Pan-islamism in the interpretation of the Bolsheviks: liberation movement, threat or invention? (1917-1924)

This article deals with the question of how the Bolsheviks interpreted Pan-Islamism in 1917-1924. The purpose of the article is to investigate what meanings the Bolsheviks gave to the notion of Pan-Islamism, what place this notion took in their political language and how it was used in their internal political struggle. The study is based on an analysis of the speeches of Soviet leaders and archival materials related to the policy of the Bolsheviks in Turkestan, which reflected the assessments of the Pan-Islamism by the Bolsheviks, and at the first stage disputes among the Communists about Pan-Islamism and the possibility of using its potential in the anti-imperialist struggle. When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia in 1917 they were determined to abandon the imperial heritage. They wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from the colonial practice of the Russian Empire and therefore often called Pan-Islamism «the invention of the tsarist period». But in reality their approach to Pan-Islamism was not so unambiguous, and the Bolsheviks' assessments of Pan-Islamism and the degree of its danger sometimes strikingly resembled the discourse of officials of the Russian Empire about Pan-Islamism. Shortly after coming to power the Bolsheviks directed their efforts to the revolutionization of the East. One of the highest points of this policy was the Congress of the Peoples of the East in Baku in 1920. At that time, attempts by the Bolsheviks to find a compromise with Muslim leaders were combined with a simultaneous public condemnation of Pan-Islamism. And although Lenin and Stalin differently described the essence of Pan-Islamism, both of them negatively evaluated this movement. Nevertheless, in the initial period, when the Bolsheviks had not yet abandoned the plans for the revolutionization of the Muslim East, there were people in the Bolshevik Party who believed that Pan-Islamism could be regarded as an anti-imperialist movement and called for using its potential in the struggle against the imperialists. But with the growth of the Basmachi movement in Turkestan, Pan-Islamism is beginning to be perceived by many Bolsheviks as one of the main dangers to their power in this region. Nevertheless, even at this time in official documents remained the duality in the assessment of Pan-Islamism by the Bolsheviks - not only as a threat, but also as a "fiction of the tsarist period." The concept of Pan-Islamism and the rhetoric of the "Pan-Islamic threat" played a complex, ambiguous role in the internal political struggle of the Bolsheviks. Sometimes local communists criticized the Center's policy for using this rhetoric, arguing that in this is shown its the adherence to imperial colonial practice. However, in another context, local communists and representatives of the Center widely used the thesis of a «Pan-Islamic threat», seeking to improve their positions in a fierce political struggle.

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