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Amanullah Khan
letter to
Vladimir Lenin
Contents
Diplomatic History Foreign relations of Afghanistan
Comrade Lenin met the Ambassador in his private office with the words, “I am very glad to see in the red capital of the worker and peasant government the representative of the friendly Afghan people, who are suffering and fighting against imperialist oppression.” To which the Ambassador replied: “I proffer you a friendly hand and hope that you will help the whole of the East to free itself from the yoke of European imperialism.” During the talk that followed, Lenin said that Soviet power, the power of the working people and the oppressed, was striving towards the very goal the Afghan Ambassador Extraordinary had spoken about, but that it was necessary that the Moslem East should realise this and help Soviet Russia in her great war of liberation. To this the Ambassador replied that he could assert that the Moslem East realised this and the hour was not far off when the world would see that there was no room for European imperialism in the East.
Afterwards the Ambassador stood up and with the words: “I have the honour of presenting my Sovereign’s letter to the Head of the free Russian proletarian Government and hope that the Soviet Government will give due consideration to what the Afghan Government is writing about,” he handed Lenin the Amir’s letter. Comrade Lenin answered that he accepted the letter with the greatest pleasure and promised shortly to give a reply to all the questions Afghanistan was interested in.[3]
[▲] Amanullah Khan letter to Vladimir Lenin
To the great, the humane defender of civilization, the sincere protector of Eastern peoples and the friend of the free Afghan State and nation, his Supreme Excellency the President of the great Russian Republic, may Allah preserve him.
Amanullah Khan, King of Afghanistan (from 1919 to 1929)
"On the occasion of the satisfactory ending of the recent negotiations concerning the establishment of a basis of neighbourly and friendly relations between the governments of the Russian Soviet Republic under your High Presidency and my Imperial Government, and their conclusion by a friendly treaty — I congratulate my high friend President Lenin, expressing my delight in this matter, and I hope that the aforesaid treaty will be confirmed and its provisions enter into force as speedily as possible.
In view of the fact that the Government of the Russian Soviet Republic has directed its well-intentioned purposes and sympathies towards the overthrow throughout the world of the policy of Imperialism, and especially towards the liberation of the peoples of the East from the despotism of world Imperialists and towards the establishment of conditions in which each people shall itself decide its fate as a State, these matters were in themselves reason for supreme eagerness and for the regulation of relations between my Imperial Government and the Government of the Russian Soviet Republic.
The mutual obligations, which are in the concluded treaty where it concerns that policy, with regard to the assurance and preservation of the complete independence of the Governments of Bokhara and Khiva, we consider also as a material proof of these freedom-loving ideas.
From his Highness Jemal Pasha, who has since been in our capital, we have heard of all the noble ideas and intentions of the Government of the Russian Soviet Republic with regard to the enfranchisement of the whole Eastern world, and of the fact that the aforesaid Government has concluded an alliance with the Government of Turkey, which in the present war has suffered attack of the most unjustifiable kind, and in confirmation of that alliance has given her material and moral help. These explanations and informations strengthen and confirm more than ever our hopes and beliefs in the actions of your Government.
The Afghan Government has great hopes concerning this common object, to which it attributes very great significance, and places as the very foundation of its policy this aim, humane with regard to all mankind, and is ready by all means and at all times to pursue the continuance of our mutual friendship. Wherefore the Afghan Government hopes that the sincerity of its ideas and hopes will meet with the respect and trust which it deserves on your high part. And I, in the very strongest manner, hope that, for the sake of the realization of these ideas and hopes, you, in a special way, on your high part will facilitate the efforts that are being made in the attainment of certain immediate possibilities.
The treaty we have concluded established the bases of our sincere relations, and we have no doubt that in future these bases will be still further strengthened and confirmed, and that the attainment of these high mutual aims will justify the desires of both parties.
Since it is my Imperial wish that certain misunderstandings hitherto caused by officials on both sides in the current relations of the two States should be speedily liquidated, necessary instructions have been given to the proper person. I hope that you, on your high part, will be so good as to give similar instructions to the proper persons with the object of facilitating friendly relations.
In particular, I beg you not to refuse to give your instructions that the suggestions made by our Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, concerning certain supplementary agreements, economic and with regard to consular representatives, to confirm and regularize the relations between the two States, should be accepted as speedily as possible.
I hope that the efforts we are making, the object of which is the liberation of the whole Eastern world, will be crowned with success, and I beg you to accept the expression of my extraordinary respect.
Your friend,
Amir Amanulla.[4]
[▲] Notes and References
[1]- The Afghan Embassy Extraordinary headed by the Ambassador Extraordinary Mohammad Wali-Khan arrived in Moscow on October 10, 1919. On October 12 the Ambassador, accompanied by Chief Judge of the Afghan Army Saifurrahman-Khan Commissar the Secretary of the Embassy visited the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs. He was received by the Board of the Commissariat in full atteiidariee. On October14 Lenin received the embassy in the presence of representatives of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. The talk between the Ambassador and Lenin lasted over half an hour.
[2]- Published: Pravda No. 232 and Izvestia No. 232, October 17, 1919. Printed from the Pravda text.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 42, page 146.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters
[3]- Replies to the questions raised in the letter of Amir Amanullah Khan were given in the Soviet Government’s letter dated November 27, 1919, signed by Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars V. I. Lenin.
[4]- Translation appeared in the 1922 Muslim World Review, crediting the Manchester Guardian. Written December, 1920.
