Customer Reviews

Setting the East Ablaze: Lenins Dream of an Empire in Asia

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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).

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.

This is an instant classic! But some of you may be wondering: what's so great about an obscure conflict in an obscure land?
For a start there's the psychopathic White Russian general, Ungern-Sternberg, the "Mad Baron", who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, and who dreams of conquering Russia at the head of a Mongol army. There's Enver Pasha, the former Ottoman Minister of War recruited by the Bolsheviks, but soon betraying them in pursuit of his dream - a new Turkish empire in Central Asia. For Britain the greatest threat comes from the new Russia of Lenin and Trotsky, once more playing hard at the Great Game, eager to undermine Britain by striking at India. There are Chinese Warlords, defeated White Russian armies, Muslim rebels, bandits, an ambitious Afghan king, secret agents, Tibetan bandits, and always the possibility of a British expedition.
At the geographical centre of all this is the Chinese province of Sinkiang - a land surrounded on 3 sides by soaring mountain ranges, at its heart the world's most inhospitable desert, littered with lost cities. Between mountains and desert lies a ring of walled towns where travellers cross with a single step from an arid expanse of sand and gravel into a world of trickling streams and shady groves. Along the ancient Silk Road between the towns trudge trade caravans of camels, donkeys, huge-wheeled carts and the occasional motor car or lorry. In the towns among the narrow streets, crumbling buildings, and bustling markets Indian traders watch, sending reports back to British India...
Well, there it is, and as I have said before, you must get this book! The gripping narrative just makes you unable to put the book down until you have finished, and then it forces you to read it again! Get this book quickly!

A nice followup read to "The Great Game" (also by Hopkirk), this book details the efforts between the World Wars by the Soviet Union to spread Marxism to the east. Like The Great Game, there are dashing adventurers, wily spies, lunatics, and odd characters aplenty. There are some great individual stories, such as the British agent who the Soviets hired to find himself, and several crackpots with serious delusions of grandeur. What really emerges is how tenuous Moscow's hold was on its further-flung regions, as Bolsheviks, White Russians, and native people vied for control of these regions. Ultimately, the books is less cohesive and thus less satisfying than "The Great Game" (and about half the size!).

Peter Hopkirk's third installment of the Great game is as masterful as the first two. Lenin's drive to take over the central Asian territories and hold the oil there inspires a true terror of what the great game had evolved into. From continuing intrigued in Afghanistan to the development of Iran as a major actor in the region come directly from this time period. The great game is one of the most interesting events in history and no one tells it better than Hopkirk. You will not believe that this book is true by the time you are done. It is utterly amazing what people will do for their countries when they are called upon to serve. The adventures of the great game should be read by everyone.

This is another of Peter Hopkirk's wonderful books about Central Asia, mostly dealing with players in the Great Game. This volume takes up the story after World War One, when the Bolsheviks decided they would attempt to the keep the provinces of Tsarist Russia intact and part of the Soviet Union, all in the name of anti-imperialism. There were also various Chinese, Turkic, and British forces at work in the power void which resulted in Central Asia after the collapse of the Russian Empire.

Like other Hopkirk books, this is not dry history, but a series of compelling portraits of individual players in the intrigues of the time. These include the "Mad Baron", von Ungern-Sternberg, a White Russian who thought he was the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, and attempted to recreate the latter's Empire in an orgy of murder and destruction. There is also the British super-spy Bailey, who survived for months behind Bolshevik lines as they actively pursued him. At one point he assumed the disguise of an Albanian (correctly assuming that there would likely be no one in Central Asia to check his linguistic bona fides), became a Soviet agent, and was given as one of his tasks gathering information about the British spy Bailey. Another character was Enver Pasha, the cosmopolitan former Ottoman leader, who tried to create a pan-Turkic state in central Asia, to stretch from Anatolia to Chinese Turkestan.

An excellent book.

Hopkirk hooked me with his "Great Game" book, which brimmed with fascinating characters in the competition between England and Russia in Central Asia. This book is equally well-done and its players are, if anything, even more fascinating than the earlier work. You couldn't make people like this up if you were writing a novel. The way they succumbed to avarice or power and swam with or against the tide of history in a most bloody fashion is spellbinding. Hopkirk is that rare author who brings important history to us in a most palatable fashion. A great read.

Mr. Hopkirk does it again in this great book about Asia in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Well-written, Setting the East Ablaze reads like an adventure novel, discussing the initial efforts of the Bolsheviks to secure the Muslim territories of the Tsar for themselves and then attempting to spread their communist creed to India, Mongolia, Sinkiang and China itself. The story is a fantastic one of secret agents, revolutionaries, gentlemen-explorers, warlords, madmen and opportunities lost and found. Lenin wanted to use Asia to trigger a communist revolution in Europe but in the end the most significant accomplishment the Reds had to show for their efforts was to turn the central Asian territories of the Russian Empire into Soviet Republics of the USSR. Illustrated with maps and photographs.

A very well written, well documented book. Having read Col. Bailey's book, I can say that this one is far more interesting and covers a wider picture.
The struggle Lenin put to destroy the British Empire between wars is very well descripted and is the following book to read after The Great Game to understand the geopolitics behind the conflict in Central Asia that is still going on.
Full of adventure and danger, is both academical and a great piece of entertaiment.
I strongly recommend it.