File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎406v] (460/1080)

The famine refugees parcelled out to various centres add to the public
tribulation. The State shoulders its responsibilities in the matter of starving
children on to the people by allotting the former to every household for main
tenance, the Turkmen being made to take their share. Those refugees for
whom there is no shelter live night and day in the streets, gardens, railway
trucks, etc. Those who can are made to work, those who are too ill or too wealr
get a Government dole of half a pound of black bread a day. . Turkmen in
need of labour are permitted to employ refugees in return for feeding them.
The Bolsheviks are cutting jungle growths in the Yolatan district for fuel.
The question of fuel this winter is bound to be acute unless the oil resources of
Baku can be utilized in some form or other. Such would be impossible for the
poor who have no oil stoves.
The output of the coal mines in Ferghana has dropped to a negligible
quantity. A man who worked in those at Dash Kumri, thirteen miles from
Margilan, stated that formerly 3,000 people worked in these mine§ and that the
daily output was 150 tons. Owing to the present lack of food work is at a
standstill; while the total of the personnel present does not exceed 300.
Ferghana and Contradictory reports are received relative to
the state of affairs in Ferghana. An intelligent arrival stated recently that
Osh, Andijan, Kokand and Skobelev are in the hands of the rebels, but other
accounts by no means confirm this.
•
The concensus of reports, however, bears out that Sher Muhammad
Kor will not commit himself to organized warfare with the Bolsheviks
for in that he must fail. Instead, his partizans collect in places he means
to strike at in the guise of peasants, etc., and when the garrison is off
its guard and when no armoured car or armoured train is near they put on
their distinctive headdress, carry out their raid, and then disappear again
to the hills. All the Bolshevik efforts to subdue him have been unsuccessful
and the various peace missions to him have not brought him to terms. Or rather
the terms which form the irreducible minimum he will accept, namely, a
total evacution of Ferghana and a cession to him of the railway from
Chernyaevo to Andijan, are not agreeable to the Bolsheviks. He possesses
one immense moral advantage over his enemies and that is he enjoys the
sympathy and silent encouragement of the population of the regions in
which he is operating and of that which he wishes to acquire—if not that
of Bokhara also.
The defections from Bolshevik units to the bands of Sher Muhammad
Kor are of serious moment to the former for they are said to be considerable.
Starvation in the Bolshevik army is reported to be the principal stimulus
to desertion.
244*. AFGHANISTAN.
Rerat .—October 7th to 13th.
The Bolshevik Consul was in secret conference with the Governor for
an hour on the 7th. On his return to the Consulate he complained to
Bessaldar Khuda Bakhsh that the Afghan soldiers on duty do not salute him,
neither do they show him the same measure of respect they do to the British
Agent. He was told that civilian officials were not entitled to military
salutes and that the British Agent had no more respect paid him than had
the Bolshevik Consul. The English were the enemies of the Afghans while
the Bolsheviks were their friends. He assured the Consul that he had
misjudged the situation.
(ii) The Bolshevik Consul asked the Naib-ul-Hukumeh to warn the
Afghan Governor of Sheikh Juneid that Afghan subjects must be prohibited
from trespassing on^Afghan territory and from quarrying there as had been
reported to him they are^5ing. The Naib-ul-Hukumeh while denying the alleged
trespass, promised the Consul he would address the Governor on the subject.
{in) Four Russians accompanied by a female arrived from Chahildukhteran
on the 9th. They were said to be photographers and have cameras with them.