Setting The East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia (1984)

A DANGEROUS NEW TWIST IN THE GREAT GAMEIn this gripping narrative Peter Hopkirk tells how Lenin and his revolutionary comrades tried, in the period between the two world wars, to set the East ablaze with their heady new gospel of Marxism. Their dream was to "liberate" the whole of Asia, and their starting point was British India, the richest of all imperial possessions.The bloody struggle that ensued, the full story of which has never been told, marked a dramatic new twist in the Great Game. Among the players were British Indian intelligence officers and the armed revolutionaries of the Communist International. There were also Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords-as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive.Pieced together from secret archives, intelligence reports, and the long-forgotten memoirs of the players involved, here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery. Like Hopkirk's bestselling The Great Game, its theme is ominously topical in view of the violent events that still grip this turbulent region-from the Caucasus to Afghanistan-where the Great Game never really ended. 'Let us turn our faces towards Asia', exhorted Lenin when the long-awaited revolution in Europe failed to materialize. 'The East will help us conquer the West.' Peter Hopkirk's book tells for the first time the story of the Bolshevik attempt to set the East ablaze with the heady new gospel of Marxism. Lenin's dream was to liberate the whole of Asia, but his starting point was British India. A shadowy undeclared war followed. Among the players in this new Great Game were British spies, Communist revolutionaries, Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords - as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive. Here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery, barbarism and civil war, whose violent repercussions continue to be felt in Central Asia today.