Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an Empire in Asia [Paperback]

Peter Hopkirk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2006

"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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amid the sand and rock of Central Asia, Russia and England spent much of the 19th century playing what historians have come to call the Great Game: the struggle for control over transcontinental routes from Europe to the Far East. When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, Lenin continued to press Russian--now Soviet--claims to faraway, fabled places such as Samarkand and Hotan. The intrigues of his agents and their British counterparts, swashbucklers all, could come from a modern spy novel, and they make for fascinating reading in Peter Hopkirk's vivid account. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

A real-life tale of espionage and adventure, Hopkirk's latest concerns Soviet attempts to sponsor communist revolution in Asia and the British secret agent who opposed them.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: John Murray (March 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0719564506
• ISBN-13: 978-0719564505
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,213,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Hopkirk has traveled widely in the regions where his six books are set - Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India and Pakistan, Iran, and Eastern Turkey. He has worked as an ITN reporter, the New York correspondent of the old Daily Express, and - for twenty years - on The Times. No stranger to misadventure, he has twice been held in secret police cells and has also been hijacked by Arab terrorists. His works have been translated into fourteen languages.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Carries the story on from The Great Game--but not as well, December 28, 2002

By 

Alan Mills (Chicago, Illinois USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Setting the East Ablaze: Lenins Dream of an Empire in Asia (Paperback)

Hopkirk is a mater story teller. Anyone who cares about how Afghanistan and the surrounding countries ended up the way they did must read The Great Game--Hopkirk's gripping description of the battle between Russia and England for control of Central Asia--a hint: they both lost.

This volume picks up the story with the Russian Revolution. Again, Hopkirk does an excellent job of out lining the players, the global politics, and how it all impacted on this traditional "crossroads of the world". Here, the focus is on Lenin, and Russia's (successful) attempt to claim/re-claim Central asia as its own.

My criticisim is that the story is not nearly as gripping as a story as was the Great Game. There are superb vignettes, but the overall narrative is simply not as good.

However, if you want to know why Russia was willing to dvote a decade (1980 to 1990) to its war in Afghanistan, which set the stage for the Taliban and Al Queda, then I know of no better book.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another superb adventure, August 3, 2000

By 

omarbukka (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Setting the East Ablaze: Lenins Dream of an Empire in Asia (Paperback)

I liked this book even better than Hopkirk's The Great Game, since it give such an intimate and detailed story of a few individuals. These extraordinary tales are far more exciting than any fiction. Rather than being a unified book, it is more like a collection of account of several different stories. Most of the stories (not quite all) are extremely compelling. The photographs are also revealing.

The book contains unforgettable images and circumstances. A few of my favorites: the plight of WWI POWs stranded in the midst of the Russian civil war, the rescue from the Soviet prison, the murderously insane Russian general, and the hapless Indian revolutionaries whose Soviet-supplied invisible ink turned into very visible ink in the humid climate of India. Particularly striking was the contrast of the Bolshevik purges and executions, and the British response to treasonous Indians (the Bolshevik-trained Indians received extremely light sentences after an extended trial).

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant, October 17, 2001

By 

M. Mcfarland - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Setting the East Ablaze: Lenins Dream of an Empire in Asia (Paperback)

One of the best books I have read in years. Possibly better than Hopkirk's original 'The Great Game'. While this is the tale of about espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines in Central Asia, it reads like an adventure novel.

The action centres around immediate aftermath of the Russian revolution, just when the new soviet state was most intent on exporting revolution to the rest of the world. Hopkirk is at his best when he introduces Russia's nemesis in Central Asia - a certain Colonel Frederick Bailey, 'Great Game' hero and butterfly collector. Totally bonkers, in a truly British way. It's so exciting that you can scarcely believe that it's true - apparently it is.

Bailey, a british agent from the Raj, is sent to Central Asia to foil Soviet attempts to expand their empire south. Along the way he evades hit squads, execution chambers and even manages to circulate amongst the enemy by joining their own secret service and working as a double agent. About half way through, Bailey evenually gets back to India and drops out of sight - much to the frustration of the Soviets, but not before one final shoot out at the border post.

Hopkirk then sets off on another romp from Moscow to the Pacific Ocean, detailing the struggle between the Whites, the Reds and their respective supporters in the international community. This time there are multiple players -: the Soviet Comintern, Indian Communists, Turkish Nationalists, White Russians, British agents fighting for the Whites and some very, very cruel members of God's creation. Everything swirls around in a vast game where everyone is out to grab what they can from the dismembered Russian empire.

Almost everyone in here will be new to most readers - with the exception of Mikhael Borodin - but that shouldn't detract from an excellent piece of story telling. This is history the way it should be written. Five Stars is five too few.