20 February 1923

Dear Vladimir Ilich,

Due to your illness, it is possible that you might have been prevented from reading this letter or it might not have reached you. But since I sent copies of it to some other friends, it is now a historical document. Comrade Stalin ostensibly stated that under Comrade Rudzutak's auspices I could return to the Party. In other words they (Party) would disregard the letter I sent to the Central Committee from Baku in 1920, outlining my opposition to and initiatives against Moscow by joining the Rebellion.

However, who can believe that and return? Especially since you have abrogated the 20 March 1919 agreement which was signed by you, Stalin, myself and my friends; by your order of 19 May 1920 signed only by you and Stalin? When I personally protested that latter order, you had characterized our 20 March 1919 agreement "only a piece of paper." However, that agreement announced that Bashkurts would retain the right of maintaining their own army and that army was going to be under the command of Soviet Headquarters without intermediary stages. With your 19 May 1920 order, you have deprived the Bashkurt army of those provisions, assigning it to the trans-Volga army, disbursing the Bashkurt units as the trans-Volga Headquarters saw fit among its formations. Indeed, that is what happened and today there is no physical Bashkurt army.

Similarly, in the same order what was deceivingly termed "attaching Ufa to Bashkurdistan" turned out to be the reverse, attaching Bashkurdistan to the Ufa province. Consequently, what was conceded to the "Russian moslems" on 20 December 1917, "the right to secede from Russia," should they choose, has been destroyed from its foundations by your order of May 1920. From now on, following the defeat of Bashkurts, Kazakhs and the Turkistanis in the South-West and my departure from Soviet Russia as of tomorrow, a ne era shall begin in their history; that is, rather than seeking their legal equality with the Russians (in the Russian context), that experimentation having failed, the transition to the international arena (for seeking those rights) is being made. My task will be to familiarize the world with the history of those struggles.

The Veklikiirus nation has already decided on the specific policy to be applied to the captive nations and tribes they are holding, not only in economic and social matters, but also in cultural affairs. The "Eastern University" which you established last year is operating as a center for these policies. A specialized "eastern affairs" group, comprised of Velikiirus personnel around the Central Committee has also been formed. The CC has brought in certain individuals of the eastern nationalities of the Soviet domains, charged with the specific duty of preparing material for these "eastern specialists." Those eastern nationals even published certain books and pamphlets. But, the topics they are to work on are assigned by your Velikiirus. These non-Russian intellectuals are not even being admitted into the debates on the "constitutions" which are being prepared to govern them.

Today, the main task on which the CC Eastern Affairs Specialists are working is to prepare separate alphabets and literary languages for each nationality and tribe, based on the extant local "phonetic" differences between them. In principle, the non_russian communists are said to be serving only as consultants in this endeavor. In the latest issue of the journal Kizil Shark, published by the members of the Eastern University, contained a commentary by one mer Aliyev of Daghestan. According to him, should the Cyrillic alphabet be accepted for the Northern Caucasus Turkish dialects, this would lead to Christianization. Further, he has reportedly said, it would be necessary to borrow the Latin alphabet in use in Azerbaijan (sic). It is imperative that the issues of Alphabet and literary language (according to Aliyev) not require Russian help, but the aid of those governments formed on the basis of national political freedom, and should be accomplished by native scholars.

These writings and efforts of the Azerbaijanis to gather the intellectual communist of the Turk tribes around Kizil Shark and one literary language is said to be making the Velikiirus specialists nervous, angry. When Shahtahtinskii and Jelal Guliev of Azerbaijan defended a single alphabet based on Latin, Prof. Polivanov and other Russians are said to have stated that even if the Latin alphabet is accepted, this would be replaced by the cyrillic and a special sub-set will be created for Turkish dialects, whose number was approaching forty. Shahtahtinskii retorted that the aim of Russians was not to allow standard literary language to live. It is now understood that, when you Velikiirus friends begin playing with the language and the syntax of a people, you will not let their collars free until they, too, become complete Russians. It is not possible not to be surprised to observe the differences between your current policies and your writings in "Against the Tide" and in your other writings, where you state that ideally, the rights of nations should be placed in their hands.

Your representative comrade Zeretskii gave numerous conferences to our people, during the summer of 1919 while we were refurbishing our army in Saransk, to the effect that the Soviet government was the first in history to base the freedoms of captive nations on their own national armies. I myself published an article in Pravda in the same vein. It has not been four years since those events and it appears that your policies will be developing in the opposite direction. RKP may continue to claim, in Asia and the countries far away from Russia, such as Africa, that it will liberate them. The truth is, your Velikiirus become angry when people such as Gregori Safarov display the colonial policies of the tsar in Turkistan. Those Velikiirus enjoy hearing the native communists liken themselves to small fish being eaten by the whale, better if that argument were presented as a proverb. When comrade Artium was visiting us, he used to state his belief that except for China and India, the Soviet Russian culture would become dominant in all of Asia. Those native languages and cultures attempting to prevent this would not be worth dwelling upon, since they are only going to be used to spread communism. These and similar words were repeated elsewhere. Without a doubt, this will be carried-out and as a result all those nations who wish to retain their independence but have become your prisoners will view Soviet Russia as their foremost enemy.

I mentioned these matters to you while you and I were discussing your theses on "Colonialism and the Nationality Question." Later, I read your aforementioned theses in Kommunisticheskii Internatsional journal (No. 11) once more. You have suggested that even after the establishment of the worldwide dictatorship of the proletariat, "it would be obligatory for the vanguard nationalities to actively participate in the establishment of socialist regimes in the less developed countries." This translates into perpetuating the colonial regimes in India by the British, in Turkistan by Russia, in Africa by French and the Belgium through their labor organizations. When I spoke with you and your friends in Ufa during 1919, never was there a mention of the use of terror to destroy the human self-determination. What happened? Wa that the object of those revolutions? Piatokov was correct when he directed this question to you while debating the "labor unions" issues. You were beseeched not to take away those revolutions from the labor unions whose sweat and blood were spilled for it. It is said that even Rosa Luxembourg was of the opinion that no good would come of socialism, should it become a prisoner of imperialist traditions serving great nations. If Russia has not descended into the lows of becoming the prisoner of imperial traditions, what business did it have concocting literary languages and alphabets from the regional vernaculars? If you are alive, perhaps you can personally correct some of these errors. I have but one request: I ask that permission be given to my wife Nefise to meet me in Germany; she could not accompany me tomorrow on the way to Iran, due to her pregnancy.

Ahmet Zeki Validov.

More here, including the programs of the Turkestani parties which are quite interesting imo: http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/togan.html

Edited by babyfinland (Aug. 14, 2013 21:11:32)

stegosaurus posted:

that blog is sick

ive uttered this phrase so many times in my young life

stegosaurus posted:

that blog is sick

damn you better get it to the bloctor at the blogspital then lmbo

babyfinland posted:

Here's a letter written by Zeki Velidi Togan to Lenin which references this magazine.

(I've edited the letter for legibility)

20 February 1923

Dear Vladimir Ilich,

Due to your illness, it is possible that you might have been prevented from reading this letter or it might not have reached you. But since I sent copies of it to some other friends, it is now a historical document. Comrade Stalin ostensibly stated that under Comrade Rudzutak's auspices I could return to the Party. In other words they (Party) would disregard the letter I sent to the Central Committee from Baku in 1920, outlining my opposition to and initiatives against Moscow by joining the Rebellion.

However, who can believe that and return? Especially since you have abrogated the 20 March 1919 agreement which was signed by you, Stalin, myself and my friends; by your order of 19 May 1920 signed only by you and Stalin? When I personally protested that latter order, you had characterized our 20 March 1919 agreement "only a piece of paper." However, that agreement announced that Bashkurts would retain the right of maintaining their own army and that army was going to be under the command of Soviet Headquarters without intermediary stages. With your 19 May 1920 order, you have deprived the Bashkurt army of those provisions, assigning it to the trans-Volga army, disbursing the Bashkurt units as the trans-Volga Headquarters saw fit among its formations. Indeed, that is what happened and today there is no physical Bashkurt army.

Similarly, in the same order what was deceivingly termed "attaching Ufa to Bashkurdistan" turned out to be the reverse, attaching Bashkurdistan to the Ufa province. Consequently, what was conceded to the "Russian moslems" on 20 December 1917, "the right to secede from Russia," should they choose, has been destroyed from its foundations by your order of May 1920. From now on, following the defeat of Bashkurts, Kazakhs and the Turkistanis in the South-West and my departure from Soviet Russia as of tomorrow, a ne era shall begin in their history; that is, rather than seeking their legal equality with the Russians (in the Russian context), that experimentation having failed, the transition to the international arena (for seeking those rights) is being made. My task will be to familiarize the world with the history of those struggles.

The Veklikiirus nation has already decided on the specific policy to be applied to the captive nations and tribes they are holding, not only in economic and social matters, but also in cultural affairs. The "Eastern University" which you established last year is operating as a center for these policies. A specialized "eastern affairs" group, comprised of Velikiirus personnel around the Central Committee has also been formed. The CC has brought in certain individuals of the eastern nationalities of the Soviet domains, charged with the specific duty of preparing material for these "eastern specialists." Those eastern nationals even published certain books and pamphlets. But, the topics they are to work on are assigned by your Velikiirus. These non-Russian intellectuals are not even being admitted into the debates on the "constitutions" which are being prepared to govern them.

Today, the main task on which the CC Eastern Affairs Specialists are working is to prepare separate alphabets and literary languages for each nationality and tribe, based on the extant local "phonetic" differences between them. In principle, the non_russian communists are said to be serving only as consultants in this endeavor. In the latest issue of the journal Kizil Shark, published by the members of the Eastern University, contained a commentary by one mer Aliyev of Daghestan. According to him, should the Cyrillic alphabet be accepted for the Northern Caucasus Turkish dialects, this would lead to Christianization. Further, he has reportedly said, it would be necessary to borrow the Latin alphabet in use in Azerbaijan (sic). It is imperative that the issues of Alphabet and literary language (according to Aliyev) not require Russian help, but the aid of those governments formed on the basis of national political freedom, and should be accomplished by native scholars.

These writings and efforts of the Azerbaijanis to gather the intellectual communist of the Turk tribes around Kizil Shark and one literary language is said to be making the Velikiirus specialists nervous, angry. When Shahtahtinskii and Jelal Guliev of Azerbaijan defended a single alphabet based on Latin, Prof. Polivanov and other Russians are said to have stated that even if the Latin alphabet is accepted, this would be replaced by the cyrillic and a special sub-set will be created for Turkish dialects, whose number was approaching forty. Shahtahtinskii retorted that the aim of Russians was not to allow standard literary language to live. It is now understood that, when you Velikiirus friends begin playing with the language and the syntax of a people, you will not let their collars free until they, too, become complete Russians. It is not possible not to be surprised to observe the differences between your current policies and your writings in "Against the Tide" and in your other writings, where you state that ideally, the rights of nations should be placed in their hands.

Your representative comrade Zeretskii gave numerous conferences to our people, during the summer of 1919 while we were refurbishing our army in Saransk, to the effect that the Soviet government was the first in history to base the freedoms of captive nations on their own national armies. I myself published an article in Pravda in the same vein. It has not been four years since those events and it appears that your policies will be developing in the opposite direction. RKP may continue to claim, in Asia and the countries far away from Russia, such as Africa, that it will liberate them. The truth is, your Velikiirus become angry when people such as Gregori Safarov display the colonial policies of the tsar in Turkistan. Those Velikiirus enjoy hearing the native communists liken themselves to small fish being eaten by the whale, better if that argument were presented as a proverb. When comrade Artium was visiting us, he used to state his belief that except for China and India, the Soviet Russian culture would become dominant in all of Asia. Those native languages and cultures attempting to prevent this would not be worth dwelling upon, since they are only going to be used to spread communism. These and similar words were repeated elsewhere. Without a doubt, this will be carried-out and as a result all those nations who wish to retain their independence but have become your prisoners will view Soviet Russia as their foremost enemy.

I mentioned these matters to you while you and I were discussing your theses on "Colonialism and the Nationality Question." Later, I read your aforementioned theses in Kommunisticheskii Internatsional journal (No. 11) once more. You have suggested that even after the establishment of the worldwide dictatorship of the proletariat, "it would be obligatory for the vanguard nationalities to actively participate in the establishment of socialist regimes in the less developed countries." This translates into perpetuating the colonial regimes in India by the British, in Turkistan by Russia, in Africa by French and the Belgium through their labor organizations. When I spoke with you and your friends in Ufa during 1919, never was there a mention of the use of terror to destroy the human self-determination. What happened? Wa that the object of those revolutions? Piatokov was correct when he directed this question to you while debating the "labor unions" issues. You were beseeched not to take away those revolutions from the labor unions whose sweat and blood were spilled for it. It is said that even Rosa Luxembourg was of the opinion that no good would come of socialism, should it become a prisoner of imperialist traditions serving great nations. If Russia has not descended into the lows of becoming the prisoner of imperial traditions, what business did it have concocting literary languages and alphabets from the regional vernaculars? If you are alive, perhaps you can personally correct some of these errors. I have but one request: I ask that permission be given to my wife Nefise to meet me in Germany; she could not accompany me tomorrow on the way to Iran, due to her pregnancy.

Ahmet Zeki Validov.

Father knows best.