Russian Roulette

by Giles Milton

  The wireless correspondence between Lenin and the Amir of Afghanistan was also intercepted; British India found itself with tangible proof of the warm relations between the two leaders.

  ‘Now [that] the standard of Bolshevism has been raised by Russia,’ declared the Afghan leader, ‘the Amir hastens to declare that she has earned the gratitude of the whole world.’

  Lenin responded by telling the amir that ‘the long awaited flame in the East has flared up and the fire is gathering all shades of Muhammedans in its trail.’

  In distant Moscow, Cheka officers were quick to realise that Malleson was eavesdropping on these secret communications. They warned senior-ranking commissars to take additional precautions when sending telegrams.

  ‘In future, answers to our coded telegrams must be coded, as non-coded telegrams are intercepted by the English.’ The Soviet transmissions were henceforth coded as requested, but it made little difference for Malleson’s team of code-breakers managed to crack the cipher within days.

  Malleson was by now fully alerted to the dangers of a Soviet-Afghan pact. His response was to begin a proxy war against the Bolsheviks, providing their Turkic enemies with secret military information. This enabled the Turkman fighters to take effective action for the first time since the revolution reached Turkestan.

  The town of Tejend was a case in point. When Malleson discovered that the Bolshevik garrison was understrength, he passed this information to his allies. ‘[They] promptly fell on Tejend . . . slaughtered its garrison and wrecked the station.’ Attacks such as this were repeated right across the region and seriously rattled the Bolsheviks.

  Malleson was convinced that the Soviets and Afghans were unlikely comrades and he set himself the task of destroying their friendship. Like a puppeteer, he stood in the shadows and pulled the strings.

  ‘We laid ourselves out to “queer the pitch”,’ he admitted with customary lack of scruple. With access to the secret communications of both camps – and a talent for dirty diplomacy – Malleson was able to ‘queer the pitch’ with remarkable effect.

  ‘It became our task to do everything possible to prevent the consummation of Afghan and Bolshevik plans for an offensive and defensive alliance,’ he wrote.

  His first task was to sow discord in the Afghan camp, exploiting the tensions between the country’s different Muslim factions: the Shia West and the Sunni East.

  When a bloody massacre of Shias took place in Kandahar, Malleson’s propaganda team distributed thousands of highly inflammatory leaflets in Shia areas of the country. These blamed the Sunnis for the acts of violence and expressed outrage at the humiliating treatment of the minority Shia population. ‘We were able to make much capital of this,’ wrote a gleeful Malleson.

  His propaganda campaign proved so successful that he began poisoning relations between the Afghans and their new Soviet allies. He printed vicious leaflets about the militant atheism of the Bolsheviks and had them smuggled across the border into Afghanistan.

  ‘[They] invariably circulated freely amongst the people we desired they should reach’ – the tribal chieftains and mullahs – and provided many examples of the ‘notorious faithlessness of the Bolsheviks’.

  Malleson’s next trick was to instruct his Kabul-based agents to make contact with senior figures in the Afghan elite. Masquerading as advisors, they warned that Afghanistan would be wise to extract territorial pledges from Moscow before striking an alliance with ‘such dangerous people to the God-granted kingdom’.

  Malleson knew exactly the territorial pledge that would delight the Afghans as much as it would infuriate the Soviets. It was the return to Afghan rule of the Panjdeh district of the country, a slab of Afghanistan that had been forcibly seized by Russia in 1885. The land now formed a part of Soviet Turkestan and the Bolsheviks had no intention of ever giving it back.

  Malleson had found an open wound in which to pour his poison. Within weeks, the issue was being openly discussed by the Afghan government. Shortly afterwards, a senior envoy was sent to Moscow with a demand for the restitution of the Panjdeh. This was to be an essential prerequisite of any formal alliance between the two countries.

  The Bolshevik Government squirmed. They gave a woolly response to the amir, holding out ‘strong hopes of such a concession’ and making vague promises of establishing ‘a frontier commission and a plebiscite of the people of the area.’

  The Afghan Government was unhappy with this and promptly upped its demands. It now demanded not only the Panjdeh, but also the entire area to the east of Merv – a vast slab of additional territory.

  Furthermore, they insisted on a realignment of their entire western border with Turkestan. To show that they meant business, they despatched a team of hardline mullahs to these areas in order to ensure that the outcome of any plebiscite was certain to go in their favour.

  These mullahs already mistrusted the Bolsheviks. Now, they used the occasion to lambaste Lenin’s godless policies. They told the local population that they should sever all links with the Soviets and they also spoke of their determination ‘to extirpate from Central Asia . . . not only all infidels, but especially the Bolsheviks.’

  From his headquarters in Meshed, Malleson watched the breakdown in relations with considerable satisfaction. ‘Having, through numerous agents in both camps, a very fairly accurate notion of what was going on,’ he wrote, ‘and of how these two interesting parties were seeking how best to take each other in, we made it our business to keep each side unofficially informed of the perfidy of the other.’

  When the Afghan Government learned of a serious anti-Bolshevik rebellion in the mountains to the east of Tashkent, it sent emissaries with gifts for the leaders of the insurgents.

  Malleson learned this from his spies in Kabul. It was yet another piece of highly useful intelligence. ‘This information,’ he wrote, ‘we felt it our duty to bring to the notice of the Bolsheviks.’

  Lenin and Trotsky were seriously troubled by the rupture in relations. They now invited an Afghan mission to Moscow in the hope of bolstering an alliance that was fast slipping through their fingers. They promised the restitution of Afghan territory and offered grants of munitions and money in return for a pact of military co-operation.

  Malleson’s agents in Kabul made great play of what many Afghans perceived to be a diplomatic triumph. They printed leaflets portraying the Soviets as being in need of Afghan assistance, fully aware that this would embolden the Afghans still further. ‘Hence more Afghan arrogance and further demands,’ wrote Malleson.

  The Afghan Army now joined the fray. It marched north-east towards Kushk, with Afghan mullahs following in its wake. ‘As a result of our bringing these matters to Bolshevik notice, there was considerable anxiety.’

  The Bolsheviks responded by sending their own troops to Kushk, along with the head of Turkestan’s government. On his arrival in the city, he was threatened by a mob of angry Afghans. It was exactly as Malleson had intended. ‘And so the game went on,’ he wrote.

  Malleson was instigating a twentieth-century version of the Great Game and he was playing his hands with aplomb. Over the months that followed, his agents continued to set the Afghans against the Bolsheviks with remarkable efficacy.

  The Soviet Government could not understand why their alliance with Afghanistan had so quickly turned sour. They were unaware of the extent of Malleson’s deviousness and remained puzzled as to why the Afghans had so rapidly switched from friend to foe.

  Malleson continued to play his game for many months to come, until the vaunted Soviet-Afghan military alliance collapsed in the spring of 1920. Malleson justifiably claimed much of the credit. He said that his Machiavellian exposés of Afghan diplomacy ‘had materially chilled the Bolsheviks’ former enthusiasm for them.’

  This, in turn, had averted a war ‘that would certainly have cost millions . . . [and] cost many lives from battle and many more from disease.’

  Malleson hoped for official recognition for the role tha
t he and his undercover agents had played. He petitioned the commander in chief of the British Army, the British Government of India, the India Office and the Army Council, but all to no avail.

  ‘None of the rewards so richly deserved by the officers whose services I brought to notice have been gazetted,’ he informed an audience at London’s Royal Central Asian Society when he finally returned home.

  British India was embarrassed by his work and wished to disassociate itself from his ungentlemanly tactics. Malleson had torn up the rulebook and devised his own, more cunning version.

  But he had also proved what the British Government was only just beginning to understand: that an enemy could be more convincingly trounced by espionage and dirty tricks than it could by conventional warfare. It was a lesson to be heeded in the months to come.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ARMY OF GOD

  In November 1920, just a few days after the third anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, a huge military entourage slipped unnoticed out of Moscow’s Pavelestsky station.

  The trains were heavily camouflaged and under armed guard. As they left the capital and trundled southwards across an increasingly bleak landscape, a team of lookouts scanned the skies for any sign of trouble from the air. Three of the carriages had machine-guns installed on the roofs, a precaution against attack.

  Only a handful of top-ranking commissars knew the purpose of the mission. It had been organised in absolute secrecy and had required months of planning. The trains were equipped with a large stockpile of military hardware that was being transported from Moscow to Tashkent.

  ‘Our party travelled in two trains,’ wrote the leader of this clandestine party, ‘one composed of twenty-seven 30-ton wagons carrying arms (pistols, rifles, machine-guns, hand-grenades, light artillery, etc.) adequate supplies of ammunition and military stores, and field equipment which included several wireless receivers and transmitters.’

  The second train contained gold coins and bullion, the staff of a military training school and a large number of dismantled aeroplanes, including the entire supply depot of an air-force battalion. Seven other wagons were filled with military personnel.

  The reason for the secrecy was obvious to everyone on board. Their task was to raise a Soviet-Islamic ‘Army of Liberation’ and thrust deep into British India. They intended to sweep over the mountainous North-West Frontier and occupy the territory inhabited by rebellious tribesmen.

  This liberated area would then be used as a base to spearhead terrorist attacks on other Indian cities. Lenin himself had argued that setting India aflame was the only way to guarantee the long-term destruction of the West. ‘Successful revolt of the colonial peoples,’ he said, ‘was a condition for the overthrow of capitalism in Europe.’

  The person in overall command of the liberation army was not Russian and nor could he even speak the language. He answered to the name of Roberto Allen, although this was only one of his numerous aliases. His comrades knew him as Manabendra Nath Roy and he was a professional revolutionary who had been on the run since 1918, when he was indicted in absentia for plotting revolution in India.

  Roy had achieved further notoriety in Mexico, where he founded the first Communist Party outside Russia. Invited to Moscow in the spring of 1920, he was immediately embraced by the Soviet inner circle.

  Foreign Commissar Lev Karakhan was the first to meet with Roy. The two men spoke about stoking violent unrest in India, a subject which Roy had given a great deal of thought. Karakhan was impressed by Roy’s insight and told him that ‘the Soviet Government was prepared to help me in every possible manner.’

  Roy was next introduced to Chicherin, head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. Chicherin was a reviled figure in the West, but Roy was impressed by the man. He reminded him of a patrician gangster: ‘The picture of the highly cultivated European gentleman,’ he wrote, ‘[and] so very conscious of his inner self as made him oblivious of his physical appearance.’

  Chicherin was no less impressed with Roy. He seemed to combine intelligence with an inner drive, making him the perfect candidate for thrusting the revolution beyond Russia’s frontiers. His arrival in Moscow was also timely. Chicherin told him that ‘the colonial world was in flames’, and said that it was time to pour petrol onto those flames. ‘Revolution must be spread eastwards; a second front of the world revolution must be opened in Asia.’

  Roy could scarcely have wished for more. The destruction of British India had been his ambition for almost a decade and he informed the two commissars of his desire to join forces with the Comintern.

  He also expressed his belief that revolution could only be achieved through a wave of bloodshed. Indeed he would later say that a non-violent revolution was as grotesque as a vegetarian tiger. ‘The Indian struggle for freedom is a revolutionary struggle,’ he wrote. ‘It will never be successful without the final stage of violence.’

  The two commissars were impressed by the bravado of this young revolutionary. After giving him an impromptu tour of the Comintern headquarters, they took him directly to meet with Lenin. Without Lenin’s blessing, Roy could not begin consultation with the two bodies whose support he would need: the Comintern and the Revolutionary Military Council.

  Roy confessed to an attack of nerves as he entered Lenin’s office. Not yet twenty-eight years of age, he revered Lenin as his revolutionary hero. Now, he found himself being ushered into his private study.

  ‘My attention was immediately attracted by the bald dome of a head stooping very low on the top of a big desk placed right in the middle of the room. I was nervous and walked towards the desk, not knowing what else to do.’

  Suddenly, Lenin jumped to his feet and bounded across to greet him. He shook Roy’s hand and then peered at him more closely, as if he wanted to inspect him at close quarters. ‘Nearly a head shorter, he tilted his red goatee almost to a horizontal position to look at my face quizzically.’

  Roy smiled weakly. ‘I was embarrassed [and] did not know what to say. He helped me out with a banter. “You are so young! I expected a bearded wise man from the East.” ’

  Lenin’s quip broke the ice. The two men warmed to each other immediately and within minutes they were deep in conversation about colonialism and the best means to bring about the destruction of British rule in India.

  Roy explained his strategy to Lenin. It was a two-fold strategy for revolution that involved both internal and external attacks on India. The first stage was to smuggle small teams of highly trained operatives into key cities. They would create ‘fighting cells’ which could receive illicit supplies of weapons and start co-ordinating centres of resistance.

  He would simultaneously raise an army of liberation in Tashkent and lead it through Afghanistan and across the frontier of British India. Once it had reached the troubled territory around Peshawar, the army commanders would forge links with the rebellious Islamic tribes who were already stoking unrest.

  ‘Using the frontier territories as the base of operations and with the mercenary support of the tribesmen,’ explained Roy, ‘the liberation army would march into India and occupy some territory where a civil government should be established as soon as possible.’

  The timing of Roy’s proposed invasion could scarcely have been more opportune. Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign had already united Hindus and Muslims against the British ruling elite. Several key cities had erupted into rebellion and the British response to the continual unrest had been disastrous. The Amritsar Massacre of the previous spring, in which more than 1,300 civilians had been gunned down by the forces of the Raj, had cast a long shadow over Northern India. Roy’s army was assured of an enthusiastic welcome from the local population.

  Nor was his strategy as fanciful at it sounded. In the previous few months, some 50,000 militant Islamic tribesmen living along the volatile North-West Frontier had crossed the border into Afghanistan and Turkestan.

  They were incensed by the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire by Gre
at Britain and her allies and fearful that the caliphate, traditionally invested in the Turkish sultan, would be abolished. Now, they intended to travel overland to Turkey – a journey of more than 2,000 miles – where they would fight the British.

  These were the men who Roy intended to draft into his army. They were fanatically anti-British and fired by religious fervour. They were also highly experienced in guerrilla warfare, especially in the treacherous passes of the Hindu Kush. Roy knew they could cause mayhem if they were professionally trained and then sent back into India to fight.

  Roy’s strategy, coming after the collapse of the military alliance with Afghanistan, made a deep impression on everyone he met in Moscow. He was introduced to the inner circle of the Comintern and given every possible assistance in turning his vision into reality. The Comintern was to provide money, leadership and technical know-how. It would also help Roy to establish a Central Asiatic Bureau, which was to be directly responsible for planning the assault on India.

  Roy was installed as the bureau’s most prominent member, ‘charged with the responsibility . . . of carrying through the revolution in Turkestan and Bokhara’ – where there were still pockets of resistance – ‘and then spreading it to the adjacent countries.’ India was the principal goal, but the Comintern also had Chinese Turkestan in its sights.

  The support of the Comintern brought many benefits. Roy was able to call upon the services of key figures in the Soviet regime, including Grigori Sokolnikov, the commander in chief of Soviet forces in Central Asia. His presence on the board of the Central Asiatic Bureau ensured that Roy could lay his hands on whatever supplies and hardware he needed for his army.

  Roy was aware that he needed to move fast if he was to have any hope of success. ‘The war in Europe was over,’ he wrote. ‘Before long, the British-Indian army would again be available for the defence of the North-West Frontier.’