Page 466 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Gazelles and Lions 463

leaching the peoples of the USSR to appreciate the distinction between the
two. In fact, the strength of Soviet ambitions to spread Marxism throughout

Asia fluctuated in accordance with developments inside the Soviet Union and
in Europe. So, too, did the doctrinal approach towards the question of co­
operation with nationalist movements opposed to the European powers in
Asia. At the sixth congress of the Comintern in 1928, after the disappointing

results of collaboration with the nationalists in China and the failure of com­
munism to make progress in Germany had been made apparent, the decision
was reached to withdraw support from bourgeois nationalism and to strive to
bring about the revolution of the masses through the instrumentality of
national communist parties alone. The decision had little effect upon the

political scene in the Middle East, and especially in the Arab countries, where
the local communist parties were of little account. At the seventh congress of
the Comintern in 1935 the decision was reversed in the face of the ominous drift

of events in central Europe. Co-operation with bourgeois nationalist parties in
‘popular fronts’ against the forces of ‘fascism and imperialism’ became the
order of the day. Again, however, the ratiocinations of the ideologists in
Moscow had no discernible impact upon the course of Middle-Eastern politics
or the advancement of Soviet aims in the countries of the area.

While the Soviet government was prepared, subject to shifts in doctrinal
emphasis, to tolerate or co-operate with bourgeois nationalism in Asia, it was
resolutely opposed to any religious or racial movements which transcended
national frontiers. Its hostility to such movements in the Middle East as

pan-Islamism and pan-Turanianism (or pan-Turkism) arose from the fact that
these movements appealed to Muslims and Turks in the Soviet Union to give
their loyalty to an ideal or cause other than that of the USSR and Marx­
ism-Leninism. Towards pan-Arabism, on the other hand, the Soviet attitude
was equivocal. In so far as the movement was motivated by antagonism to the
West it was to be welcomed; but to the extent that it was inspired by religious

and racial sentiments it was to be deplored. What were considered to be more
rewarding candidates for Soviet attention were the minority groups in which
t e Middle East abounded, and whose ethnic, religious and cultural grievances
could be exploited to create difficulties for the governments under which they

,We t, as well as tension among these governments themselves. The fact that
eye were branches of these minorities living within the borders of the Soviet
• ni0n ~ arn°ng them Armenians, Kurds, Azerbaijanis and Turcomans - only
^creased the prospects for exploitation, although it also carried with it a

anger of provoking disaffection with Soviet rule among these same Soviet
minorities.

me^e $econd World War, together with the opportunities for aggrandize-
anew V a^or^e<^’ stimulated the Soviet Union’s interest in the Middle East

defin 0 SeP.lember I94° Germany, Italy and Japan concluded a tripartite pact
*
lng t eir respective spheres of influence in Europe, Africa and Asia.