Докладная записка Алексеевского Зелинскому о новых границах Таджикской ССР Memo from Alekseevskii to Zelenskii, et al. Update on discussions regarding drawing the new borders of Tajik SSR

Translation

<<l. 78>> 

Top secret 

To Cdes. ZELENSKY, GIKALO, BELSKY

CENTRAL ASIAN BUREAU OF THE VKP(b) CC

CC-8/5

[name cut off]

IT

On 25 December of this year we had a conversation with comrades KHODZHIBAEV (Chmn. of the Sovnarkom of Tadzhikistan), and NASRATULLA MAKSUM (Chmn. of the CEC) regarding certain matters in regard to the inspection we conducted in the border raions of Tadzhikistan. Cde. Khodzhibaev stated in the conversation that, in his view, we could not see the true picture of the situation in the border raions and could not gather accurate information about their situation since we were relying too much in our work on GPU agencies, and that is why we did not see the most important aspect, and that most important aspect in his view is the contamination of the border patrol by criminal elements. According to Khodzhibaev, in the eight years it has existed, the border patrol has not caught or killed a single basmach, and in order to justify their existence the border guards kill peaceful dehkans [peasants], claiming they are either basmachi or inveterate smugglers and taking away their property under this pretext.

The border patrol in Tadzhikistan, according to Khodzhibaev, has been contaminated just like the Cheka was in Fergana in 1919.

Instead of gathering accurate information and currying favor with the populace, the Commission should have put some of the scoundrels from the border patrol on trial and executed them. And in addition, if Maksum had been traveling with the Commission, the populace would have known that the Commission would not let it down.

Now, though, the commission should, in Cde. Khodzhibaev’s opinion, recommend in its report, as one of the most important measures to improve the situation in the border zone, that Tadzhik commissars be added to all the bodies of the Border Patrol Directorate. Tadzhiks for this purpose can be found in Khodzhent.

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Maksum agreed completely with Khodzhibaev’s view, but added that the translators in the commandants’ offices are bais [rich landowners] and they harm everything. He also said that the translator in the Parkhar commandant’s office is a Kazakh, a large-scale bai (caique owner).

None of these statements match what we saw on site. We found that the border patrol is working pretty well and has not been contaminated by any criminal element. For example, at the insistence of Nasratulla Maksum in Kuliab we traveled to the Sary-Chashma commandant’s office specifically to investigate on site complaints from the public about the border patrol, since, during the CEC Session in Kuliab, according to Nasratulla Maksum, several thousand complaints about improper actions by the border patrol were submitted to him by the populace of Sary-Chashma Raion.

We established, based on questioning done on site, that, first of all, there has never been such a slew of complaints; second, a significant portion of the complaints from the populace were caused by the fact that Red Army soldiers from the 80th cavalry regiment took forage and foodstuffs by force, issuing IOUs that were paid later after very lengthy foot-dragging, and some have yet to be paid even to this day; third, inveterate smugglers are resorting to a number of ruses to prove that livestock that they have rustled belongs to them and that the border patrol is taking away noncontraband property; and fourth, there have been several (very few) valid rebukes by the public directed at the commandant’s office (based on the seizure of livestock from persons who smuggled it in several years ago, and so forth).

Maksum’s statement that a Kazakh bai is serving as an translator at the Parkhar commandant’s office is also untrue,

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because the translator there is a Khazar from near Kuliab, a party member. Speaking of the translator, I should mention the fact that during Maksum’s visit to Parkhar, he summoned that translator and said in passing that he should not turn in dehkans to the commandant’s office, that his (the translator’s) interests were the same as the dehkans’ interests since he was a Muslim and that the translator should write about all the actions at the commandant’s office to him, i.e. Nasratulla Maksum, at the CEC.

Overall, we came away from the tour of the border raions with the impression that since the border patrol is in conflict with a large number of dehkans (smugglers, border intruders), that segment of dehkans, and in a number of cases with the support of local authorities of the Soviet government, have been attempting to provoke the border patrol in every possible way and therefore the working conditions of the border patrol are extremely difficult. There is no question that any provocation of the border patrol is the handiwork of the counterrevolutionary bai elements, so we consider it absolutely impermissible when the Soviet government leaders in Tadzhikistan not only fail to take measures to stop the attempts to provoke the border patrol and ease the border patrol’s working conditions but, on the contrary, by their statements like this one, are essentially conniving at the bais’ counterrevolutionary activities in the border zone.

In reporting on this to the Executive Commission, we hope that the Executive Commission will take the appropriate measures to stop such talk.

NOTE: If one judges by Maksum’s statement (the translators are bais, and that is the cause of all the trouble), one can conclude that he [text obscured] resolutely is of a mind [text obscured]

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bais from our administrations, but the facts suggest otherwise. In Sarai-Kamar we encountered an outrageous situation where the large Sarai-Kamar partnership is headed by a major bai stripped of his voting rights, Mullah Rustam, who was elected Chairman of the partnership at the bazaar.

The situation at the partnership is not worth talking about – the poor peasants’ funds were spent for other than their designated purposes.

According to the GPU’s information, there have been a number of abuses, and so forth.

We thought that Nasratulla Maksum and Abdu-Dzhabarov (the People’s Commissar for Finance of Tadzhikistan), who traveled with us through Sarai-Kamar, would take the necessary measures to eliminate the situation where 207,000 of our money passes through the hands of the biggest bai in one year.

Nothing of the kind happened. Measures were not only not taken, but Maksum, in his conversation with us, justified this situation by saying that as long as Mullah Rustam is in place, everything is fine, but as soon as they tried to install a poor peasant, he grabbed some money and fled (we established already in Sarai-Kamar that it was not at all a poor peasant who was installed in the partnership, but a Tashkent crook, under the patronage of the Dep. Chmn. of the Sarai-Kamar Tuman [District] Executive Committee [sic]).

On the one hand, we have Maksum’s revolutionary words, but on the other, practical deeds that are not at all revolutionary.

As for the words, they just remain words.

ALEKSEEVSKY, DIAKOV

Dec. 1928 – Tashkent             [signatures]