The New World of Islam

conditions which causes a temporary sense of restless disharmony until the required adjustment has been made. Unrest is not an exceptional phenomenon; it is always latent in e

m: it is being incessantly destroyed and as incessantly renewed in conformity with the changing conditions of life. These changes are sometimes very considerable, but they are so gradual that they are effected almost with

sudden breaks with the past, and profound maladjustments which are not being rapidly rectified. In other words, acute

trines of a violent revolutionary nature. But this changeful period was superficial and brief. Arab vigour and the Islamic spirit proved unable permanently to leaven the vast inertia of the ancient East. Soon the old traditions reasserted themselves-somewhat modified, to be sure, yet basically the same Saracenic civili

at a reform of religious abuses but was also a general protest against the contemporary decadence of Moslem society. In many cases it took the form of a

y description than the resulting transformation of the Orient-a transformation so sudden, so intense, and necessitating so concentrated a process of adaptation that it was basically revolutionary rather than evolutionary in its nature?

rn life, from banks and factories down to the very "sandwichmen that you left in the London gutters." Now all this co-exists beside rural India. "And it is surely a fact unique in economic history that they should thus exist side by side. The present condition of India does not correspond with any period of European economic history." Im

conomic transformation is seen

etimes fixed by custom, but sometimes, too, by free economic causes. From the midst of a population deeply rooted in the soil, men are being carried away by the desire of better wages. In short, economic motives have suddenly and partially intruded themselves in the r

at the intellectual movement which culminated in the French Revolution did not coincide with the Industrial Revolution. If it had, it is possible that European society might have been hopelessly wrecked. But, as it was, even when the French Revolution had spent its force in the conquests of Napoleon, the Industrial Revolution stirred up enough social

ve been built through districts where travel was almost impossible, and even roads are unknown. Factories have been built, and filled by men unused to industrial labour. Capital has been poured into the country, which was unprepared for any such development. And what are the consequences? India's social organization is being dissolved. The Brahmins are no longer priests. The ryot is no longer bound to the soil. The banya is no longer the sole purveyor of capital. The hand-weaver is threatened with exti

r students of the Orient were predicting social disturbances of increasing gravity. Said the Hindu nationalist leader, Bipin Chandra Pal: "This so-called unrest is not really political. It is essentially an intellectual and spiritual upheaval, the forerunne

dian masses, he wrote: "It will of course be said at once that these conditions have existed in India from time immemorial, and are no more likely to cause unrest now than previously; but in my opinion unrest has always existed there in a subterranean form. Moreover, in the old days, the populace could make scarcely any comparison between their own condition and that of more fortunate people; now they can compare th

l conduct.... Hitherto, social reform in India has taken account only of individual or family life. As applied to mankind in the mass, and especially to those soulless agglomerations of seething humanity which we call cities, it is a gospel yet to be preached."[289] As an American sociologist remarked of the growing slum evil throughout the industrialized Orient: "The greatest danger is due to the fact

ed failures, have been already noted, and these latter have undoubtedly played a leading part in all the revolutionary disturbances of the modern Orient, from North Africa to China.[291] Regarding the industrial proletariat, some writers think that there

gricultural labourers, they do not show the least sign of revolt. To whom should they turn? The ranks of traditional society are closed to them. People without caste, the coolies are despised even by the old-style artisan, proud of his caste-status, humble though that be. To fall to the job of a coolie is, for the Hindu, the worst declassment. The factory workers are not yet numerous enough to

by the construction of factories, and the social evolution which creates a proletariat, have only begun to emer

gine that this class is to be kept out, or can be kept out, of Indian politics is far more vain than to dream of its developing a politics on Western lines. Further than that, the wage-earners have shown a willingness to respond to Trades-Union methods; they are forming industrial associations and have engaged in strikes; some of the social reform movements conducted by Indian intellectuals definitely try to establish Trades-Unions and preach ideas familiar to us in connection with Trades-Union propaganda. A capitalist fiscal policy will not only give th

y may put off the hour when the city or country labourer of Egyptian race comes clearly to perceive the wrongs that are being done to him. He may miss the educational influence of Socialism. Yet such an awakening may come sooner than people expect. It is not only among the successful and prosperous Egyptians that intelligence is to be found. Those whose wages are growing gradually smaller and smaller have intelligence of equal keenness, and it has become a real question as to the hour when for the first time in the land of Islam the flame of Mohammedan Socialism shall burst forth."[295] In Algeria, likewise, a Belgian traveller noted the dawning of a p

of India which are being abandoned by the rich because their property is not safe. So great is the contempt for the law that it is employed by the unscrupulous as a means of offence against the innocent. Frontier Pathans commit outrages almost unbelievable in their daring. Mass-meetings are held and agitation spreads in regard to topics quite outside the business of orderly people. There is no matter of domestic or foreign politics in which crowds of irresponsible people do not want to have their

lling all this diffused unrest by systematic methods for definite ends. Bolshevism was frankly out for a world-revolution and the destruction of Western civilization. To attain this objective the Bolshevist leaders not only launched direct assaults on the West, but also planned flank attacks in Asia an

nly weapons in Bolshevism's armoury. Since what was first wanted was the overthrow of the existing world-order, any kind of opposition to that order, no matter how remote doctrinally from Bolshevism, was grist to the Bolshevist mill. Accordingly, in every quarter of the globe, in Asia, Africa, Australi

by Russian agents who had evolved a technique of "pacific penetration" that might be easily adjusted to Bolshevist ends. To stir up political, religious, and racial passions in Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, especially against England, required no

l masses and the consequent extirpation of the native upper and middle classes, precisely as has been done in Russia and as is planned for the countries of the West. In the first stage, Bolshevism is quite ready to respect Oriental faiths and customs and to back Orien

o Russia from Turkey, Persia, India, and elsewhere at the close of the Great War. Practically all the leaders of the Turkish war-government-Enver, Djemal, Talaat, and many more, fled to Russia for refuge from the vengeance of the victorious Entente Powers. The same was true of the Hindu terrorist leaders who had been in German pay during the war and who now sought service under Lenin. By the end of 1918 Bolshevism's Oriental propaganda department was well organized, divided into three bureaux, for the Islamic countr

ich lay like a perpetual thundercloud on India's north-west frontier, had kept quiet during the Great War, mainly owing to the Anglophile attitude of its ruler, the Ameer Habibullah Khan. But early in 1919 Habibullah was murdered. Whether the Bolsheviki had a hand in the matter is not known, but they certainly reaped the benefit, for power passed to one of Habibullah's sons, Amanullah Khan, who was an avowed enemy of England and who had had dealings with Turco-German agents during the late war. Amanullah at once got in touch with Moscow, and a little later, just when the Punjab was seething with unrest, he declared war on England, and his wild tribesmen, pouring across the border, set the North-West Fro

m an irreconcilable enemy of European capitalism in Asia, the chief representatives of which are the English. On this point I coincide with the Communists, and in this respect we are your natural allies.... Afghanistan, like India, does not represent a capitalist state, and it is very unlikely that even a parliamentary régime will take deep root in these countries. It is so far difficult to say how subsequent events will develop. I only know that the renowned address of the Soviet Government to all nations, with its appeal to them to combat capitalists (and for us a capitalist is synonymous with the word foreigner, or, to be more exact, an Englishman), had an enormous effect on us. A still greater

nment. The frontiers existing before the war will be respected, no Turkish territory will be given Armenia, the Dardanelles Straits will remain yours, and Constantinople will remain the capital of the Mussulman world. The Mussulmans in Russia will be given self-government. All we ask in exchange is that you fight the reckless capitalists, who would exploit your country and make it a colony." Even when addressing its own people, the Soviet Government maintained the same general tone. An "Order of the Day" to the Russian troops stationed on the borders of India stated: "Comrades of the Pamir division, you have been given a responsible task. The Soviet Republic sends you to garrison the posts on the Pamir, on the fron

apitalists" and "bourgeois," native as well as foreign, and promising the "proletarians" remedies for all their ills. Here is a Bolshevist manifesto to the Turkish masses, published in the summer of 1920. It is very different from the manifestoes of a year before. "The men of toil," says this interesting document, "are now struggling everywhere against the rich people. These people, with the

e native upper and middle classes were despoiled of their property, and sporadic resistance was crushed by mass-executions, torture, and other familiar forms of Bolshevist terrorism.[302] In the Caucasus, also, the social revolution had begun with the Sovietization of Azerbaidjan. The Tartar republic of Azerbaidjan was one of the fragments of the former Russian province of Transcaucasia which had declared its independence on the collapse of the Czarist Empire in 1917. Located in eastern Transcaucasia, about the Caspian Sea, Azerbaidjan's capital was the city of Baku, famous for its oil-fields. Oil had transformed Baku into an industrial centre on Wester

ussia held a "Congress of Eastern Peoples" at Baku, the aim of which was not merely the liberation of the Orient from Western control but its Bolshevizing

y the Third (Moscow) International, was addressed to t

ackeys of the Teheran Government; they trade it away at their pleasure; they lay what taxes please them upon you; and when, through their mismanagement, they got the country into such a condition that they were unable to squeeze enough juice out of it themselves, they sold Persia last year to Eng

ndependent; but 80,000 English soldiers are stationed in your country, a

mberment of what is purely Turkish territory, they are forcing him to turn the country's finances over to foreign capitalists in order to make it possible for them better to exploit the Turkish people, already

daily from the bloody Sultan. During the war they not only promised you independence, but they incited your merchants, your teachers, and your priests to demand the land of the Turkish peasants in order to keep up an eternal conflict between the Armenian and Turkish peoples, so that they could eternally deriv

s, now the English and the French dictate your laws, and you, who have freed yourselves from the Turkish Sultan, from the Constantinople Government,

same time we hear that you are trying to organize your own party, a genuine peasants' party that will be willing to fight even if the Pashas are to make their peace with the Entente exploiters. Syria has no peace, and you, Armenian peasants, whom the Entente, despite its promises, allows to die from hunger in order to

efy the English, French, and American capitalists, then you will settle accounts with your own native exploiters, then you will find it possible, in a free alliance with the workers' republics of the world, to look after your own intere

, year in and year out, through the deserts to the holy places where you show your respect for your past and for your God-now march through deserts, over mountains, an

a, Armenia, and the Caucasus countries sent the largest delegations, though there were also delegations from Arabia, India, and even the Far East. The Russian Soviet Government was of course in control and kept a tight h

viev

but that we have at last seen the day of the awakening, not of a few, but of tens of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, of millions of the labouring class of the peoples of the

able to read any newspapers, do not know what is happening in the world, have not the slightest idea of the most elementary laws of hygiene. Comrades, our Moscow International discussed the question whether a socialist revolution could take place in the countries of the East before those countries had passed through the capitalist stage. You know that the view which long prevailed was that eve

a communist movement. We know it. I have here extracts from the verbatim reports of the first session of the Turkish people's Government at Angora. Kemal himself says that 'the Caliph's person is sacred and inviolable.' The movement headed by Kemal wants to rescue

has struck. You must not allow any form of autocratic power to continue; you must destroy, you must annihilate, faith in the Sultan; you must struggle to obtain real Soviet organizations. The Russian peasants also were strong believers in the Czar; but when a true people's revolution broke out there was practically nothing left of this faith in the Czar. The same thing will happen in Turkey and all over the East as soon

to hatred, to the will to fight the whole of the rich classes indifferently, whoever they be. The great significance of the revolution now starting in the East does not consist in begging the English imperialist to take his feet off the table, for the purpose of then permitting the wealthy Turk

ng of the East. It was followed by increased Soviet activity and by substantial Soviet successes,

without paying Moscow's price. Now they no longer felt so sure. The numbers of class-conscious "proletarians" in the East might be very small. The communist philosophy might be virtually unintelligible to the Oriental masses. Nevertheless, the very existence of Soviet Russia was a warning not to be disregarded. In Russia an infinitesimal communist minority, numbering, by its own admission, not much over 600,000, was maintaining an unlimited despotism over 170,000,000 people. Western countries might rely on their popular education and

e thoughtful Indians," he wrote, "now see how helpless even the Russian intelligentsia (relatively far more numerous and matured than the Indian intelligentsia) has proved to control the great ignorant masses as soon as the whole fabric of government has been hastily shattered."[304] In Afghanistan, likewise, the Ameer was losing his love for his Bolshevist allies. The streams of refugees from Sovietized Turkestan that flowed across his borders for protection, headed by his kinsman the Ameer of Bokhara, made Amanullah Khan do some hard thinking, intensified by a serious mutiny of Afghan troops on

one against the other-driven toward Moscow by every Entente aggression; driven toward the West by every Soviet coup of Lenin. Western statesmen should realize this, and should remember

ould spell downright savagery. The sudden release of the ignorant, brutal Oriental masses from their traditional restraints of religion and custom, and the submergence of the relatively small upper and middle classes

TNO

see A. Le Chatelier, L'Islam au dix-n

ic Transition in India," Eco

es Behind the Unrest in India," Co

Problems of British India, p. 339

ness a Cause of Political Unrest

e and Labour in India,

sal of Western Influence on the Orient,"

ue des Deux Mondes, 15 March, 1912; L. Bertrand, Le Mirage or

d'aujourd'hui: étude soci

nde d'aujourd'hui: étud

The Government of India,

ed in The Literary Digest,

p, En Algérie, p.

). Quoted in The Literary Dige

nternational Danger (London, 1920); also, my Rising Tide of Colour against White World-Supremacy,

See Ch

ee Chap

East," Fortnightly Review, August, 1920; W. E. D. Allen, "Transcaucasia, Past and Present," Quarterly Review, October, 1920; Sir Valentine Chirol, "Conflicting Policies in the Near East," New Europe, July 1, 1920; L. Dumont-Wilden, "Awakening Asia," The Living Age, August 7, 1920 (translated from the French); Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen, "Moslems and the Tangle in the Middle East," National Review, December, 1919; Paxton Hibben, "Russia at Peace

l Ali Shah

. E. Bechhofer, "The Situation in the Transcaucasus," New Europe, September 2, 1920; "D. Z. T.," "L'Azerbaidjan: La Premièr

rgh Review, July, 1918. Also see H. H. The Aga

l Ali Shah

CLU

een moved at last-moved to its very depths. The Orient is to-day in full transition, flux, ferment, more sudden and profound than any it has h

ent-political, economical, social, religious, and much more besides? All that we may wisely

s in some sort of relativity; to follow the red threads of tendency running through the tangled skein, is to gain at least

nt travail, vast and ill-understood, may be but the birth-pangs

N

Pan-Islam ag

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hammedan revival

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the enmity of Turks

an policy cri

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nationalist vi

hwan movemen

effects on O

mal aided b

field for

of, 284 f

policy

nistan,

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Turks issue

stern Peoples"

lish charac

nditions

on economic conditi

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nditions in

st India C

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Lord, report

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Mohammed

n agitati

tern influence in Orie

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vism in I

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ford Report ap

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ompromise

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, Lord Cromer su

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beginnin

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rm of Islam

master

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ry of

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ire found

onquest o

discontent

t movement in, 2

eral policy

utbreak of

msford Repor

unrest in

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ycotted by

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future of

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omen in, 25

on in,

lation in

of peasant

ural life

evolution

olshevists to

cils Act, t

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tional Co

th-century deca

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e, tyrannical

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ance's cont

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ian situ

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Milner's discus

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Third Interna

RLD OF

RIBERS

ion, particularly of sources, ha

of Kharijites/Kharidjites/Kh

ity replaced

dded to El-Afghan

ais replaced

n removed from

en removed fr

tion removed from March

stop (period) added to op

phen added t