The Great Terror Ë 163
By contrast, Pavel Miliukov, a liberal Russian leader in exile, reached the curious
conclusion that in the last analysis, Stalin was a defender of Russia’s (not the Soviet
Union’s) national interests, and so came to terms with the Soviet government. He even
implicitly supported the Moscow show trials.¹⁴⁶In fact, as early as 1934 Bammat had
criticized Miliukov and like-minded Russians of morally no longer being émigrés.¹⁴⁷
Others, such as Mustafa Chokai (Chokaev, Shokai, Chokai-ogly, 1890–1941), a Kazakh
émigré who was also a leader of the Promethean movement, denounced Japan for
“empty propaganda” directed at the Soviet Muslim population.¹⁴⁸In 1938 Chokai went
so far as to criticize Japan’s support of pan-Islamism as anachronistic: it only aroused
the suspicions of Britain, France, and “Russia” (the Soviet Union)!¹⁴⁹Such a state-
ment, extraordinarily strange coming from a Promethean leader, no doubt re ected
the fear created by the Great Terror in their homelands. At the time Japan was force-
fully courting Chokai away from the Promethean movement to join Bammat’s Cauca-
sus group;¹⁵⁰it is unlikely that Japan succeeded.
According to o cial Soviet statistics, in 1937 and 1938 more than 1.3 million peo-
ple were arrested for political crimes. Of them, more than 680,000 were sentenced
to death. Almost certainly the number of executions is underestimated: the real g-
ure may be closer to 1 million.¹⁵¹This monumental scale of terror was meted out to
a powerless population who were undoubtedly intimidated. At the time Polish in-
telligence reported “a massive border crossing in Adjara (in today’s Georgia) in 1937
as a result of rebellions caused by intensifying political repression in 1936 and 1937.
In turn, the Soviet Union was said to have sent its own agents to Kurdistan to in-
cite anti-Turkish rebellions. Two Soviet agents were caught and executed by Turkey
in 1937.”¹⁵²The Terror caused, according to its executioner, secret police chief Niko-
lai Ezhov himself, “great anxiety, incomprehension,” “dissatisfaction with the Soviet
government, conversations about the proximity of war, and a strong desire for emi-
gration.” Poland, Germany, Iran, Greece and other governments led protests against
Moscow. The strongest protest came from Iran (as Persia was renamed in 1935), which
complained about the repression (arrest, exile, and con scation of property) of Ira-
nian citizens in the Soviet Union. (Among the deported were former Iranian members
146 See Jens Petter Nielsen’s revealing book:Miliukov i Stalin: O politicheskoi evoliutsii Miliukova v
emigratsii (1918-1943)(Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo, Slavisk-Baltisk Institutt, 1983).
147 See Mamoulia, Donogo, and Vatchagaev,Gaidar Bammat i zhurnal “Kavkaz”, 54.
148 See, for instance, Mustafa Chokai’s bitter denunciation of Japan: CAW, I.303.4.5500 (5 November
1937).
149 JACAR, reference code: B02031852300 (Japanese diplomatic telegram of 1 June 1938 from Geneva
to Tokyo).
150 See Chokaev’s letter to A.I. Chkhenkeli dated 21 April 1939: BDIC, Micro lm 881, roll 123.
151 See Michael Ellman, “Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments.”Europe–Asia Studies54, no.
7 (November 2002), 1151-1172.
152 See Hiroaki Kuromiya,The Voices of the Dead: Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s(New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2007), 94–95.