“Hindu Operation” of the Comintern in Bukhara in 1920–1921

Abstract

The involvement of the Comintern in Central Asia is still an under-researched subject, although many Soviet historians were active in this international communist organisation in the 1920s and 30s. The article looks into the Comintern's policies in Bukhara in 1920–1921. Bukhara was a communications link between Soviet Russia and the countries of the East. Moscow understood that Bukhara was a strategically significant territory that could be used for its own purposes in the future. The Comintern viewed Bukhara as a springboard for further “exports” of the revolution into the countries of the East. For this reason, the Emirate of Bukhara became a centre of gravity for Indian nationalists, who, under the leadership of Manabendra Nath Roy, the Comintern's representative in Tashkent, were to establish another base for the Indian revolutionary movement there. However, Roy failed to unite the disparate groups of Indian nationalists by drawing on his Tashkent experience and in effect only harmed the work of the Comintern in Bukhara. The Comintern documents preserved in the funds of the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI) indicate that the “Hindu operation” in Bukhara was very poorly organised, there were frequent conflicts among Indian nationalists, and it was very hard for them to come to a compromise. By signing the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement in March 1921, the Soviet government sought to normalise its relations with London, which could not be accomplished without curtailing the activities of the Comintern against British India.