Like his colleagues from the Altai, the reincarnated Amursana with a zeal for modernization nourished a great plan to unite all nomads of western Mongolia and western China into a large state—another attempt to revive the great Oirot confederation in its seventeenth-century borders. h ese ambitions seriously disturbed the Bogdo-gegen and his 40
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court, who were afraid that the reincarnated redeemer might widen traditional dif erences between eastern (Khalka) and western (Oirot) Mongols and eventually split the country in two. In 1914, following up on these fears and using Ja-Lama’s brutalities as an excuse, the Bogdo-gegen solicited the assistance of a Russian consul to apprehend the Avenging Lama, who formally remained a Russian subject. Ambushed and arrested by a platoon of Cossacks, Ja-Lama had to spend several years in exile in northeastern Siberia, the coldest place on earth. Yet this was not the end of the lama with a gun. At er the 1917 Russian Revolution, Ja-Lama would spread his wings once again.
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Whoever wishes to go to Shambhala must enter the right path and practice meditation. He must have faith and an irresistible urge to attain enlightenment for the benei t of all human beings.
—Taranatha
Three
Alexander Barchenko:
Budding Red Merlin and His Ancient
Science
On December 1924 in Moscow's Lubyanka Square, Gleb Bokii, chief of the Special Section, the most guarded unit of the OGPU Soviet secret police, was sitting in his oi ce, expecting three visitors. 1
h e i rst two men he knew quite well: Konstantin Vladimirov and Feodor Leismaier-Schwarz were his former colleagues from the Petrograd (St. Petersburg) branch of the secret police. Bokii himself had begun his career in Petrograd, cradle of the Communist revolution. In fact, as one of Lenin’s oldest comrades-in-arms, he had not only helped unleash the revolution but actively participated in the Bolshevik military takeover in 1917. 2 A few months at er that, Bokii had been among the few comrades who founded the Bolshevik secret services.
Yet, the coming meeting was not merely a reunion of old friends. h e former comrades were to introduce a third man, with whom the chief of the Special Section had become indirectly familiar at er leai ng through his police i le. He was Alexander Barchenko, a dropout medical student and popular mystery writer before the revolution who considered himself a scientist and did research on the human brain, telepathy, shamanism, and collective hysteria. Bokii knew that although Barchenko did not have any degrees he liked to be called Doctor and to deliver public lectures to various audiences, including Baltic Red sailors. He also 43
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noted that the “doctor” constantly talked about the mysterious land of Shambhala and wanted to bring its spiritual wisdom and psychological techniques to Red Russia. Somehow, Bokii had become intrigued with this man.
Figure 3.1. “Red Merlin” Alexander Barchenko, head of the United Labor Brotherhood and seeker of Shambhala wisdom. Prison photo, Moscow, 1937.
h ere were a reason for this fascination, and it was not because the chief of the Special Section was himself a dropout college student and shared with Barchenko the same Ukrainian origin. Recently, dark thoughts had begun to visit Bokii. He had started thinking about the fate of the whole Communist project and his role in it. Something had gone terribly wrong. A highly intelligent man and of spring of a noble lineage whose roots went back to the time of Ivan the Terrible, Bokii had inten-tionally sacrii ced his comfortable life to i ght for the liberation of the oppressed masses of the Russian Empire and had spilled other people’s blood on the altar of the revolution. At the same time, he was appalled with what happened at er the revolution. Blood, blood, so much blood!
All enemies were already subdued, but there was no change for the better. He noticed that at er the death of Lenin, the charismatic chief of the 44
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Bolshevik revolution, the new elite, many of them his closest comrades, had immediately become caught in a mortal struggle for power, slandering and dumping each other, while others helped themselves from the state’s cof ers.
Bokii, who was not good in intrigues, had become disgusted with this behavior and had withdrawn from political life, observing silently what was going on around him. 3 Instead of the envisioned working people’s paradise where all people would feel like brothers and sisters, the revolution had turned ugly. It unleashed bestial instincts of the crowd, which in its rage attacked everything and everyone that seemed
“bourgeoisie.” How to tame this crowd and attach a human face to the Communist project, how to “breed” a better race of people who would be well rounded, intelligent, and caring about each other? It would be interesting to hear what this Barchenko, whom his friends described as a talented researcher, had to say about all this. Could his claim be true that somewhere in Inner Asia lived enlightened masters who had the master key to shaping and reshaping human minds? Like all good Bolsheviks, Bokii believed in the unlimited possibilities of science and was convinced that it could resolve all kinds of problems. And imagine the possibility for intelligence work when you could read human minds at a distance. h at is what Barchenko claimed to know.
Barchenko was equally excited about the coming introductory meeting. It was not his i rst contact with the mighty spying machine that was striving to entangle all of Russia in its surveillance web. h e i rst meeting had taken place i ve years before and at i rst had given him chills. Barchenko vividly remembered that winter day at the end of 1919. A freezing wind blew through the streets of hungry Petrograd.
People were using their furniture as i rewood to keep themselves warm inside their homes. h e great city lay paralyzed in a gray ice-cold mist.
Few dared to venture outside, especially without necessity. People were afraid of being caught in the Red Terror, the campaign of intimidation and mass executions Bolsheviks had unleashed against their opponents.
At er millions died during the Great War and the subsequent Civil War, 45
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human life did not have any worth. Streets of the city were ruled by violent mobs of soldiers, workers, and peasants. Gangs of criminals, frequently posing as revolutionaries, and revolutionaries doing criminal business on the side were eagerly “coni scating” the riches of the bourgeoisie and looking for “exploiters” to liquidate. 4
Barchenko was petrii ed by the anarchy reigning in the country. He was especially stunned by the hatred the populace demonstrated toward anyone who appeared to be a well-rounded person. For masses of peasants and the urban underclass, a person who did not wear working class, peasant, or soldier’s garb, or whose talk was too bookish or who happened to wear glasses could easily become a target to be humiliated or simply shot. 5 It seemed that Barchenko had nothing to fear. He was always poor as a church mouse, and he even observed the new
“folk” dress code, wearing the old long felt soldier coat he had brought with him from the front when coming home to recuperate from his war wounds. Still, many times, when he ran across the most l amboyant representatives of the populace, their talk and behavior made him want to shrink and to be as unobtrusive as a piece of furniture. Barchenko felt defenseless before this victorious ignorance that now ran the show.
Besides, despite his masquerade, because of his poor eyesight he had to wear glasses, which exposed him as a man of intelligence. As such, he easily could be taken by a revolutionary mob as a bourgeoisie and a potential enemy. Like well-trained dogs, these rednecks could immediately sense that he did not belong to their pack.
Barchenko had a wife and a child to feed and was struggling to survive. An of er in 1919 to lecture to the Red Baltic sailors had come as a blessing. At least, it guaranteed him an in-kind payment in the form of a loaf of black bread—money had been abolished by the new regime.
h is of er had also provided an excellent chance for him to spell out his spiritual ideas about the salvation of the bleeding world. At er the Bolshevik coup, Barchenko had thought a lot about how to convince the revolutionary masses and the Bolshevik elite, which rode the violent sentiments of the crowd, to be more humane and compassionate to 46
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each other. He had felt the lectures could be a good start. h rough the Red sailors, the foot soldiers of the Bolshevik revolution, he could eventually reach out to the top Bolshevik leaders and explain to them the value of spiritual life and ancient knowledge, without which the country would go down. h
us, during the winter of 1919–20, Barchenko had begun lecturing to the sailors in Petrograd. 6 Eventually, Barchenko and two sailors who knew how to read and write, I. Grinev and S. S. Belash, sat down together to compose a petition to Georgy Chicherin, Bolshevik Commissar for Foreign Af airs, soliciting support for the project and permission for the Red sailors to accompany the scientist on an expedition to search for Shambhala. Barchenko had been on cloud nine, happy to have such associates. 7
Unfortunately, instead of support, the petition had brought Barchenko a lot of troubles. h e l eet commanders, who found out that the odd “professor” was trying to pollute the pure revolutionary minds of the sailors with false knowledge, had quickly alerted the Bolshevik secret police. h e latter had already received detailed information about Barchenko through its informers: Red Russia was gradually turning into a state where people were strongly encouraged to keep an eye on each other. Yet, instead of being arrested, Barchenko had simply been invited to the secret police headquarters for a talk. Still, one can imagine what horrii c pictures Barchenko had probably drawn for himself thinking about the coming “talk.” In the atmosphere of the Red Terror and Civil War, he was well aware that the Bolshevik secret police oi cers did not look for evidence. h e major factor that decided a person’s fate was what class he or she belonged to. Unfortunately, as the child of a notary clerk, Barchenko did not have the politically correct background to be spared if in trouble: he was neither a worker nor a peasant.
However, his fears had been false. To his amazement, among his interrogators had been Konstantin Vladimirov, a playboy bohemian who had visited one of his lectures. Vladimirov had been all politeness. As it turned out, the playboy, an intelligent Jew, worked as a secret police oi cer in a unit that combated counterrevolution. h e other two, 47
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