Diaspora to the Sun
Through Revolution, War and Cold War
Najiya Moroz Williams and Jack R. Williams
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© Copyright 2012, Najiya Moroz Williams and Jack R. Williams
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ISBN: 978-1-60414-529-8
PART I
CHAPTER 1 — The Party in Penza, Russia (1915)
CHAPTER 2 — Apprentices Move East from the Bolsheviks
CHAPTER 3 — Apprentice Traders in UFA, Russia (1919)
CHAPTER 4 — Ayse Escapes the Revolution (1920)
CHAPTER 5 — Zarif ’s Long March Across Siberia (1919-1920)
CHAPTER 6 — Revolution for Dinner in Harbin, Manchuria (1920)
CHAPTER 7 — Dinner in Harbin, Manchuria (1920-1937)
CHAPTER 8 — Tokyo and Dragons of War (1937-1941)
CHAPTER 9 — World at War (1939-1945)
PART II
CHAPTER 10 — Americans Come to Tokyo (1945-1960)
CHAPTER 11 — Keyholes, Cold War and Containment (1947-1958)
CHAPTER 12 — Najiya in America (1961-1966)
CHAPTER 13 — Istanbul Connections (1966-1981)
CHAPTER 14 — Journey Before the Soviet Fall (July 1988)
CHAPTER 15 — From Tokyo to America (1989)
CHAPTER 16 — Intelligence Wars: Low-Flyers, High-Flyers and Space-Flyers
CHAPTER 17 — The Soviet Fall (1993)
PART I
The Party in Penza, Russia (1915)
~Introduction~
This is a true story, more or less. It did not seem like a diaspora. They just moved away from fear and toward opportunity. This story is mostly about my Agis family from the time of the Russian Revolution until the Soviet fall. The core family consisted of my maternal grandfather and grandmother, with their four girls and one boy. One of the girls was my mother, Sever, who later married Abdullah Moroz. My sister and I came much later. My family lived comfortable lives in Czarist Russia until the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. These Tatars were successful business people and ethnic Moslems in a sea of Slavics. We had the wrong business and mindset for the Soviets, so there was never a doubt that we had to flee. My family fled the Bolshevik revolution across Siberia into Harbin, Manchuria, where they established homes. In 1925, they moved further, to the Rising Sun of Japan, living there through WWII and until recently. This is where my sister and I were born. Later, some of us moved to America and some to Turkey.
My mother and father lived in central Tokyo from 1925 until recently. I lived there until I was 24, and during WWII. I have lived in America since 1961.
I think of Western civilization and culture as a state of mind. The roots of this development flow directly from Greece to Rome, to the Catholic Church, to the city-states and renaissance of Italy, to the protestant churches, to the nation-states of Europe, to the industrial revolution, and to the technical age of modern times. The West includes Europe to the Atlantic, Britain, North America, and other parts of the world that are peopled by descendents of western European settlers, particularly English, such as Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. The West continually changes to meet new circumstances and incorporate new inventions and cultural ideas. This amounts to a westerly flow of history. High standards of living characterize the West resulting from capitalism and free markets. People in the West have similar cultural values, and have certain universal rights that are respected and enforced. The West is generally advanced and has high technology.
Counter to this westerly flow, there is an easterly flow. This suggests a great divide in topography that causes the seaward flow of rivers. I think of Moscow as a reference for the great divide. The divide bisects East and West by a line running vertically on the map through Moscow, then through the European edges of the Black Sea and down the coast of the Mediterranean.
The counter-flow is from Moscow through Russia, Central Asia, Turkey, the Middle East, India, through Iran, and China to Japan. In the 20th century, most of these areas are considered to be backward and provincial, with ideas formed in the distant past. Command economies, low incomes, and cultural stagnation are thought to represent the area. Of, course, some of these emerging regions and countries are rushing to become modern.
The westerly flow of history is well described in the literature. People in the west mostly write that history, so one might suspect a western bias. The easterly flow is much less known and is often thought to be less deserving of our attention.
My story is about the easterly flow. My family moved toward the east, across Russia, Manchuria, China, Japan, America and many of my relatives moved on to Turkey. In many respects, my story represents the anti-podal easterly counter flow of history during the 20th century.
The history of my family consists of a thousand details. These form a whole fabric, although the fabric is subject to the whims of nations and of fashion. It changes over time. Percy Shelley, the poet, said that ‘history is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man’. That expresses my thoughts exactly and poetically. The fabric holds the details together in a coherent form. A four-dimensional tapestry is formed by the fabric where time flow is represented by changing pictures, just as a movie.
I find it difficult to correlate these individual events and find the meaning, if there is any, yet it is my nature to try; to be inquisitive and ask questions.
In discerning the grand picture, my nemesis is geography and history in that we continually move and history is ever changing. Much of the world geography figures into my story. Enormous events between nations were occurring during this time. This is not to ignore science, technology, inventions, and cultural changes. These all formed the environment for the whole century.
Can I relate the details of my family saga to that dynamic environment? This question haunts my story and me.
If my description of the environment through the wars, revolutions and cultural changes prove ineffectual and sterile, then the details of the lives lose much of their meaning. If I cannot relate my family details to this big picture, then their meanings are ghostly apparitions of coincidence in a history that goes nowhere.
I believe there is coherence in the details defining life and the environment. Individuals can develop in a meaningful way, in a way that confirms relevance between the details of their lives, the environment, and the grand evolution of history.
My family spoke Old and New Turkish (since 1923 as part of the Ataturk revolution), Russian, and Japanese fluently. They also spoke haltingly in Chinese, English, and some Arabic. I speak my family’s languages, except Chinese. The reason language is important is that it gives one special insight into other worlds; the worlds of strangers. As incredible as it seems, Old Turkish speakers can still make themselves understood, at some level, with Turkics across Russia to the Pacific. I confirmed this in recent Russian travels.
It’s difficult to view my family’s saga in the grand sweep of history without conceding the dual metaphors of life for man’s biological and behavioral evolution. This is described by my husband, and he believes it. One is the Wheel of Life, as observed in Oslo’s Frogg Park, for his procreation and for the cycle of birth, youth, maturity, and death. The other is the Eternal Diaspora for his drive toward curiosity, exploration, and migration. At least that is what he believes.
Some say the Soviet state was history’s grand social experiment. It was implemented in 1917 by Lenin and his Bolsheviks in a coup d’état against the short-lived Kerensky Republic, and carried to its logical conclusion by Stalin during his reign. This was after Lenin’s death in 1924 and until his own death in 1953. The Soviets continued their rapacious policies until their demise in 1991. Lenin or his policies had hundreds of thousands of Russians murdered. Some say millions. Stalin or his policies killed over ten million more, as is well known. Stalin and Hitler had initiated World War II by partitioning Europe by the Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact. Hitler later attacked the Soviet Union, as pre-shadowed in his book, Mein Kampf, to gain ‘lebensraum’. The war cost the lives of perhaps 40 million people, 20 million of them Russian. Stalin gobbled up most of Europe and major parts of the world, at first because of the war and later because of his rapacious state policies and the voracious Soviet appetite.
In 1948, the Americans formulated or formally stated a policy of ‘Containment’ to curtail the voracious appetite for territory of the Soviet Empire. Later, President Reagan called it the Evil Empire. These policies, rapacity versus containment, defined the super-power conflict, or Cold War, for the next 43 years.
In 1961, I married an American, and this brought him into my family. He served as a member of the U.S. military, as a civilian with Chiang Kai Shek’s Chinese Air Force in Taiwan, as a designer of Low-Flyer and High-Flyer aircraft systems, as one deeply involved in the electronic intelligence wars, and as a weapons designer. This accounts for my family being deeply entwined with both the Soviets and Americans through WWII and the Cold War. We were participants in the Soviet debacle for its entire life; three-quarters of a century.
America’s containment policy put major strains on the Soviet system, as did other external factors late in its life. The Soviet Union collapsed from the wars and stresses of containment and from its economic and political failures. In the end, as was demonstrated in Moscow’s stores, it could not provide bread for its people.
I saw the long, long lines at the grocery stores in Moscow, even though there was little to be had in them. One often stood for hours for a single item. Finally, entry to the stores was blocked while a single item such as bread was sold at a door or window, while cabbages were sold at another.
A metaphorical thread in the story is the threat to sedentary people across Russia from pastoral barbarians or nomads, who kick up dust clouds on the steppes beyond the horizon. Were these minor dust devils, or did they portend the coming of the barbarian horsemen to rape, pillage, and lay asunder? This fear lasted for millennia. However, in about 1700, gunpowder and guns found their way into the hands of the settled people, and thus the barbarians were stopped. In metaphorical symbolism, after WWII, Stalin, acting the barbarian, closed his borders and used this fear to bluff and have his way. Often, it was not a bluff! In response, the Americans looked into the metaphorical dust clouds. They flew Low-Flyer and High-Flyer aircraft and spacecraft around, into, and over the steppes, with electronic eyes and ears and exotic sensors. These electronic intelligence wars stopped Stalin’s neo-barbarians.
Some people intellectualize the Soviet process; clothe it in an aegis of intellectual respectability. Communism did engage Western intellectual circles for decades. Others say that Communism, rather than being a grand social experiment, was a political facade, a fraud, a sham. Stalin talked Communism and social theory while he rained terror on the millions; while he became a Murder Machine, pure and simple. They argue that Communism has no more claim on man’s intellectual bank account than Hitler’s Nazism, which placed a notional screen in front of people while millions were being scooped into the ovens. To intellectualize either is to obscure the fraud; make one a participant in the acts; make one a party to the ultimate obscenities.
The Americans exposed the Soviet sham. They looked beyond the horizon into the metaphorical dust clouds. They flew aircraft around, into and over the steppes, with their electronic eyes and ears; they flew around them and over them, particularly in High-Flyer aircraft with high performance cameras and electronic intelligence-gathering equipment. Eventually, they orbited them and perched permanently above them with satellites filled with massive payloads of cameras, electronic sensors, and other monitoring equipment. Stalin’s will and legacy could not endure. These into-around-and-over initiatives denied the Soviets their cloak of secrecy. This weakened and eventually helped tame these neo-barbarians.
My American husband was a part of the struggle for all that time. His role in the Soviet containment lasted four and a half decades.
The Russian force has not been spent! Their vast stores of oil, nuclear technology, and natural resources fuel their ambition. Who knows what Russian leaders now perceive as Russia’s destiny? We can only wait and speculate. Our story gives insight and broadens our perspective on how individuals react to great national stress. In the end, it leaves us waiting for a continuation of the Great Russian Theater. Fundamentally, it is a tragedy, but it does have moments of enlightenment, of high cultural attainment, and of bizarre comedy.
Party Talk (1915)
The year was 1915, and the party was a small gathering of friends, with my grandfather and grandmother, Zehidulla and Ayse Agis, and their family. I, Najiya, was not to be born until 1937 but my mother, father and grandfather told me the stories endlessly. It was a festive time, a happy time for them. Even so, Serbian Nationalists had shot Crown Prince Ferdinand of Austro-Hungary only a year ago, and that was the onset of World War I, or the Great War as it was then called. The Agis compound was in a small village on the outskirts of Penza, Russia, three hundred miles southeast of Moscow, yet only a short distance from the Volga River to the east and the Don to the west. The people at the party were Tatars. These were Turks and Muslims, sometimes called Mongols, followers of Ghengis Khan, or steppesmen as they considered themselves. These Turko-Mongols were the great ethnic minority in Russia’s heartland who never accepted nor assimilated with Slavic Russians.
These were momentous times. War engulfed Europe. The Japanese incursions into Northeast Asia, opposing both Russia and China, were becoming more serious. Nicholas II, the Russian Czar was to be deposed in March 1917 and murdered in April 1918. His replacement Provisional Government would be ousted, and its head, Alexander Kerensky, would flee the country, eventually to the U.S. and Stanford University. The Bolsheviks, or Communists as they later called themselves, would proclaim the Soviet State in two more years. Both the Christian Austro-Hungarian Empire and Muslim Ottoman Empire would soon collapse. The forcing functions for World War II, only 24 years later, would be put into motion. These were unusual times; but the normal activities of people going about their business filled them. The depth of Russia’s troubles was far from apparent at this time.
In 1915, Zehidulla Agis was a trader across Muslim Russia. He had stores in several cities, reaching beyond the Urals in Siberia. These were hard times in Russia, since the Great War was underway. The Kaiser’s German Army occupied stretches of the Ukraine, Russia, and Byelorussia; their lines stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and were only 300 miles or so from Moscow. The static German lines were also only 300 miles from Penza and the Agis home. Russia was recoiling from the Germans; but mostly the Russians were fighting their own internal devils. The Czarist government was in disarray. Revolutionaries were whipping up dissent, and industrial and agricultural dislocations were interrupting all levels of the social order.
Nevertheless, some semblance of normal life continued. On this day, the Agis family, and their four daughters and son, were entertaining my grandfather’s colleagues, friends, and neighbors. Zehidulla Agis was a doyen of Tater traders and a central figure for his clan. He owned ‘department stores’ or the nearest Western equivalent, across Russia. The party was to celebrate the entry of Zarif Niazi, who was to become my uncle, and Abdulla Moroz, who would become my father, the young sons of my Grandfather’s friends, into the Agis trader organization as apprentices. The party was to wish them well, as they were to be sent to the Ufa store by the Urals after an indoctrination period.
“You know, we are all Turks of different tribes,” Zehidulla Agis said to the assembled men, his friends.
Zahidulla Agis was a proud man, and a bit pompous. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world, and could not help sharing it with anyone who listened or who stood still while he pontificated. He tended a bit toward the Ancient Mariner who felt compelled to tell his story over and over. This was especially true if it related to the glory of the Tatars.
“The wedding guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear; And thus spoke on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner.”
“We’ve owned the steppes for a thousand years. We are all from the Golden Horde, and the Blue Horde, and the White Horde before it. The Golden Horde’s empire descended from Ghengis Khan, whose empire included all of Han China, from the Pacific to Italy at one time, and from Iran to the Mediterranean. Ghengis’s horde established Khanates in Russia. The most important was the Khanate of Kazan, and that’s why we Tatars are here on the Volga. Kazan is a most important city, the center of Tatar culture in Russia. The same Turks from the central Asian steppe swept from the east and the south with renewed vigor. These became known as the Ottoman Turks, from about the year 1300. We are all the same. We have the same religion, similar languages, and same ethnic forebears. The Ottomans nominally tied the Russian Khans together from then until Ivan the Terrible, a hundred years later.
“Our Tatar language belongs to the Turkic language family of the Altaic language system. Because the Tatars mixed freely in Xinjiang with the Uygurs and the Kazaks, the three languages have had strong effects on one another, even though there were various local dialects. Our Tatars’ written language, before the revolution, was based on Arabic letters.
“Tatarstan was conquered by the troops of Czar Ivan IV, the Terrible, in the 1550s, with Kazan being taken in 1552.This was almost 100 years after the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire (also known as the Eastern Roman Empire).
“Finally, the Russians were into their great expansion, and developed the Greater Russian Empire, stretching from Poland to the Pacific. The Khanates were subsumed in this, although the Tatars remain foreigners to most Russians. These Tatar ethnics, as we are called, occupy a vast expanse across southern Russia, and even across Asia. We remain distinct in appearance, outlook, language, customs, dress, religion and in other aspects.”
Zehidulla continued. “When Ivan the Terrible took Kazan in 1552, Russian aggression accelerated. They spread their control over the Khanates, and have subjugated us for 500 years. The Slavic Russians rule us all. The Ottoman Porte in Istanbul let us go, let us slip under the Slavic yoke. At that time, the Ottomans were vital and vigorous, but they were occupied in Europe, in the Mediterranean, and in the other areas where they were consolidating their empire. We, in the homeland of the Turks, were left on our own. The Russians gobbled us up. Then, after it was too late, the Ottoman Turks fell on hard times. They became corrupt and effete. The Porte fell under the control of the Yugoslavian Slavic Janissaries. They could no longer stop the Russians, and all Central Asia fell. Now the Porte is the Sick Man of Europe. They say the Ottomans will never survive this war. And where does that leave us Turks, us Tatars?”
“All that’s ancient history, Zehidulla,” said one of his friends, Abdul Hayir Moroz, Abdulla Moroz’s father. “I know you love history. All Turks love history. We talk and breathe history. What will happen now? What will the Germans do if they reach this far?”
“Well, the Germans are into the Ukraine,” Zehidulla responded. “The Csar’s army is holding them. Can the Czar hold them back? There’s been talk. You know we Turks were always masters of playing one side against the other.”
“Aw, c’mon, Zehidulla! Those days are gone,” Abdul Hayir insisted. “There are no Khans anymore. Germany is too powerful. She may not need anyone, no allies. Some people say her armies will reach the Volga this year, before 1915 is out!”
“My friends in Moscow say a Russian republic would be a stronger nation than the Czar’s. Maybe we’ll have a republic.” Zehidulla continued to imply a change in government favorable to the Tatars; to imply he had some word from his friends in Moscow.
“Yeah, and the peasants and workers and intellectuals say we’ll have a Bolshevik government first,” Abdul Hayir countered. “They want to destroy everything and start over again.”
“We traders don’t want Communists,” Zehidulla said with conviction. He pounded the table with his fist for emphasis. “That would be disastrous for us. They will take everything and destroy the rest. Now, a republic might be different. Maybe there’ll be some freedom. Who knows?”
“Well, I don’t see how you can change the government during a war. The Allies would never permit it.”
The men sat, each lost in his own thoughts. The world churned. The whole structure was changing drastically and rapidly, but how it was changing, no one quite knew.
What would happen to their Volga region? What would happen to Russia? To the Ottomans? To Europe? To the Far East? To us Turks?
At this time, they waited. Russia was clearly going to change forever, and revolution was in the air. Nevertheless, none of these Tatars had a concrete plan for action. They thought, I think we can just weather this, just wait it out. They all thought like this. They would make minor adjustments and accommodations, they thought, but in the end, it would all stabilize and they would go on living their lives here as they always had, through centuries of change.
On this day in 1915, these men found life to their liking and their fortune satisfying. They were the rich traders. They swam in the Russian sea of Muslim subculture, yet they also operated in the main Slavic culture. They were, indeed, satisfied with themselves.
They knew the politics of Europe that flew about their heads every day. They knew Russia’s place in that politics, and internationally. The cannons of war drew closer, and the maelstrom of revolution swirled about them, who could not know? It was unsettling, disquieting, frightening in a way. However, there was, as yet, no panic.
Zehidulla was a learned man, a boyar. He was a rich trader. He spoke many languages and traveled to Japan, China, across Russia, and to Turkey. He was a proud man, a dandy. Some called him a boulevardier with his walking canes, fashionable hats, three-piece suits, and spats.
Abdulla Moroz and Zarif Niazi sat at the stairs and took it all in. Young boys could listen to adults but it was not wise to interrupt these men, they knew. They listened with wide eyes. It was a world of high adventure they were entering. As apprentice traders, they would be entering this new and exciting world. Now, they watched the real traders and listened to their words in silence and awe. Soon, Zehidulla would send them to Ufa, just west of the Urals at the very end of Europe, to begin their apprenticeships. They were thirteen years old. Zarif Niazi listened to Abdul Hiyar Niazi, his father, and to Zehidulla, their mentor, as did Abdulla Moroz.
“Lunch, lunch!” Sever Agis, the little girl with the dark hair and sparkling eyes, ran from group to group. She was Zehidulla’s eldest daughter, and was to be my mother.
Sever was just 9 years old, but had already achieved a charm and poise rare in a young girl. She flirted with the men, though she hardly knew what flirting meant. She charmed them and delighted them when she told her little stories. She skipped from group to group. Were they all right, did they have enough, a place to sit? Had they tried the good things laid out on the table that she liked? She paid special attention to everyone. She was particularly solicitous to the older folks. She was a consummate little hostess; her mother’s helper.
The men clucked over her, teased her. She responded.
She had eyes for Abdulla. She flirted with him and rolled her eyes, but it was always subtle. She would withdraw so he was not sure that it had really happened. Perhaps it was no more than with the others. On the other hand, was it? At thirteen, he was too unsophisticated to understand these things. He could not take his eyes off her. She was fun!
Sleigh Ride
“We’re going on a sleigh ride,” Zehidulla roared. “You kids, get ready.”
The sleigh was a troika. The three horses pranced. They were not used to this type of harness. Everyone got aboard, and the runners slid noiselessly as the horses snorted off down the road.
The air was crisp, a world of white in every direction. Away they ran toward the river, and along beside it. They shouted and waved as they passed their neighbors, who waved back and shouted to them. They ran out onto the ice-covered river. The river made a perfect highway. Zehidulla gave the horses their heads as they snorted and blew steam like a fast train. The children yelled and laughed as the biting wind and snow reddened their faces. The kids were all there, Sever and her three sisters, and their cousin, Sara. Zarif and Abdulla were there. Of course, Ayse, Zehidulla’s wife, chaperoned them, and kept Zehidulla and the driver under control.
They rode into the early evening. This was a perfect ride in a darkening, foreboding world. This very Russian troika was unusual for these Tatars. The people of the steppes preferred horseback or one-horse sleighs. The troika added spice to the ride. This extraordinary ride added one more bond for these young people, but such bonds are never voiced.
The party lasted for two days. It was a kind of celebration. For now, Zarif and Abdulla were becoming apprentice traders; they were being adopted into the Agis business and even into Zehidulla’s trade family. These young men were now to go to Ufa, a city by the Urals at the farthest reaches of Europe and even further, it seemed, from their families and familiar surroundings. They were to be taken from their families and were to live in a dormitory or shared arrangement with three other older boys as they learned the ways of the business world under Zehidulla’s tutelage. It was sure to be difficult for them, but it was time for their real, professional education to begin. Becoming a trader was not an easy thing to do, and they and their families were honored that Zehidulla had taken them under his wing. They were now young men with futures.
Worries
The whirling clouds of politics and war could not be totally erased from their minds. One encounter in particular worried Zehidulla, and continued to give him a sense of malaise.
Alexis Grodin, a man thought to be a Bolshevik operative, hovered in Zehidulla’s life, a dark cloud that could not be escaped. It had started when the Bolsheviks were a minor consideration in Russian politics. The Czar’s police and army were too powerful, then, to take him seriously. He seemed to be well connected, however. He appeared like the night and dissolved in the same way. One never knew when he would show up, and he did not stay long. Zehidulla did not pay much attention to him at first. As the country descended toward chaos, however, Grodin became more ominous, more threatening in his demeanor. There was an implication that the men he represented were more powerful and ruthless than the Czar’s civil police or secret police. Zehidulla tried to stay clear. Neither was good for his business. Later, the man became very threatening. He demanded money to support his cause, to support the Bolsheviks. Inherent in the discussions were dire things that were to happen if either he or his group suffered exposure or any kind of discomfiture. He intimated even more dire things if monies to support his cause were not forthcoming. Zehidulla came to dread the appearance of this man. He gave minor monies at first, but the demands became more serious. Zehidulla had always been able to handle blackmail or extortion in the past. Oh, it cost him to do business in Russia, but he could handle the bribes and minor extortion as a part of doing business. However, these became increasingly more severe. Before long, he was referring to the man as ‘Black Death’. It signified not only the black character of this man who would become his nemesis, but the fear that increasingly crept into their relationship.
In 1915, Zehidulla was supporting financially, to some extent, some of the political initiatives in Moscow. It was dangerous to do this, and dangerous not to. However, bribery, extortion, protectionism, and corruption were part of doing business in those days. It was only a question of how much, when, and to whom. All carried some degree of danger, but there was more danger in not doing it. The civil police and secret police made the stakes even more serious. One could not be too careful.
Zehidulla had met Alexander Kerensky in his rounds of Moscow. A minor relationship had developed. He supported Kerensky’s people in a minor way, since they seemed least threatening to his business interests. Business liked stability, but it was clear that changes were everywhere. One could not just hope for the best. It was better to put a little money here and a little there.
Black Death had no way of knowing what support Zehidulla was giving to whom, but he seemed to suspect it, and he wanted support for the Bolsheviks. Money was the lifeblood of all politics in Russia. One needed money to support the workers who politicked rather than worked. It was needed for underground printing presses. It was needed to bribe people out of prison, to bribe officials, to bribe in every direction. There was no end of the money required to finance a political operation in Russia then, particularly a revolutionary operation when the police and everyone were trying to stamp you out. However, there was safety in numbers, and almost everyone in Russia was aligned with some political crowd or notion, even if the crowd was only a few people with a very loose connection.
This new tone to the extortion was a change for Zehidulla. Everything was taking on a more ominous tone; a more threatening, menacing nature. This was far beyond the minor extortions he was familiar with in doing business in normal times. This was more hectic, there were more players, the need for money was more frenetic, and the consequences of not complying seemed far more bizarre. Zehidulla was worrying more and more about the future of his business and himself.
These real concerns were belied by the tone of his conversations with these traders. They all had similar concerns. They were all beginning to feel a sense of fear and foreboding.
More Party Talk
Zehidulla Agis was talking to Abdul Hiyar Niazi.
“We Kazan Tatars came to Russia with Ghengis Khan and the Golden Horde in the early 1200’s. We’ve been here ever since, with Kazan as our capital.”
“Hear, hear,” cried his friends.
“Yes, yes!” They laughed and urged him on. They had heard this before. There was no way of knowing whether he was joking or putting them on. On the other hand, was he serious? He loved talking politics. Was he not a friend of Kerensky? Did he not break bread with the high of Moscow? Still, there was no way of knowing. Politics was serious business in Russia, yet everyone participated. It was not like the Americans. They participated in the political process where popular support and political talk had meaning. Here, the Russians mouthed politics, with laughter or seriousness, but none of it had any meaning. The people’s concerns were not an issue in the Russian process. Political talk here was so many words let loose in the air, flying to the disruptive winds. Then they were forgotten. They meant nothing. This, all Russians knew.
“These Russians did not know,” he said. “What can they know? They are not like us Turks. They were serfs until Czar Alexander freed them in the 1860’s. He let them be free on paper. They do not know what that means, and it had little real effect. The purpose of the serfs was to produce food, give it up as taxes, and to serve as common soldiers when they were lucky. The gentry had an obligation too, but it was to serve the state and the military. Even those obligations were forgotten after the Napoleonic wars. The serfs became slaves, bound to the land by law. The gentry owned the villages. They gambled and traded multiple villages with every living Russian soul bound to the land. What do you call that?” He asked, rhetorically.
“Oh, Tatars!” Zehidulla exclaimed. “Don’t give in to the tyrants, to the despots. Have five centuries under the yoke dulled your senses?” His talk was pure posturing, rhetoric.
“We Tatars knew only freedom until the Russians took us. We are men of the steppes, horsemen. We have always been freemen. The Russians, made us soft in their land, corrupted us. Then they overran us, enslaved us, and held sway over us. Now we are like God’s children thrown out of their birthright, as the Israelites said. The Babylonians had their way with us, as we children of Abraham lost our birthright. Allah and the Holy Koran tell us these things,” he laughed, enjoying the attention. “The Russians are the Babylonians and we Tatars are the Jews. Our diaspora has been a long one.” He again laughed.
“We Tatars understand the concept of freedom, since we were always free, but not these Russians.
“The Czar is a God-figure. He holds all power in Russia. The people have none. Since Peter the Great, they’ve had aristocracy here, but it has little meaning. In Europe, the kings have restraints. The aristocracy has duties, as does the king. This is part of the European concept of a covenant between the governors and the governed. In Russia, there is no comprehension of this concept. The Czar is a God-figure, while the aristocracy, the peasants, and the rest of the people are the serfs. There is no concept here of the king having responsibilities and limits, and the aristocracy also having responsibilities and limits. The aristocracy exists in name alone, titles. It means nothing. The Czar is Godhead, and the others, all others, are supplicants, servants, slaves to his will. Even the aristocrats can be exiled or stripped of their property by the Czar. Even they have no inherent rights beyond the Czar.
“We Tatars were never like that. Ghengis was a leader, but not a Godhead. We were free men of the steppes.”
“Hear, hear!” they all laughed.
“Zehidulla, aren’t you afraid to talk like this? If the Czarists don’t get you, the new Bolsheviks will.”
“No, no. We’re heading for a republic,” Zehidulla laughed. “My friend, Alexander Kerensky, will someday head a republican government and the Czarists will yield power to him.”
They laughed in appreciation of this.
By the stairs, Abdulla and Zarif watched with increasing fascination. Zehidulla was their mentor. He was their sponsor, teacher, and trainer. He was everything to them. His words were nectar to their ears. Yet, he played with words. Was he serious? Who knew? He was not a serious man. He was more a dandy, a Parisian boulevardier. However, he loved the fun. He was a learned man, a man of the world. He traveled, he knew people, knew foreigners; he knew the world. They listened to his patter.
“What does constitutional democracy mean?” he asked. “You let the populace vote, but you restrict the voter’s power with a constitution. The Magna Carta tells the King of England that the people have rights beyond the King. The King can posture. He can swing his sword and take anyone to court. He can swear. However, he cannot legally invade a man’s rights. The people of the West implore the King to do right. He should do well; do good works. However, it absolutely forbids his invasion of a man’s God-given rights. These derive beyond the King. The King is stopped from crossing this impassable boundary. The rights of the people are sovereign.
“But Russian literature knows no such bounds,” he said. “It implores the Czar, the sovereign, to love the people, to pity the serfs. It calls on the gods to give the Czars vision and mercy. The literature knows no sovereign rights beyond the Czar. What kind of despots are we dealing with?” he implored. “It is an entreaty to God to restrain their sovereign. It is only a relationship between the Czar and his God. No man is involved in the equation. Where are the Thomas Paines, Benjamin Franklins, Rene Descartes, and Thomas Jeffersons? The Russians have never reached the level beyond the Catholic Mary, who entreated and interceded with God for man, on his behalf. The Renaissance never reached Russia. The Russians went right to Les Miserables and the French Revolution, and never understood a bit of it.
“And look at us Tatars. In the time of Ghengis Khan we ruled the world. We of the Golden Horde swept through Russia to the Polish and German plains. We Turks swept through Iran and the Near East into Anatolian Turkey as part of the Seljuk Turks. Then in the 1453, we swept into Constantinople as Ottomans; cleared it of the Byzantines with their Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Then we swept north into Eastern Europe and Russia up to Khazan. We Tatars held southern Russia as the Khanate of Kazan, and the other Khanates, until the time of Ivan the Terrible. Then we Turks, this time as Ottomans, held an empire that stretched from Iran to the Atlantic across North Africa and from the Indian Ocean to Khazan, and into Europe. We Turks had triumphed. We were Romans. We conquered, then we administered. We gave freedom to all, and toleration. As long as they paid taxes, we let them rule themselves and practiced toleration, both secular and religious. Who were the enlightened ones, I ask you? Are the enlightened the Europeans of the middle Ages or we Turks? We brought peace, tranquility, and tolerance. We were the renaissance men in an age of European darkness and brutality.” He laughed. It was still impossible to tell if he were serious or just playing with his audience.
“Did we Moslems not preserve the wisdom of ancient Greece and the others for a millennium while Europe sank into darkness and slept? Did we not educate Europe after its long sleep? Were we not the impetus for the renaissance that reawakened the Europeans?”
Since 1914, Russia had been in the Great War, the fight against Germany. The German Armies had poured into the southwestern edges of Russia, particularly Byelorussia and the Ukraine. By 1915, two million Russians had been killed. It was not that the Tatar guests of the Agis’s had any love for the Russians. They did not. Such monumental events were not consistent with Zehidulla’s humor and rhetoric, somehow. They laughed, a kind of gallows humor, not knowing what the future held. It was the kind of humor the Russians were famous for, but not the steppesmen. It was a learned humor from Zehidulla’s long contacts with the Russians.
“My friends,” he said. “I must be finished, for Ayse says it’s now time for lamb.” They all laughed again. Life was a joy; they reacted as Tatars always had. Inshala. (God willing).
Nevertheless, dust clouds gathered on the horizon that were darker and more ominous than Czardom, than all the Germans, and all the other horrors and outrages that life had heretofore visited on the Russians. The Bolshevik terror loomed, but they believed better of the Russians, of humankind, of God, even in the face of the German onslaught of 1915.
Apprentices Move East from the Bolsheviks
Penza (February 1917)
Things did not get better in Penza. They did not get better in Moscow, or anywhere in all the Russias. Things were going badly for the Czar, and worse for the army. When things went badly for the Czar, things went worse across all Russia. The Germans mauled the army, and mauled them again. Workers had been conscripted for the growing army. Soon, their farm and factory machines were idle and their products not been replaced in the pipeline. Workers by the millions were needed to support a modern, even a backward, army in the field, and these workers were missing, striking, unpaid, politicking, or politically disrupted, and the whole nation was in disarray.
By 1917, of 170 million Russians, 80% were peasants. Half of these still lived in full-fledged communes, or villages in common, tied to the land that was in the hands of roughly two hundred thousand landed gentry. This was not much different from the times of Tolstoy and the 1805 War and Peace, when the wealth of a gentried landowner was measured in the number of villages and the village peasants and livestock he owned lock stock and barrel. Only about 10 to 12 million Russians were in urban areas, including 3.5 million industrial workers and 1 million railway workers. Thus, there was a dearth of workers to conscript into the army from the 3 million or so ‘proletariats’.
The army had mobilized 11 million soldiers by this time, and most were peasants taken off the land. About 8 million of these soldiers were strung out along the 2,000-mile military front from the Baltic Sea in the North to the Black Sea in the South. They had suffered a larger number of deaths and casualties than any other belligerent, and this army had suffered defeat after defeat. There was no hope in sight.
The Germans had imposed an effective blockade on both Baltic and Black Sea ports. This prevented the export of grain and raw materials, which caused a drastic drop in prices. The growers stopped selling where there was no market. The consequent shortages in foodstuffs and associated consumer goods caused severe shortages, particularly in the cities. To support the enormously expensive war effort, the government printed money at an ever-increasing rate, causing severe inflation. The government was mortally ineffective.
The soldiers, particularly the peasant soldiers, turned against the war and government. Part of this was the constant foment of political rhetoric by diverse political operatives, constantly haranguing them about class warfare, anarchy, and revolution. The peasant in uniform refused to obey his officers and noncoms because of his revulsion against the war and deplorable conditions all around him. This neutralized the government, and caused an unraveling of all public authority, from the army, the police, and the local administrations.
Deserters dissolved into the countryside. At first, it was a trickle. Then the number grew. Bolsheviks, monarchists, anarchists, Czarists, nihilists, and political operatives of every kind felt it their duty to spew venom and bile among the army units. Soon, one class was against another, ranting against each other. Unit divided against unit and brother against brother! The army was on the verge of total anarchy. Whole units deserted. At first, only lone soldiers or a small group here and there roved the land, taking from the peasants at gunpoint. The stragglers grew into whole army units roving the countryside or establishing small fiefdoms. These deserters were from a defeated army, so they were accustomed to violence. They took to the countryside, stealing and taking, and killing as often as not. The country was descending in free-fall.
Hunger ruled the bands, the civilians, the workers. Disease swept the countryside. Cholera was rampant, and hundreds of other diseases came from exposed carrion, unburied corpses, and deceased peasant soldiers all over the country with no sanitation discipline. There was no civil sanitation to speak of. What little that had been in place was disrupted, and civil servants were unpaid, hungry, and unresponsive. Carrion, defecation, and waste bred an awful witch’s brew, and death was everywhere. Not just death, but also the black awful death of masses dying where no one really cared, no one cleaned up afterward, nor buried, nor worried about epidemics. More important things such as immediate life and death and national survival were on their minds. The civil structure was breaking down. The political apparatchiks fanned the disruptions, tried to prevent any organized effort, wanted to see death; they fanned it and spread chaos. It was their victory.
Zehidulla Agis watched this and tried to control his business the best he could. He continued to transfer operations and stock from Penza and the western stores to Ufa, near the Urals, and Omsk, beyond the Urals. Transportation and communications were difficult however, and unreliable. Almost any delivery had to be accompanied by one of his men. This was always a great risk for his agents. They would sometimes set off on a task and never be heard from again. It was not unusual in Russia.
As the Empire descended toward chaos, the border regions became restless and began demanding autonomy. Finland and the Ukraine would begin asserting their independence by early 1918. The Baltic States and the Transcaucasian nations were becoming more restless in 1917. The Russian Empire that had been built through Czarist conquest and maintained by his force, began to crumble.
Rasputin (1917)
It was a cold night in February 1917. Zehidulla Agie, his apprentice Abdulla Moroz, my future father, and Zarif Niazi were enjoying themselves in a restaurant in Penza.
He said, “You know, boys, the royal family is falling further and further behind. They don’t seem to have a clue, or they are so weak that they can’t figure out anything to do. This is true of all the advisors and the so-called aristocracy.
“Look at the Rasputin affair. This is a disgrace and I am surprised it hasn’t taken down the government.
“The facts are well-established from newspaper accounts in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Do you know them?”
“Not fully, sir.”
“I’m quite proud, since Rasputin’s killer, Prince Yusupov, is a Tatar. We Tatars have not lost all our courage. The blood of Ghengis Khan will not be denied forever.”
The waiters brought refreshments, hovered over them for a few minutes, and went away.
“Let me tell you the highlights. “Czar Nicholas II’s only son was born in 1905 with the dreaded ‘royal disease’, hemophilia, so named because it was most probably traced to England’s Queen Victoria, whose children spread the then-incurable disease to other dynastic houses in Europe. Soon after his birth, the Empress Alexandria, who was a religious fanatic, was introduced to an itinerant holy man named Grigori Rasputin who seemed to possess the power to control the boy’s bleeding. This forged an unhealthy relationship, resulting in the Empress’s ‘neurotic dependence’ on Rasputin. When war broke out in 1914, Czar Nicholas eventually assumed full command of his troops, leaving his wife to conduct affairs in St. Petersburg, the influence of Rasputin on Alexandra became acute. By late 1916, it would have been difficult to find anyone of consequence in St. Petersburg who did not think that Rasputin should be done away with. The people had lost respect for the royal couple, because they had such total confidence in Rasputin. This made Nicholas and Alexandria unfit to rule, it was widely believed.
“The plot to kill Rasputin was hatched by Vladimir Purishkevich, an ardent nationalist, and Prince Felix Yusupov, heir of one of Russia’s most important and wealthy families. The Czar’s nephew, Grand Duke Dmitrii Pavlovich, became the third member of the triumvirate.
“Yusupov was born in St. Petersburg. His mother’s family, the Yusupovs, were of Tatar origin and very wealthy. This caused her husband to take her name. There was a time when Felix Yusopov was the richest man in Russia. The Yusupov family acquired their wealth generations earlier through extensive land grants in Siberia, and owned a string of profitable mines and fur trading posts.
“In 1909-1912, he studied at University College Oxford in England, where he established the Oxford University Russian Society. He married Princess Irina of Russia, the Czar’s niece, in 1914. He surrounded himself with Oxford cronies, other Englishmen, particularly those of British intelligence, and fellow Russians.
“Yusupov invited Rasputin to dine at his home on December 29,1916, where he was given poisoned wine and cakes. Alarmed at Rasputin’s apparent immunity to the poison, Yusupov shot him in panic. After a brief period of collapse, Rasputin recovered and managed to escape into the courtyard, where another conspirator, Vladimir Purishkevich, shot him again. Finally, to make quite sure of the matter, Rasputin’s body was dropped through a hole in the ice in the Neva River, where he finally died by drowning
“As an attempt to salvage the credibility of the monarchy, Yusupov’s bold move came too late. If anything, the murder of Rasputin removed a buffer between the royal family and their critics. No longer could the nation’s ills be attributed to the mad monk. The murder did not prevent the revolution. If anything, it hastened it.”
Zehidulla, Abdulla, and Zarif could not know it at this time, but for years after that evening, Irina and Felix lived in exile in Paris after their marriage. For a time they ran a fashion house. Later and incredibly, they lived from the proceeds of a lawsuit they won against MGM studios for making a 1932 movie called Rasputin and the Empress. In the movie, the lecherous Rasputin seduces or rapes the Czar’s only niece, called ‘Princess Natasha’ in the film, but widely believed to portray Irena.
I saw the movie. Sometimes it is shown on the TCM television channel. The movie was well-made, a tribute to black-and-white film technology at that time, and the technology appears modern. The story was relatively true to history, a compelling drama, and stands up extremely well to the test of time. Although made in 1932, it was a technical triumph. The lighting was excellent, the contrast was sharp, and the audio was distinct, modern, and excellent, especially as the film depicts chants in the Russian Orthodox cathedrals. Good use was made of concurrent films documenting the massive WWI army on parade in Red Square before St. Basil’s Cathedral, and of street massacres during the Russian revolution.
A special delight for viewers was the casting of the stars in the film. For the first and only time, all three famous Barrymores were in one movie. John played Rasputin, Lionel played Prince Felix Yusopov, and Ethel played the Empress Alexandra.
In 1934, the Yusupovs won a large judgment against the movie studio for portraying Irena falsely and without her permission. They were awarded 25,000 pounds damages, an enormous sum at the time. The disclaimer that now screens at the end of every American film, ‘The preceding was a work of fiction, etc.,’ first appeared because of the legal precedent set by the Yusupov case. Felix published his memoirs, detailing the death of Rasputin, and continued to be both celebrated and infamous as the man who murdered Rasputin.
Rasputin’s daughter, Maria, sued Yusupov in a Paris court for $800,000. She condemned him as a murderer and said any decent person would be disgusted by the ferocity of Rasputin’s killing. Maria’s claim was dismissed, owing to the court having no jurisdiction over a political killing in Russia, it was ruled. By this time, she was a resident of the United States. She was a fascinating woman. After the lawsuit, she traveled as a dancer for a while, and performed with the Ringling Brothers circus, partly as a lion tamer, in the U.S. She began work as a riveter in a defense shipyard during World War II. She settled permanently in the United States in 1937 and became a United States citizen in 1945. Maria worked in defense plants until 1955 when she was forced to retire because of her age. She died in 1977 at her home in Los Angeles.
Yusupov died in Paris in 1967.
“All Tartar’s think it was a good thing,” Zehidulla said.
They sat and thought about this. In the pantheon of defeated peoples, many strange heroes appear, as well as strange acts. To this day, many mid-Asian Taters revere Yusupov. In their notional pantheon, rightly or wrongly, are also Ghengis Khan, Kublai Kahn and the Kahn’s dynasty in China. They take great pride in their working of delicate jewelry, pottery and other items thought by westerners to be western over a millennium ago. These include the invention of the saddle by Tatars.
Black Death (1917)
The Tatar-Mongols had many reasons to be proud. After Ghengis conquered China, the greatest Khan was Kublai. The Tatar rule was known as the Yuan Dynasty that lasted from 1279 to 1368.
Kublai moved the Mongol capital from Karakorum to the vicinity of Beijing. The Tatar-Mongol Empire was vast. It stretched from Eastern Europe to Korea and from northern Siberia to the northern rim of India. Instead of being tribal lords, the Tatar-Mongols ruled as if they were Chinese. That is why they adopted the dynasty name, Yuan. During this time, traffic from West to East was greatly increased. Many missionaries and merchants influenced the Chinese. The most notable foreigner who visited during this time was Marco Polo. There was Chinese resentment towards the Tatar-Mongols. They accepted them as rulers, but resented the fact that they held back able Chinese who excelled in the Confucianism tests. Eventually, the Tatar-Mongol control of China deteriorated. In 1371, the Chinese were successful in pushing the Tatar-Mongols back into Mongolia and set up the Ming Dynasty. Many consider the Yuan to be the highlight of Chinese progress. However, few Chinese would agree with this, since the Yuans were ‘foreigners’. Chinese hold that the peak was the Ming Dynasty.
Abdulla and Zarif were 15 years old by this time, and were doing many tasks reserved for agents. While the three were sitting, Black Death appeared, totally unexpected. Black Death slid into a chair as if he belonged there and began a matter-of-fact business conversation.
Zehidulla froze and looked quizzically at the dark figure that had so suddenly appeared to be with them.
Zehidulla scowled. He remembered this man from their encounter a year ago, and the hair rose on the back of his neck. There was every reason to fear this man, and that was clear on Zehidulla’s face even now. There was more to this man than current political connections to terrorists; there was also the criminal connection. Worst of all, he also had police connections and the police were notoriously corrupt.
In their meeting in 1915, Zehidulla had been distressed by Black Death and his demands that sounded so authoritative and ominous. He then began checking Black Death out. Who was he who could deliver such threats while being so cock-sure of himself? How could he survive in a time when life was so cheap?
However, the bits of information were not reassuring. There were rumors he had been in the Czar’s prison for a murder charge. It was not a political crime but a criminal charge. He was thought to be tightly connected to criminal gangs and to have ties to some police. He was known to be a political activist. These bits of data were chilling.
There was little likelihood that this man could be pushed out of the way. If those things were true, there would be terrible retaliations for any actions taken against him. He waited for Black Death’s next step. Surely, time would take care of everything, he thought.
Those fears now resurfaced as Black Death sat facing them.
Black Death reminded them that he represented the Bolshevik cause and his people needed money. If Zehidulla could not provide the money, the Bolsheviks were in a position to cause dire things to happen. The demand was even, certain, and without recourse.
Black Death sat facing them. His clothes were dark and foreboding, like his face and countenance. It was a pockmarked face, one probably stricken by smallpox or some other ailment in childhood, Abdulla thought. Even his cigar was black, a big, cheap stogie exuding a heavy pall over their table.
“It’s not easy to get that kind of money again,” said Zehidulla. “There are others to be paid. My stores can’t bear it. This is a bad time, with the war and troubles.”
“You don’t understand, Mister Agis.” He projected the words over Zehidulla and Abdulla like a fog of chloroform; not enough to drug them, but just enough to show them it was real and ominous and put them into a quasi-stupor.
“This is not about business. This is about your family.” Black Death stabbed at them with the words. “You have four daughters. You will pay us this week. If you don’t, you forfeit one of your daughters this week, and we will choose which one.”
They sat and looked in horror but they thought it did not show.
“You can’t do that?” was Zehidulla’s weak response.
“Don’t be foolish. For Mother Russia, your daughters don’t matter.” His steely stare raked Zehidulla. His hardened eyes reached out and stopped the metaphorical razor’s point just short of Zehidulla’s eyes, threatening to burst through his head.