing the people preclud
ing a participation in every other human movement, and that until these two
visitations are overpast there will be little to record from the general life of the
peoples of Asiatic Kussia.
38. Most of the arrivals from Kussia testify to an improved treatment of
the populace by the Bolsheviks but are equally unanimous in their descriptioE
of the hatred of the people for their masters.
39. It is felt that enough has been said in preceding summaries to give
some idea of the economic conditions prevailing in Transcaspia and Turkestan
and that to add thereto is at present unnecessary, The situation cannot
change materially for some time, and so far as the food crisis is concerned, not
until the summer crops are in.
40. Things have gone too far for any hope of speedy improvement and
it is only by the slow process of time and a succession of good harvests that a
change for the better can be expected.
41. Even those whose business and instructions are to bluff others into a
belief that all is for the best in the best of all Communist worlds, the Commu
nists themselves, admit now that without outside assistance it will he impossible
for Kussia to rehabilitate herself, This pessimistic view is not, however, con
veyed to the proletariat whp are buoyed by public speeches on help from
America, Germany, and Erance (England is never included). The ignorant
audience believes that in these days of reduced world’s output a country of one
hundred million can be fed and supported by contributions from other States
with but little surplus from their own needs.
42. A traveller from Kussia has probably stated nothing but the truth
s by saying, that the Bolshevik official is regarding the death of thousands from
famine with complete indifference. He has no wish to preserve adult lh es
! which will have to be fed from the country’s straitened resources and whose
industrial and productive capacity will remain long impaired by protracted
starvation. He has no wish to preserve people who can remember the better
times under the Tsars and wTio can compare them with the present under Bol
shevism. His unarticulated hope is that all such may succumb, leaving him to
concentrate on.the young generation which should be fed.and congregated
away from their parents in schools where Communist policy and dogma are
imparted. These, knowing no other creed, no other form of society, weane
from all home ties, will be, de novo, the future Bolsheviks and Communists ot
the world.