A review of the book "Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World" by Alexandre Bennigsen and S Enders Wimbush.
"Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union" is a book about Muslim Communist leaders who found themselves in opposition to Lenin and Stalin. Foremost of those was Mir-Said Sultan Galiev, a Tartar Communist who was arrested several times by the Soviet authorities and eventually purged by Stalin.
Sultan Galiev and others of his persuasion argued for a more nationalist and Islamic version of Bolshevism and Communism. Rather than class struggle, they emphasized the struggle of "proletarian nations" against the Western nations. They also believed that the working classes of the Western world were non-revolutionary, having been bought off by capitalism and imperialism. Instead, the revolution would break out in Asia, among oppressed nations. To that end, the Muslim Communists called for a permanent alliance with the national bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations. They also spun theories according to which "communism" was actually a Muslim or Tartar concept, even going so far as to claim that Genghis Khan and Tamberlane were communists.
Sultan Galiev and his followers attempted to establish an independent and exclusively Muslim Communist party or organization, influence the Muslim divisions of the Red Army, and create a "Republic of Turan", which would encompass all of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Although secularists and atheists, their philosophy nevertheless had similarities with pan-Islamism. In effect, they wanted to set up a kind of reformed Islamic state. Pan-Turkism is another obvious influence. Sultan Galiev also called for a Colonial International, presumably as a counterweight to the Communist International.
Naturally, the course advocated by Sultan Galiev created friction and later outright conflicts with the Bolshevik leadership in Moscow, especially Stalin, who was people's commissar for nationalities (and even made himself leader of the Muslim section of the Communist Party). Sultan Galiev was arrested already in 1923 and expelled from the Communist Party, ironically at the same time that the party adopted its politics of "korenizatsiia", which gave more latitude to non-Russian nationalities (but, of course, within the strict confines of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party). In this context, it should be noted that Sultan Galiev had the pan-Muslim idea that all Muslims should be counted as a single nationality, while the Communist leadership divided the Muslim areas of the Soviet Union into many different soviet republics and regions, based on their real nationalities.
The authors claim that the Muslim Communists on some issues were "to the left" of an increasingly moderate Soviet leadership. Sultan Galiev and his collaborators supported the Red Army intervention in Persia and the creation of a Soviet satellite state, the republic of Ghilan. They also wanted to foment a revolution in Turkey. The Soviet leadership eventually decided on a more moderate line, supporting Kemal Atatürk and Reza Shah, since they were at least anti-British. The Iranian revolutionaries at Ghilan and elsewhere in Persia were abandoned as the Red Army withdrew its troops. It's interesting to note that the short-lived Ghilan "soviet" republic was an alliance between Communists and religious nationalists.
One problem with this book is that some of the sources used by the authors are Stalinist, and accuse Sultan Galiev and his associates of conspiring against the Soviet authorities, a claim the authors take at face value. They consider it a good thing that the Muslim Communists formed clandestine organizations to fight Stalin. Maybe so, but how do we know that the accusations are genuine?
The last chapter of "Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union" compares Sultan Galiev's ideas to those of Mao, Mariategui, Ben Bella, Boumedienne and even Gaddafi. Bennigsen claims that *he* is responsible for Ben Bella's explicit interest in Sultan Galiev. Apparently, Ben Bella read an earlier work by Bennigsen while imprisoned by the French.
Finally, the book contains appendices, including translations of some key texts by Sultan Galiev and other Muslim Communists.
Since there don't seem to be any other books on this subject in English, "Muslim National Communism" does fill a gap.
And yes, the title of my review is a joke... ;-)
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