Table Of ContentThe Russian Revolution in Asia
The Russian Revolution in Asia: From Baku to Batavia presents a unique and
timely global history intervention into the historiography of the Russian
Revolution of 1917, marking the centenary of one of the most significant
modern revolutions.
It explores the legacies of the Revolution across the Asian continent and
maritime Southeast Asia, with a broad geographic sweep including Iran, the
Caucasus, Central Asia, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and In-
dia. It analyses how revolutionary communism intersected with a variety of
Asian contexts, from the anti-colonial movement and ethnic tensions, to in-
digenous cultural frameworks and power structures. In so doing, this volume
privileges Asian actors and perspectives, examining how Asian communities
reinterpreted the Revolution to serve unexpected ends, including national lib-
eration, regional autonomy, conflict with Russian imperial hegemony, Islamic
practice and cultural nostalgia. Methodologically, this volume breaks new
ground by incorporating research from a wide range of sources across multiple
languages, many analysed for the first time in English-language scholarship.
This book will be of use to historians of the Russian Revolution, espe-
cially those interested in understanding transnational and transregional
perspectives of its impact in Central Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as
historians of Asia more broadly. It will also appeal to those interested in the
history of Islam.
Sabine Dullin is a professor of history at Sciences Po Paris and a historian
of modern Russia and the USSR. She has published on diplomacy, transna-
tional communism and borders.
Étienne Forestier-Peyrat is an assistant professor of history, Sciences Po
Lille. His research focuses on the contemporary history of connections be-
tween Eurasia and the Middle East, diplomacy and empire.
Yuexin Rachel Lin is a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at the Depart-
ment of History, University of Exeter. Her research involves imperial con-
flict and migration in the Russian Far East and Northeast China.
Naoko Shimazu is a professor of humanities (history) at Yale-NUS Col-
lege, and a professor at the Asia Research Institute, National University of
Singapore. She is a global historian of Asia.
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The Russian Revolution in Asia
From Baku to Batavia
Edited by
Sabine Dullin,
Étienne Forestier-Peyrat,
Yuexin Rachel Lin and
Naoko Shimazu
First published 2022
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Sabine Dullin, Étienne
Forestier-Peyrat, Yuexin Rachel Lin, and Naoko Shimazu;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Sabine Dullin, Étienne Forestier-Peyrat, Yuexin Rachel
Lin, and Naoko Shimazu to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Title: The Russian Revolution in Asia : from Baku to Batavia /
edited by Sabine Dullin, Étienne Forestier-Peyrat, Yuexin Rachel
Lin, and Naoko Shimazu. Description: New York : Routledge,
2022. | Series: Routledge studies in modern history | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021023021 (print) | LCCN 2021023022 (ebook) |
Subjects: LCSH: Soviet Union—History—Revolution, 1917–1921—
Influence. | Revolution | Historiography. | Asia—Politics and
government—20th century. | Asia—History | Communism | Islam
and politics—Asia Classification: LCC DK265.9.I5 R89 2022 (print) |
LCC DK265.9.I5 (ebook) | DDC 947.084/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023021
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023022
ISBN: 978-0-367-36984-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-12438-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-35219-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429352195
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
List of figures vii
Table ix
Acknowledgements xi
List of contributors xiii
Introduction: an Asian arc of the Russian Revolution 1
YUEXIN RACHEL LIN AND NAOKO SHIMAZU
1 Transnational communism and Asia: a precocious encounter 14
SABINE DULLIN
SECTION 1
The Revolution in Russia’s borderlands 35
2 From autonomy to an Asian revolution: Koreans and Buriat-
Mongols in the Russian imperial revolution and the Soviet new
imperialism, 1917–1926 37
IVAN SABLIN
3 A colonial revolution: the revolutions of 1917 in Semirech’e 55
AMINAT CHOKOBAEVA
4 Freedom on the fence: the Caucasian borderlands and the
boundaries of revolution 70
ÉTIENNE FORESTIER-PEYRAT AND ALISA SHABLOVSKAÏA
SECTION 2
The wider arc of revolution in Asia 89
5 The Bolshevik infection: European perspectives on communism
in the Netherlands East Indies press 91
FARABI FAKIH
vi Contents
6 The Comintern, the Communist Party of the United States
and Chinese networks in the prewar Philippine communist
movement (1920–1942) 108
ANNA BELOGUROVA
7 (Un)preparing a revolution: the Comintern in the prelude to the
1926–1927 uprisings in Indonesia 122
XIE KANKAN
8 Revolutions as transnational events: the Russian Revolution
and Vietnam 138
TUONG VU
9 The Russian Revolution in the Indian nationalist imaginary 155
VINAY LAL
10 From political to cultural symbol: Beijing Moscow Restaurant
and the evolution of Sino-Soviet relations 171
ZHANG JIANHUA
SECTION 3
Islam and the Revolution 187
11 Revolutionary situation in Turkestan (February 1917–February
1918): the local dynamics of the Russian revolutions 189
CLOÉ DRIEU
12 Between backwardness and revolution: the equivocal genesis of
“crimes of ways of life” in the first Soviet Penal Code, 1919–1924 206
AUDE-CÉCILE MONNOT
13 The Russian revolutions and the emergence of the Indonesian
communist movement: understanding the relationship between
Islam and communism 225
RADITYO DHARMAPUTRA, MUHAMAD ANUGRAH PRATAMA
AND TISA LARASATI
Index 241
Figures
0.1 “A Spectre is Haunting Europe. The Spectre of
Communism”. Poster by Beno Teligater, 1920. Printed
by the Baku Workers’ Cooperative Press. Text in
Russian and Azerbaijani Turkish. Holdings of the State
Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, all
rights reserved xviii
10.1 Moscow Restaurant at its opening in 1954. Personal
collection of Zhang Jianhua 173
10.2 The main entrance to Moscow Restaurant today. Personal
collection of Zhang Jianhua 181
10.3 Another entrance to Moscow Restaurant. Personal
collection of Zhang Jianhua 183
Table
12.1 Crimes of way of life as listed in Chapter 10 of the
Addendum to the 1924 Penal Code 217
