Bolsheviks at the Gates of Lhasa

h e romantic expectations of the coming worldwide revolutionary holocaust and their stunning success in Mongolia inspired the Bolsheviks to roll on southward to Tibet and farther to storm the Himalayan heights on the way to India. So Tibet was the next item on their agenda.

Ideally, the goal was to replay in the Forbidden Kingdom the Mongol scenario: i nd a national liberation cause to latch onto, use existing prophecies, build up revolutionary cells, and stir the indigenous folk to rebel against an oppressor. In Mongolia, the oppressors were the Whites and Chinese merchants. In Tibet, the major candidate for this role was to be England.

In their revolutionary geopolitics, the early Bolsheviks never separat-ed Siberia and Mongolia from the rest of Inner Asia. In their dreams, a map of the entire area was soon to be painted red. Chicherin, Commissar for Foreign Af airs, envisioned Mongolia as “a solid jumping ground in the advancement of revolutionary ideas to Tibet and India.” 19 In this game of setting Inner Asia on i re, Sergei Borisov was again destined to become one of the major players. By 1921, senior Bolshevik comrades noticed the zeal of this Oirot fellow traveler, made him a member of their party, and, on top of this, awarded him a position of consultant at Chicherin’s commissariat.

In fact, Tibet and her environs were already on the Bolshevik agenda as early as the fall of 1920, before Ungern stormed into Mongolia. h e guidelines set by Comintern for the Mongol-Tibetan Section directed its agents “to gather data about the situation in Tibet and her relations with China and England, political sentiments, armed forces, and the extension of foreign inl uence.” Comintern agents were also instructed

“to i nd among Tibetans who live in Mongolia, particularly in Urga, persons who by their political convictions can be used by the section 142

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as interpreters both in Irkutsk and in Urga, and also be sent to Tibet for propaganda work.” h

e next set of guidelines issued two weeks later instructed the agents to “urgently establish connections with Tibet”

and to “urgently i nd among Tibetans who live in Mongolia” qualii ed people for propaganda work. 20 h e Bolsheviks clearly shared a naive belief that all Tibetan Buddhist areas would soon fall easily into their hands.

Although the Bolsheviks were still working to secure their victory in Mongolia, Chicherin, Shumatsky, and Borisov were already contemplating a reconnaissance expedition to Tibet in the summer of 1921. In early July, amid information about progress in Mongolia and the capture of Ungern, Shumatsky reported in a secret cable to Chicherin and Meer Trilisser (then a Comintern boss, later chief of the foreign intelligence branch of OGPU): “We are now thinking about the best route for the expedition and gathering all necessary gear. As far as the machine gun is concerned, do not send it. I will get it here. If I receive all the items I requested from you, the Tibetan expedition will depart no later than August 1.” 21 h e most important item, which Shumatsky and Borisov were impatiently awaiting, was a wireless radio set they planned to leave with the Dalai Lama to set up a direct line of communication between Lhasa and Moscow. Two young Kalmyk revolutionaries, who were undergoing a crash radio course, were expected to stay and operate the device in Lhasa.

Yet the expedition had to be postponed because the silver set aside for the Tibetan venture was spent for urgent Mongolian needs. A few more months passed before Shumatsky raised new funds to get the project going. Finally the radio set arrived in Irkutsk, and the polyglot Bolshevik cabled Chicherin: “h e radio transmitter has been received. I easily delivered it here by myself. Please make sure that those chaps who study radio and cable communication in Moscow know how this particular model works in order to be able to start it right away upon arrival in Tibet.” 22 h e former Dalai Lama tutor Agvan Dorzhiev, who was with Shumatsky and Borisov all this time, whetted the Bolsheviks’

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Tibetan appetites, trying to sell them his cherished project of uniting all Tibetan Buddhists into a large theocratic state under Red Russia’s protection.

But Tibet turned out to be a tough nut. It was not so easy to crack as Mongolia, and the Dalai Lama was not as submissive as the Bogdo-gegen. h e Bolsheviks operated under a false impression that in Tibet they could easily milk the English threat, stretching out their helping hand and drawing the populace to their side. Unfortunately, the hated English imperialists did not even want to take over Tibet, preferring instead to keep it as a buf er between India and Russia/China. It took Moscow three expeditions to realize that there was no imminent threat to Tibet from England and that the Dalai Lama was simply a shrewd diplomat who skillfully played China, Russia, and England against each other without allowing any of them to get a foothold in his country.

Given the traditional isolation of the Forbidden Kingdom, it was not hard for the Lhasa ruler to pursue this policy. At er all, still in ef ect was the 1870s’ decree, “If somebody penetrates our country, whoever he is, all possessions of this person shall be coni scated, and he shall be sewed into a skin bag and thrown into a river.” 23 Even though the Dalai Lama used some knowledge of the English to make his nation a bit more modern, he always kept them at bay.

To reach out to Tibet, the Reds used two approaches. First, they tried to lure the Dalai Lama to their side. Second, they wanted to identify within the Tibetan populace discontented groups they could incite to ignite a revolutionary holocaust. First and foremost, the Bolsheviks needed reliable information about Tibet, which still remained terra in-cognita for Moscow revolutionaries. From Dorzhiev, Shumatsky found out that one of the secretaries of the Dalai Lama was a Kalmyk monk named Sharap Tepkin. h is prompted Shumatsky, with some hesitation, to chose Vasilii Khomutnikov, a Red Army cavalry oi cer of Kalmyk origin who had fought against the Whites during the Civil War and then helped the Red Mongols build up their army, to lead the i rst mission to Lhasa. Although he was crude and could barely write, he was loyal 144

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to the cause and, most important, was a Kalmyk, which the Bolsheviks expected would ease access to the Lhasa ruler.

On September 13, 1921, Khomutnikov, with nine Kalmyk and Buryat comrades, traveled as part of a caravan of “peaceful” Mongol pilgrims and merchants, carrying i t een hundred ril es, one million cartridges, machine guns, and grenades. h

is impressive arsenal had been seized

from the bloody Baron Ungern. On top of this, using expedition funds, Khomutnikov continued to purchase ril es from local people en route.

As a military man, he might have reasoned that soon his comrades would need all these weapons to bring revolution to the Himalayan kingdom. Alarmed by such hazardous cargo, Tibetan border guards blocked the pilgrims on the border, but a reference letter from Dorzhiev to the Dalai Lama unlocked the doors. Once in Lhasa, Khomutnikov did not hide his Bolshevik identity and openly tried to sway the Dalai Lama to his side. Yet, despite generous git s of silverware, a golden clock, and a mysterious talking machine (the wireless radio), the Lhasa ruler was apprehensive about the cavalier advances of the Red emis-sary and did not want to take sides. Only at er Khomutnikov repeatedly assured the Dalai Lama that the Bolsheviks respected Buddhism did he warm a bit and even asked the Moscow visitor for Red Russian to send military instructors and to help organize the manufacturing of gunpowder—creating a well-equipped modern army was a major concern of the Dalai Lama. Khomutnikov answered that his government would be happy to accommodate the military needs of the Lhasa ruler.

Still, the cautious Dalai Lama wanted to have more time to think this over, so it was decided to talk further about military cooperation as well as about establishing diplomatic relations during a second expedition from Soviet Russia to Tibet. Khomutnikov also received permission to look around, and he talked with several people from the government and with monks, some of whom expressed strong anti-English feelings.

Encouraged by these talks and by the Dalai Lama’s promises, the Bolshevik ambassador, who spent almost three weeks in Lhasa, let the Tibetan capital on April 9, 1922.

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Comintern Agent Borisov Becomes a Lama Pilgrim h e Bolsheviks’ hopes for Tibet rose in 1924 when they learned about clashes between reformers (a military faction) who favored England and conservative lamas who resisted modernization. Chicherin and Borisov saw this as the beginning of a class war in the Himalayan kingdom between the pro-English “capitalist” faction and “progressive” clergy. So it was time to send a second mission to i nd out what was going on in Tibet and to try again to win over the Dalai Lama. Borisov, now done with his job of turning Mongolia Red, could devote himself to Tibetan matters.

To smooth this new Lhasa mission, the atheist Borisov was to act like an inl uential Buryat lama pilgrim on a mission to reach out to His Holiness on behalf of both his Siberian brethren and the Soviet government. Updating the Soviet elite about the coming expedition, Commissar for Foreign Af airs Chicherin stressed, “Comrade Borisov and his travel companions will conduct this expedition in the capacity of religious pilgrims.” 24 Besides Borisov and a few other fake lamas, the party was i lled out with several genuine Buddhist pilgrims to make the masquerade more credible. h e whole Buddhist showmanship was intended to hide Red Russia’s advances into Inner Asia. A year earlier, aggressive ef orts of the Bolsheviks to push the revolutionary tide to the Indian border had prompted the English government to threaten Moscow with shutting down all trade with Red Russia. In response, the Bolsheviks, hungry for Western technology and goods, promised to mute their revolutionary zeal.

In 1927, two years at er his trip to Lhasa, Borisov revealed the details of this second Tibetan venture in a talk at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV), which trained revolutionary activists for Eastern countries. Shumatsky, who headed this university in 1926–

27, invited his old comrade-in-arms to share his experiences. Borisov stressed that, besides his attempts to draw the Dalai Lama to the Bolsheviks’ side, he tried to court monks from several large monasteries 146

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that openly challenged Lhasa’s modernization ef orts. It was not a totally l awed strategy. Aside from the Panchen Lama’s Tashilumpho, the hub of separatism that numbered four thousand monks, there were three other major monasteries, Drepung, Sero, and Ganden, that did not want to pay taxes either and hated to lose their privileged status.

h is conservative priesthood refused to cooperate with the Lhasa government, pointing out to His Holiness that universal taxation, the army reform, and the opening of an English school and a power station went against traditional Buddhism. 25

Borisov found this monastery-grounded opposition very useful for the Bolsheviks: “Some of these heretical spiritual movements sometimes move as far as rejecting the holiness of the Dalai Lama. h ese lingering sentiments always existed, and monks are very susceptible to them.” Under these circumstances, continued the Red Oirot, “the only thing that remains to be done is to make sure these sentiments move in an appropriate direction, become organized, and develop along revolutionary lines.” 26 Borisov believed that planting revolutionary cells among junior-rank lamas was the way to organize them. In fact, he attempted to wiggle into the Drepung monastery, which had a large Buryat-Kalmyk colony with pro-Russian sentiments. h e plan was to

turn the monastery into a base for future Bolshevik operations.

h e Borisov expedition let the Mongol capital at the end of January 1924 and at er a long six-month trip i nally reached Lhasa. Despite their Buddhist disguise, English intelligence agents quickly spotted and i gured out the Red pilgrims through their own Kalmyk agents. At er Khomutnikov’s cavalier attempt to sway the Dalai Lama to the Bolsheviks’ side, the English had become paranoid and started to monitor visitors coming from Red Mongolia. h e person assigned to ward of Red pilgrims from this area was British intelligence agent Lt. Colonel Frederick Bailey, Political Oi cer in Sikkim from 1921 to 1928. h e man was perfectly cut for this type of job. A l uent speaker of Tibetan and basic Russian, he was a born explorer and a daring adventurer. Among his hobbies were mountain climbing and butterl y collecting. In fact, 147

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he immortalized his name by discovering during his Asian ventures a few unknown specimens of butterl ies. All in all, Bailey was a classical gentleman spy of the Victorian Age. A seasoned shadow warrior, he had already rubbed shoulders with his Moscow opponents, penetrating Russian Central Asia right at er the 1917 revolution to i nd out what was going in the Bolsheviks’ backyard. Bailey did not restrict himself to gathering intelligence, but also took part in organizing White resistance to the Reds. At one point, playing with i re, through a trusted contact he was even able to get taken on as an agent for the Bolshevik secret police and was sent on a clandestine mission to Bukhara, a Muslim i efdom challenging the Bolsheviks. One of his assignments was searching for the whereabouts of the English spy Bailey! 27

Like his predecessor, upon arrival in Lhasa Borisov showered the Dalai Lama with various git s: porcelain vases, golden cups, silver plates, and many other items. Although Tibetan authorities realized the party was not true Buddhist pilgrims, they let the visitors wander around, take hundreds of pictures, and i lm military installations, gun work-shops, communications, and other strategic places. h e Dalai Lama did not mind playing the Russian card for a short while to tease his English neighbors a bit. He even called these “pilgrims” harmless. Worried about such a reckless attitude, Bailey worked hard, trying to use his intelligence information to wake up the Lhasa ruler to the danger. But the Dalai Lama had his own game to play. He received the Bolshevik ambassadors, smiled at them, assured his friendship, and gave numerous promises, but he did not bind himself by any agreement establishing military ties, as the Red Russians hoped. h us, despite his long stay

in Lhasa and persistent attempts to tie His Holiness to Moscow, Borisov returned to Moscow empty-handed in May of 1925.

It was obvious that the Dalai Lama’s sympathy for Soviet Russia and the revolutionary potential of the Forbidden Kingdom were the Bolsheviks’ wishful thinking. His Holiness, who never trusted the Red Russians, simply used them as a counterbalance to British and Chinese advances.

Strange as it may sound, some in Moscow continued to believe in the 148

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Dalai Lama’s friendly disposition to the very end of the 1920s. In a 1928

memo the chief of the Eastern Department of the OGPU secret police still insisted that the “masses of Tibetan population” and their ruler looked favorably at Russia and Mongolia. 28

“Mongol Embassy” to Lhasa and Cold Reception In 1925, the Dalai Lama dismissed his war secretary, Tsarong Shape, head of the pro-English military faction, and several of his associates whom His Holiness suspected of plotting a conspiracy. h is gave the

Bolsheviks a second wind, and they were ready to continue their Tibetan advances. Chicherin optimistically predicted “the defeat of the Anglophile clique” and hoped that this time the Soviets would sway the Lhasa ruler to their side. To take advantage of the favorable political situation, a third mission would be sent to Tibet. Chicherin did not want to pro-crastinate with this project. h

e timing was too good to be missed: “An uprising has erupted in Tibet against the Anglophile clique which seized all power in the country. If we don’t hurry up, some more developments might take place, so that Britain, by means of bribes and by attracting the material interests of the [Tibetans], can usurp power again.” 29