File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎471r] (589/1080)

On the 2nd August a telegram from Tashkent was received directing the chief
Bolshevik baker not to issue bread to any one except soldiers. Others would have
to make their own arrangements. It is expected there will be disturbances as
a result of this order.
Telegraphic instructions have been received from the Persian Government
directing the closing of the frontier on account of cholera at Baku.
Trans-Frontier.
189. Petrov,sk.; /th July,- —Five Bolshevik naval ships were lying off Petrovsk
on this date. Two of them are oil and three coal fired. They patrol the sea coast.
Steamer service to Caspian ports is once a fortnight. The capacity of these steamers
varies from 250 to 1,000 men.
There is a factory An East India Company trading post. engaged in wire drawing and in making nails, also a cloth
mill. The power house was burnt down and has been substituted by a smaller
installation.
Food is scarce and troops on short rations.
The people have a bitter hatred for the Bolsheviks but are powerless to retaliate
upon them for fear of instant reprisals.
Daghistan was still unsettled up to the time of the report.
There is much cholera in Petrovsk, Astrakhan, and Baku. Officials travelling
from western Caspian ports to Krasnovodsk are not allowed to enter that town
on account of the same epidemic.
The state of public opinion is such that deliverance at the hands of any power
would be welcomed.
Petrovsk has its contingent of Communist preachers but they do not attract
any attention.
Kizil Arvat.— 24th July. —Two months ago the Adalat party was revived in
Kizil Arvat under the name of “ Siksia ”. The president of this local branch is
a Jew and the members Persians andKavkazis. Thechief object of this organiza
tion is to engender disaffection for the Persian Government among the Yumuds.
To give a more concrete effect to this disaffection later on arms and ammunition
are distributed to this tribe. Some propagandists have been sent to Qara Qala
for missionary effort among its members.
On the 19th July some sheep and cereals arrived in Kizil Arvat from the
Yomuds. Tins consignment was supposed to have been raided from the Persians.
It was paid' for with rifles and ammunition.
During the month a detachment of 200 mounted men arrived from Askhabad
and marched to Qara Qala. (See Intelligence Summaries Nos. 30 and 31).
Askhabad.-— 30th July. —-There has been a Conference in Askhabad on Trans-
Caspian affairs and the last session was held on 23rd July. Every Turkmen notable
was present, including Khan Yomudski, Kaidisiz, Avez Bey, and others. The
most important matter discussed was the taxation in kind. The Bolshviks propose
to assess a small holding of one “ tenab ” at nil; onedesyatin at four poods ; two
desyatin at 12 poods ; from the Askhabad district 30,000 sheep, and so on. (one
tenab is equal to half a acre). A Turkmen present asked the Russians presiding
if the foregoing is an order or is open to reconsideration. Kaidisiz replied, “It
is an order”. “ Then,” said the other, “ there was no need for you to have held
this meeting. You could have issued your orders to us and we in our turn would
have issued ours to you.”
As if typhus, typhoid, plague, and cholera, are not sufficient portion for the
unhappy subjects of Bolshevik misrule there has arrived another disease in the form
of scurvy. Accounts have arrived in Askhabad of this affection^ claiming many
victims in the Samarkand and Orenburg districts, where, in addition, two to three
thousand are dying every day from hunger.. It is even said that in order to cope
with the mortality existing the authorities are constrained to dig ditches on the
steppe wherein the corpses are flung wholesale. How much of this is true and ho.w
much exaggerated remains to be proved.
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