The Hajj and Socialist Revolution 163called for Soviet support and transport of foreign hajj pilgrims, as well as the
dispatch of select Soviet Muslims on the hajj as political agents. It essentially
called for a covert operation to use the pilgrimage as cover for political and
revolutionary agitations. Specifically, Chicherin proposed that “persons of
influence in Muslim quarters” in the USSR be sent to Mecca to “promote our
policy there . . . under the guise of ordinary pilgrims.” Beyond this, he proposed
to “bring the Muslim masses’ spontaneous drive for the hajj under our own
control” and provide the pilgrims with direct passage to the Red Sea on
Sovtorgflot ships.^21
Many Soviet officials opposed Chicherin’s proposal. Just when the Soviets
were setting internal borders and struggling to create stable government, some
local officials complained that the hajj traffic through their region posed a seri-
ous and as yet unmanageable sanitary problem. Some petitioned the state to
close the old routes, or at least limit access to them. Other officials opposed hajj
patronage on ideological grounds, asking an obvious question: How could a
socialist state justify support for a major Islamic ritual? The strongest resis-
tance came from the Soviet state security service (OGPU), which worried
about spies and “saboteurs” slipping into Soviet territory amid the hajj traffic.
The OGPU would frequently clash with the NKID over the Soviet hajj
campaign.
Despite widespread resistance, the Soviet state embraced the proposal. In
1926 it launched a secret, never publicly announced “hajj campaign” that
involved the collaboration of Soviet officials across vast regions and branches of
government. The NKID and Sovtorgflot took the lead in the campaign. In 1926
the NKID opened the USSR to foreign hajj pilgrims, and authorized its consuls
in Persia, Afghanistan, Jeddah, Constantinople, and Sinkiang to issue pass-
ports to hajj pilgrims. Over the next few years it would work closely with
Sovtorgflot to encourage foreign Muslims to use Soviet routes, transport, and
facilities to get to Mecca.
Sovtorgflot’s Moscow headquarters contacted its branch offices across the
Soviet Union to announce that it was “reviving” the project begun by tsarist
steamship companies to “attract pilgrims” to Russian hajj routes. Given that
the route was “relatively safe and comfortable,” the announcement noted that
there was every reason to think that restoring this route would be successful.^22
Sovtorgflot sent its announcement out to its agencies across the USSR, in Ufa,
Semipalatinsk, Samara, Batumi, Tbilisi, Nizhnii Novgorod, Orenburg, Tash-
kent, Astrakhan, Baku, and Rostov. It instructed Sovtorgflot to sell tickets to
Jeddah to foreign hajj pilgrims only. Soviet citizens were forbidden to buy them.