File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎610r] (867/1080)

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ths time of this report and were joined there hy another of
Bokharans. Together they proceeded to Tashkent in special carri
ages attached to their train.
The promised independence of Bokhara is ascribed in that
city to the friendly offices of the Amir of Afghanistan.
A renewal of recruiting for the Red Amy is reported
from this centre. In commenting on the Russo-Afghan
agreement an informant skates that the whole of the territory
taken from Afghanistan by Imperial Russia will be restored. If
required by the former country the Soviet Republic will supply
advisers and officers for training the Afghan amly.
Hunger and want prevail, people are kept bouyed up by prom-
abundance coming from Persia.
An arrival who left Tashkent on the 16th April states
that large numbers of troops arrived from the west in
ises
- a v;eo.: of the month. He states their number was 15,000
which is probably an exaggeration. They were re-issued with
rifles and other equipment and sent off towards Orenburg. At
this time passenger traffic north of Tashkent was suspended,only
troops being conveyed. It was supposed, too, that the line
north of Orenburg had been destroyed.
beveral munitions factories are reported to be in operation
in Tashkent f giving employment to 2,000 hands. For what purpose
they are turning out munitions is difficult to imagine consider
ing that tha Bolsheviks boast of their victories over the rest
of the world, whether in the field or by political pressure.They
talk and write too of their devotion to the relief of the econoraJ
ruin of their country. In such a campaign of eace the rnanufac^t
ture of munitions of war can have no place. There are, too, sim
ilar factories at Samara,reported to be turning out munitions
night and day. It is no doubt to these the ’’Morning Post” refer*
when it writes of '’Samarkand”, No manufacture of munitions has
been reported from the last named place.
Postal matter is censored in Tashkent. Food is described
as extremely hard to come by — dried apple peel being used as a