This article was published by Alliance (Marxist-Leninist) as part of the publication Alliance, issue #51, “Pan-Arabic or Pan-Islamic ‘Socialism.’”
By Comrade Bland of the Communist League (UK); was written for the Marxist-Leninist Bureau Report no 3; and presented to the Stalin Society (circa 1994)
Marxist-Leninist Research Bureau Report No. 3, dated 1995
MIR-SAID SULTAN-GALIYEV* was a Volga Tatar who was born in a village in Bashkiria in 1880. He studied first at the village mekteb (Muslim primary school), and then at the teacher’s training college of Kazan. He returned to his native village as a teacher, and then went to Ufa as librarian. From 1911 he contributed articles to many Russian and Tatar periodicals.
He joined the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in November 1917. The Central Commissariat for Muslim Affairs (Muskom) was created by government decree in January 1918, and later that year Sultan-Galiyev became its Chairman.
The Central Muslim Military Collegium (CMMC) was formed in April 1918 to direct Muslim troops fighting on the Red side, and Sultan-Galiyev became its Chairman in December 1918. In 1920 he was promoted to membership of the three-man, Inner Collegium of the Commissariat of Nationalities (Narkomnats), under Stalin as Commissar, and was made co-editor of the Commissariat’s official ‘Zhizn Natsionalnostei’ (The Life of the Nationalities).
By 1920 Sultan-Galiyev:
“had become the most important Muslim in the entire Soviet hierarchy and had acquired a unique position from which to influence the Eastern policies of the Communist regime.”
(Richard Pipes: ‘The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism: 1917, 1923’; Cambridge (USA); 1954; p. 169).
Sultan-Galiev and his followers formed
“The so-called right-wing of the Tatar Communist Party.”
(Richard Pipes: ibid.; p. 169),
which:
“had a distinct political ideology.”
(Pipes: ibid.; op. cit.; p. 169).
This political ideology became known as Sultan-Galiyevism.
Sultan-Galiyevism
Marxism-Leninism maintains that, in a colonial-type country, the revolutionary process must go through two successive stages — that of national-democratic revolution and that of socialist revolution. Marxist-Leninists must support the national-democratic revolution and strive to win leadership of that revolution for the working class and its party, so as to transform it, with the minimum possible interruption, into a socialist revolution that will construct a socialist society.
Sultan-Galiyevism, on the other hand, put forward the view:
1) ‘that Muslim peoples are ‘proletarian peoples’, so that national movements among them are movements of socialist revolution:
“The Muslim peoples are proletarian peoples. . . . National movements in Muslim countries have the characteristics of a socialist revolution.”
(Mir-said Sultan-Galiyev: Speech of 1918, in: Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ‘The Volga, Tatars: ‘A Profile in National Resilience”; Stanford (USA); p. 143).
“The material premises for a social transformation of humanity can be created only through the establishment of the dictatorship of the colonies and semi-colonies over the metropolises.”
(Mir Said Sultan-Galiev, in: Richard Pipes: op. cit.; p. 261).
2) That in areas inhabited by Muslims, the Communist Party must “integrate with Islam”:
In areas inhabited by Muslims, the CP:
“Must necessarily integrate its (Marxism’s – Ed.) teachings with those of Islam.”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: ‘Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the:Colonial World”; page; 1979; p. 50).
and must accept:
“The need for conciliatory policies toward the Muslim religion and’ traditions.”
(Pipes: op. cit p. 170).
“The Muslim ‘national communists’ felt that . . . they had to reconcile Marxist teaching with that of Islam. They were therefore eager to preserve Islamic culture and the Muslim way of life. . . . Islam’s strong moral, social and political influence should be retained.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Marie Broxup: ‘The Islamic Threat to the Soviet State’; London; 1983; p. 82-83).
3) The integration of Marxism with Islam should be brouhgt about by a special party:
Sultan-Galiyev proposed that his programme must be brought about:
“By uniting the Muslim masses into an Autonomous Communist movement.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit.; p. 144).
“Sultan-Galiyev . . . stood for the formation of a special Muslim Communist Party.”
(Walter Kolarz: ‘Russia and Her Colonies’; London; 1952; p. 33).
4) that geographically large territorial units should be formed embracing as many Muslims as possible:
“Sultan-Galiyev, in particular. was an ardent defender of pan-Turkish and pan-Islamic ideas. He . . . advocated the union of the Volga Muslims with those of Central Asia.”
(Walter Kolarz: ibid. p. 33).
Sultan-Galiyev had:
“pan-Turanian ambitions and the desire to create a vast Tartar-Turkish state stretching from the Volga over Central Asia”.
(Edward H. Carr: ‘The Interregnum: 1923-1924’; London; 1954; p. 289).
“His (Sultan-Galiyev’s — Ed.) plan…was to begin with the creation of a Muslim state on the Middle Volga…To this state were to be joined, first the Turkic Muslims of Russia and later all the other Russian Muslims.”
(Geoffrey Wheeler: ‘The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia’ London 1964; p. 124).
“Sultan-Galiyev . . . elaborated the concept of the Republic of Turan, embodying all the Muslim revolutionaries’ pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic aspirations.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Marie Broxup: op. cit.; p. 84).
The Moves For a Seperate Muslim Communist Party (1918)
In March 1918, the lst Conference of the Muslim Toilers of Russia in Moscow:
“. . . adopted the decision to organise a Party of Muslim Socialist Communists.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit.; p. 145).
The leadership of the new party, headed by Sultan-Galiyev:
“Urged the Muslims to commit themselves to a purely Muslim Communist Party and refrain from joining the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 145).
and the new party:
“. . . was not joined organically to the Russian Communist Party.”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 60).
Three months later:
“. . . in June 1918, at the First Conference of Muslim Communists, held in Kazan, the Party of Muslim Socialist-Communists was transformed into the ‘Russian Party of Muslim Communists (Bolsheviks)’. . . . It was to be open to Muslims only, was to have equal status with the RCB(b), and was to enjoy organisational independence to the extent of having its own Central Committee.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 145).
The Marxist-Leninists’ Counter-moves for a Unified Party (1918-20)
This movement by the “Sultan-galiyevists” for a separate Muslim Communist Party, came about during the Civil War. In this climate, it was tolerated since a counter-struggle was a distraction:
“Although not applauded by the RCP(b), was tolerated for purely tactical purposes under the stress of the Civil War.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 145).
But as soon as the danger from the Civil War had passed, the Marxist-Leninists counter-moved:
“As soon as the Bolsheviks . . . regained the upper hand in the Civil War, especially after recapturing Kazan in September 1918, Moscow moved.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 145).
At the 1st Congress of Muslim Communists in Moscow in November 1918, Sultan-Galiyev sought confirmation:
“Of the recognition of the autonomy of the Muslim Communist Party.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Quelquejay: ‘Les mouvements nationaux chez les Musulmans de Russie: Le ‘Sultangalievisme’ au Tatarstan’ (National Movements among the Muslims of Russia: Sultangaliyevism’ in Tatarstan) Paris; 1960; p. 128).
But Stalin:
“Representing the Central Committee of the RCP(b), rejected these demands in the name of centralism and administrative efficiency.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Quelquejay: ibid.; p. 128).
Stalin used the congress:
“To halt the centrifugal forces that had set the course for the emergence of a parallel and rival party organisation of the Russian Muslims. . . .The Russian Party of Muslim Communists underwent a substantial metamorphosis, re-emerging in the process as the ‘Central Bureau’ of Muslim Organisations of the RCP(b), whose central committee became the . . . Muskom (Central Commissariat for Muslim Affairs Ed.), presided over by Sultan Galiyev.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit.; p. 145).
Thus, the Central Bureau of Muslim Organisations:
“Found itself closely attached to the Russian Communist Party, all the more so since the chairman of the new Central Bureau of Muslim Organisations of the RCP(b) elected at the conclusion of the congress was Stalin, a delegate of the Central Committee of the RCP(b)”.
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Quelquejay: op. cit.; p. 128).
In March 1919, the 8th Congress of the RCP(b) established
“A unified and centralised Communist Party (thoughout Soviet Russia-Ed)…All decisions of the RCP(b) and of its guiding organs are binding on Party organs, regardless of their national composition.”
(Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks): Resolution of 8th Congress of the RCP(b) (March 1919), in: Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 62).
Immediately after the congress:
“The Central Bureau of Muslim Organisations was replaced by the ‘Central Bureau of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East.'”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Quelquejay: op. cit.; p, 131).
In other words it:
“was stripped of its socio-cultural meaning and was instead endowed with a geographic attribute.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit p. 145).
At the 2nd Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East, held in Moscow in November/December 1919:
“The autonomy of the Muslim communist groupings was explicitly terminated….The congress condemned autonomy, invoking the precedent of the Bund**.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Quelquejay: op. cit.; p. 131).
These events:
“Left no doubt that the RCP(b) and its chief expert on nationality problems, Stalin, had reversed the tide of organisational independence that the Tatar ‘national communists’ had set in motion in 1918.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit.; p. 145-46).
However in October 1919 the Tatar ‘national communists’:
“Made a bid for autonomy for their party organisation at the local level.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 146).
The Proposal for a Tatar-Bashkir Republic (1919-20)
Although a Bashkir Automonous Soviet Socialist Republic had been established in March 1919, in November 1919, at the Preparatory Conference for the 2nd Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East:
“Sultan- Galiyev demanded . . . the speedy creation of the Tataro-Bashkir state. Lenin refused to consider this demand, and the matter was referred to the Central Committee of the RCP(b). … Some days later, Sultan-Galiyev renewed his attempt at the 2nd Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East. …. Again the Russian leaders rejected these demands.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Quelquejay: op. cit.; p.141).
The proposed state would embrace both Bashkiria and Tataria and form:
“A large Turkic republic on the Middle Volga.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit.; p. 137).
The delegates at the congress:
“Renewed their support for the formation of a Tatar-Bashkir republic.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 137).
As proposed by Sultan-Galiyev.
But in view of the influence of Sultan-Galiyevism in the region:
“The Soviet government chose to sponsor the formation of smaller republics.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 137-38).
So in December 1919:
” . . the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist (Bolshevik) Party, which was presided over by Lenin, decided to halt all efforts to create a Tatar-Bashkir republic.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 137).
Nevertheless, in March 1920, a delegation of three, including Sultan-Galiyev:
“. . . visited Lenin to try to convince him of the necessity of enlarging the frontiers of the future Tatar republic so as to include the Bashkirs and other Muslims. Yet again Lenin rejected this demand and accused the Tatars of demonstrating ‘imperialist chauvinism’, of seeking to impose their domination over the more backward Bashkirs.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Quelquejay: op. cit.; p. 142-43).
In May 1920 a decree was issued:
“Declaring the formation of the Tatar ASSR.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit.; p. 138).
The Moves for Further Weakening of Sultan-Galiyevism (1920)
In July 1920:
“. . . the First Regional Conferece of Tatar Communists … held in Kazan . . . , adopted the decision to rename the Muslim Bureau of Gubkom the ‘Tatar Regional Bureau of Communist Organisations.'”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 146).
In August 1920 a resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) declared:
“that Sultan-Galiyev’s duties and assignments required his presence in Moscow”.
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: ibid.; p. 146).
Most commentators assume that by this resolution:
“The Central Committee of the RCP(b) sought to weaken the Tatar and their independent stand by removing their most prominent Communists ‘leader from Kazan.”
(Azade-Ayse Rorlich: op. cit.; p. 146).
Sultan-Galiyev’s Mission to the Crimea (1921)
In the spring of 1921, Sultan-Galiyev was sent to the Crimea, to report on conditions there. His report, published in May 1921, proposed that a Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic be created. This recommendation was accepted by the Soviet authorities who:
“Despite objections from local Communists and the acceptance of a resolution by the Crimean Regional Communist Party Congress against the creation of a republic. . . . carried out Sultan-Galiyev’s recommendation and established in November 1921 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Soviet Republic.”
(Richard Pipes: op Cit.; p.190.)
The territory of the Crimean ASSR, was occupied by German forces between 1941 and 1944:
“General Manstein* was relatively successful in his attempts to gain active support from the Tatars. According to both German and Tatar evidence, the Germans persuaded between 15,000 and 20,000 Tatars to form self-defence battalions that were partially armed by the Germans and sent into the mountains to hunt down partisan units. . . . Most accounts claim that the Crimean Tatars were unduly privileged during the German regime. ….. There is no question that large numbers of Tatar villagers, as well as the Tatar self-defence battalions, fought hard against the Soviet partisans. The traitors knew well the local inhabitants and turned over all suspicious characters (often the patriots) to the German police.”
(Alan;W.Fisher: ‘The Crimean Tatars’; Stanford (USA): 1978; p. 155, 157, 158).
As a result of this mass treason, in May/June 1944, the Crimean Tatars were deported from the Crimea to distant parts of the Soviet Union. And:
“On June 30 1945, a year after the deportation, the Crimean ASSR was abolished and transformed into the Crimean oblast (district – Ed.) of the RSFSR”.
(Alan,W. Fisher: ibid.; p. 167).
(A more detailed description of the background to the mass resettlements ‘Ls, to be found in a paper entitled ‘The Enforced Resettlements, read to the Stalin Society in July 1993. See web-page: Resettlements).
The First Arrest (1923)
Sultan-Galiyev was:
“arrested for the first time in May 1923 and excluded from the Communst Party for ‘nationalist deviation.'”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 208).
According to Trotsky, Sultan-Galiyev’s arrest was initiated by Stalin, with the approval of other leaders, including Kamenev and Zinoviev:
“‘Do you remember the arrest of Sultan-Galiyev in 1923?’, Kamenev continued.
‘This was the first arrest of a prominent Party member upon the initiative of Stalin. Unfortunately Zinoviev and I gave our consent.”(Leon,Trotsky: ‘Stalin’: New York; 1941; p. 417).
Sultan-Galiyev:
“Was never formally tried. He was released from custody in June 1923 … ‘in recognition of services rendered to the revolution.”‘
(A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 85).
Although at the 4th Conference on the National Republics and Regions held in June 1923 (a few weeks after his arrest), Sultan-Galiyev was accused of “treason” and participation in “objectively counter-revolutionary” activity, at this time the full scale of his subversive activity against the Soviet state was not known. For example, it was not known that in 1920:
“Sultan-Galiyev, Zeki Validov* and a group of prominent Muslim ‘national communists’ . . . met in Moscow and founded the secret group ‘Ittihad ve Tarakki’ (Union and Progress)…. ‘Ittihad ve Tarakki’ pursued a threefold goal: to infiltate ‘national communist’ Turks into the ‘Communist Party and the Soviet government apparatus; . . . to inculcate Islamic and pan-Turkic ideals; and to establish contacts with counter-revolutionary organisations abroad and in Soviet Russia, especially with the Basmachi.”**
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 87).
The 4th Conference on the National Republics and Regions (1923)
On,9-12 June 1923, the 4th Conference of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party with Workers of the National Republics and Regions was held in Moscow:
“Convened on J. V. Stalin’s initiative”.
(Note to: Josef V. Stalin: ‘Works’, Volume 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 429).
With Stalin in the Chair, an important item on the agenda of the conference was ‘the Sultan-Galiyev Case.’ Sultan-Galiyev:
“was thoroughly vilified, accused of deviations and treason, and excluded from the Communist Party.”
(A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 83).
A resolution was adopted on ‘the Sultan-Galiyey’ case’, the principal points of which were:
“1. Sultan-Galiyev, appointed by the Party to a responsible post of the Collegium of the People’s Commisariat of Nationalities), profited from his situation and the relations which arose from it . . . to set up . . . an illegal organisation in order to oppose measures taken by the central organs of the Party. He had recourse to conspiratorial methods, and used secret information in order to deliberately falsify the decisions of the Party on national policy.
2. Sultan-Galiyev tried to utilise this anti-Party organisation to sap the confidence of the formerly oppressed nationalities in the revoluionary proletariat, and sought to prejudice the union of these two forces, which is one of the essential elements for the existence of
Soviet power and for the liberation of the peoples of the East from imperialism.
3. Sultan-Galiyev strove to extend his organisation beyond the the Union of Soviet Republics, trying to enter into relations with his supporters in certain Eastern countries (Persia, Turkey)
to rally them around a platform opposed to the policy of the Soviet power…..
4. The anti-Party, objectively counter-revolutionary aims of Sultan-Galiyev and the very logic of his anti-Party activity led him to treason, to alliance with the counter-revolutionary forces openly struggling to overthrow the Soviet regime. Thus, he has sought to link up through the medium of their chief, Zeki Validov, with the Basmachi** of Turkestan and Bokhara, who are supported by international imperialism.
5. The conference considers, in consequence, that the criminal acts of towards Party unity and the Soviet Republic, acts entirely admitted by him in his confessions, place him outside the Communist Party.”(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay: ‘Sultan-Galiev: Le pere de la revolution tiers-mondiale’ (Sultan-Galiyev: The Father of Third-World Revolution); Paris; 1986; p. 215-16).
At the conference, Stalin defended his past support of Sultan-Galiyev:
“I have been reproached….with having defended Sultan-Galiyev excessively. It is true that I defended him as long as it was possible, and I considered, and still consider, that it was my duty to do so. But I defended him only up to a certain point. . . . When Sultan-Galiyev went that point, I turned away from him. … There are so few intellectuals, so few thinking people, even so few literary people generally in the Eastern republics and regions, that one count them on one’s fingers. How can one help cherishing them?”
(Josef V. Stalin: Speech on the Sultan-Galiyev Case. 4th Conference of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) with Responsible Workers of the National Republics and Regions (June 1923), in: ‘Works’, Volume 5; Moscow;.1953; p. 309, 310).
Stalin tells how, after he had criticised Sultan-Galiyev, the latter:
“Replied, in great embarrassment, that he had always been a Party man and was so still, and he gave his word of honour that he would continue to be a Party man in the future.”
(Josef V. Stalin: ibid.; p. 310).
Despite, this promise, Stalin records,
“A week later he sent Adigamov a second secret letter instructing him to establish contact with the Basmachi** and with their leader Validov, and to ‘burn’ the letter. From that moment Sultan-Galiyev became for me a man beyond the pale of the Party, of the Soviets.”
(Josef V. Stalin: ibid.; p. 310).
When, following Sultan-Galiyev’s arrest, some Tatar Communists demanded his release on the grounds that the letters concerned in the case were were “forgeries,” an investigation was held:
“What did the investigation reveal? It revealed that all the documents were genuine. Their genuineness was admitted by Sultan-Galiyev himself, who, in fact, gave more information about his sins than is contained in the documents, who fully confessed his guilt and, after confessing, repented.”
(Josef,V. Stalin: ibid.; p. 312).
Further Conspiratorial Activity (1923-27)
Upon his release, Sultan-Galiyev:
“Again became a journalist and worked until 1928 in various state publishing houses, notably at ‘Gosizdat’ of Moscow.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay.: op. cit.; p. 219).
But he continued his deviationist political activity:
“He worked . . . in Georgia and in Moscow”;
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 208).
“Having lost his positions in the Russian Communist Party for his deviationist tendencies, Sultan-Galiyev tried for a final time to create a structure which could embrace the proponents of the Eastern and set it in motion. This was his ‘Colonial International’. The Colonial International was to be independent of the Comintern and all European Communist Parties, including the Russian Communist Party, if not opposed to them.”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op, cit.; p. 58).
He also continued his clandestine subversive activity – he:
“Founded a clandestine ‘counter-revolutionary’ organisation”.
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay: op. cit.; p. 219).
“It was between 1923 and 1927 that Sultan-Galiyev, out of prison and living in Georgia and Moscow, most actively worked to create a system of secret underground organisations, centred in Moscow and Kazan, but with offshoots extending as far as Alma-Ata and Tashkent. . . Many Muslim ‘national communist’ leaders . . . were connected to this organisation. …. There can be little doubt that the latter did indeed conspire”.
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: op. cit.; p. 87, 88).
The Second Arrest (1928)
“In 1928 Sultan-Galivev was . . . arrested for the second time. He was tried and condemned to ten years of hard labour in the Solovki camp on the White Sea.”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: ibid.; p. 208).
This arrest marked
“The ideological and organisational destruction of Sultan-Galiyevism.”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: ibid.; op. cit.; p. 91).
In December 1928,
“The majority of the Tatar members of the Tatar Obkom (Regional Party Committee — Ed.) were arrested, tried for ‘Sultan-Galiyevism’ and “treason’, and executed.”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: ibid.; p. 91).
At the same time, the Communist Party of the Tatar Republic of Crimea was purged.
“Veli Ibrahimov*, the 1st Secretary of the Crimean Obkom, was arrested, tried and executed for counter-revolutionary activity.”
(Alexandre A. Bennigsen & S. Enders Wimbush: ibid.; p. 91).
“The great purge in the Muslim republics ….. began in 1928. It started in Crimea with the execution of Veli Ibrahimov, First Secretary of the Tatar Communist Party.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Marie Broxup: op. cit.; p. 85).
In February 1921 and again in June 1923, Stalin summed up the role of bourgeois nationalism in the border regions of the Soviet Union:
“Communists from the local native population who experienced the harsh period of national oppression, and who have not yet fully freed themselves from the haunting memories of that period, often exaggerate the importance of specific national features in their Party work, leave the class interests of the working people in the shade, or simply confuse the interests of the working people of the nation concerned with the ‘national’ interests of that nation; they are unable to separate the from the latter and base their Party work on them. That, in its turn, leads to a deviation from communism towards bourgeois-democratic nationalism, which sometimes assumes the form of pan-Islamism, pan-Turkism (in the East).”
(Josef V. Stalin: Theses for the 10th Congress of the RCP(b) (February 1921), in: ‘Works’, Volume 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 28.
“In relation to our Communist organisations in the border regions and republics. . . . nationalism is playing the same role . . . as Menshevism in the past played in relation to the Bolshevik Party. Only under cover of nationalism can various kinds of bourgeois, including Menshevik, influences penetrate our organisations in the border regions.”
(Josef V. Stalin: Speech on the ‘Sultan-Galiyev Case’, 4th Conference of cc of RCB(b) with Responsible Workers of the National Republics and Regions (June 1923); in; ‘Works’, Volume 5; Moscow; 1953; p. 316).
The Death of Sultan-Galiyev (1939)
Sultan-Galiyev:
“. . . died 1939 in imprisonment.”
Heinrich E. Schulz, Paul K. Urban & Andrew I. Lebed (Eds.): ‘Who was Who In the USSR’; Metuchen (USA); 1972; p. 591).
In 1989, on the eve of the liquidation of the Soviet Union, Sultan-Galiyev remained one of very few early leading members of the Soviet Communist Party not rehabilitated by the revisionists:
“Sultan-Galiyev, the father of ‘Muslim Communism’, remained one of the only two prominent early Bolshevik leaders still considered as ‘non-persons’ in 1989.”
(Amir Taheri: ‘Crescent in a Red Sky: The Future of Islam in the Soviet Union. London; 1989; p. 212).
International Repercussions of Sultan-Galiyevism
Sultan-Galiyevism has attracted support from a number of bourgeois revolutionaries and revisionists in countries outside the Soviet Union.
“Several Muslim heads of state, among them Ben Bella* and Houari ‘Boumedienne,* have spoken of his (Sultan-Galiyev’s — Ed.) third-world theories.”
(Alexandre Bennigsen & Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay: op. cit.; p, 287).
“Algeria’s President, Ahmed Ben Bella, in a recent interview . . . disclosed that he was very much impressed by the theories of an early Russian Marxist named Sultan-Galiyev who believed that the real struggle in the world would commence when the underdeveloped nations rose up against the industrialised northern tier.”
(‘Newsweek’, 13 January 1964; p. 28).
Chinese revisionism contains theses closely similar to those of Sultan-Galiyevism. Lin Piao* declares:
“If North America and western Europe can be called ‘the cities of the world’, then Asia, Africa and Latin America constitute ‘the rural areas of the world’. . . . The contemporary world revolution . . . presents a picture of the encirclement of cities by the rural areas. In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples.”
(Lin Piao: “Long Live the Victory of People s War!”; Peking; 1965; p.48-49).
NOTES:
The BASMACHI were members of an anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary organisation in Central Asia in 1917-26. It was supported by British and US interventionists and by reactionary circles in Turkey, Afghanistan and China.
The BUND (= the General Workers’ Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia) was formed in 1897. It stood for the autonomous organisation of Jewish workers. It took a social-chauvinist stand during World War I and during the Civil War supported the counter-revolutionary forces. It dissolved itself in 1921.
PAN-ISLAMISM is a movement for the union of all Muslims within a single state.
PAN-TURANIAN: supporting the union of all peoples speaking Turanian (Turkic) languages.
PAN-TURKISM is a movement for the union of all Turkic-speaking peoples a single state.
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‘Newsweek’ 13 January 1964.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
BEN BELLA, Mohammed, Algerian nationalist politician (1916- President (1963-65); overthrown in military coup led by Houari Boumedienne (1965); under house arrest (1965-79); to France (1980).
BOUMEDIENNE, Houari, Algerian military officer and politician (1925-78);
colonel (1960); chief of staff, National Liberation Army (1960-62); led against Ben Bella and established Islamic government (1962); President (1976-78).
IBRAHIMOV, Veli, Soviet (Tatar) revisionist politician (? – 1928); Premier Crimean ASSR (1920-27); 1st. Secretary, RCP(b), Crimean ASSR (1920-27);
arrested (1927); tried for treason, found guilty and executed (1928)
LIN Piao, Chinese revisionist military officer and politician (1908-71), member Politburo, CPC (1955-71); member, Standing Committee, Politburo CPC, (1958-71); Minister of Defence (1959-71); named official heir to Mao, Tse-tung (1968); vice-chairman, CPC (1969-71); reported killed in plane crash while escaping to Soviet Union to escape arrest for participating in attempted coup (1971).
MANSTEIN, Fritz E. Yon, German military officer (1887-1973); lieutenant general
(1936); field marshal (1949); dismissed (1944); captured convicted of war crimes in Rusaia and sentenced to imprisonment (1949); released and appointed adviser to West German government (1953).
SULTAN-GALIYEV, Mir Said, Soviet (Tatar) revisionist politician (1880-1939); Central Commissariat for Muslim Affairs (1918-23); chairman, Central Muslim Military Council (1918-23); member, Inner Collegium of Commissariat of Nationalities and co-editor of its organ ‘The Life of the Nationalities’; Premier, Tatar ASSR (1920-23); arrested and released without charge (1923); re-arrested (1929); tried and sentenced to imprisonment (1928); died in prison (1939).
ZEKI VALIDOV, Ahmed Soviet (Bashkir) revisionist historian and politician (1890-1969); Professor of History, University of Kazan (1909-17); People’s Commissar of War. Bashkir ASSR (1919-20); to Turkestan to join Basmachi counter-revolutionary forces (1920); to Afghanistan, then Turkey (1922).