File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎423r] (493/1080)

Prom impressions gained by intercourse with persons arriving from
Russia it seems that there will be a complete disintegration of society as it is
constituted in Russia at present. Government officials will abandon their
employment and the troops throw down their arms, all being convinced that
every man should make his own laws for his own governance. The Bolsheviks
are now faced by the disinclination of troops to be moved from one station to
another unless three months’ rations are provided in advance. The troops are
further disheartened by the rumours going about that they will be required
to fight the Poles and Rumanians.
Famine conditions are so desperate that people are eating the grains found
in the evacuations of horses.
On the 30th August a Serb who had fled from Tashkent arrived at
Lutfabad and went to the Customs Office where he betrayed symptoms of
insanity. He repeatedly asked for his arrival to be notified to the British
Consulate General so that a motor car might be sent for him.
The Tashkent Government has decided not to ration its workmen any
longer but, instead, to pay them 9,000 roubles a month to find for themselves.
This naturally does not agree with the views of the latter who will become
the victims of increasing prices and of the operations of speculators. They
have consequently decided to strike.
The shopkeepers of Askhabad and Kaakhka have been ordered to vacate
their shops and to make room thereby for famine refugees from Russia.
Archangan and Khakistar .—The messenger from these places was arrested
by gendarmes and his reports confiscated.
Sarakhs .—September 2nd to 9th.
(i) The Bolshevik authorities have stopped all traffic across the frontier
from Persia. The Chief of the Special Department at Russian Sarakhs
explains that this is a measure of precaution on his part on account of the
continued depreciation of Bolshevik paper currency in terms of Persian coin—
20,000 roubles being the equivalent of two krans, or about ten pence of
English money. The explanation is rather hard to follow. Nevertheless,
these economic considerations do not prevent this officer from passing across
those persons whom he wishes to help on their way. For instance, Bolshevik
spies freely visit Persian Sarakhs.
(ii) On the 4th September. 250 Bolshevik troops arrived in Russian
Sarakhs in relief of the existing garrison which was still there at the time of
despatch of the report.
(Hi) A tale is going the rounds of a conference in Moscow held on the
9th August the agenda before which were with relation to the economic crisis.
Lenin was present and was told that the time for attention to the economic
ruin of the country was not yet. He should wait and see the whole of Russia
depopulated by starvation before he begins to take measures for its relief.
(iv) Stories are arriving of the terrible straits of the starving population
of Russia. People are living on the bark of trees. Wood is ground into powder
and made up as bread. The state of things in Siberia is said to be no better.
Cats and dogs have long since been used up as human food and are no longer
to be seen.
(v) It is believed that the institution of the Special Department has been | ^
abolished in the interior of Russia. It is intended to maintain it on the -
frontiers only.
(vi) Saruq Turkmen report that Takhta Bazar has been evacuated of
troops. There is no confirmation of this.
(vii) The stranger at the house of the Persian Governor (vide last week’s
Summary, page 13, paragraph in) turns out to be a fugitive. Ten years
a^o he was Governor of Russian Sarakhs and during the British occupation
of Merv he was in the Menshevik army as an officer, turned Bolshevik on
the failure of the other party and was put into Samara jail where he was
sentenced to be executed but escaped. He says 125 ^-Menshevik officers
are in the jail at Merv where they are kept alive with half a pound of bread
a day. He has petitioned the British Consul-General for assistance.
SGPI, S' F&PD —18-11-21—11.