Bolsheviks Remove Enver Pasha from the Stage

The victory of the Kemalists over the Greeks in Sakarya had thwarted the plans of Enver Pasha and Moscow. A British agent, referred to as "A.2", who claimed to have met personally with most of the nationalist leaders in Ankara, returned to Istanbul in December 1921 and reported that Arif Bey, the head of the Kemalists' secret political department, had been sent on a special mission from Ankara to Moscow in early December, after prolonged meetings with Mustafa Kemal, Yusuf Kemal, Refet Pasha and Fethi Bey; he claimed that his main objectives were as follows: To give some instructions to Ali Fuat Pasha about the dissatisfaction in Moscow caused by the Ankara Agreement between the French and the Kemalists, and to investigate the activities of Enver Pasha[87]. After Arif Bey's mission in Moscow was completed, the Enverist movement came to an end, if only temporarily, and it was understood that Enver had returned to Moscow. The possibility of a break in relations between Mustafa Kemal and the Bolsheviks had apparently disappeared, and Moscow and Ankara seemed to have succeeded once again in resolving their difficulties and avoiding a clash.


The June 22, 1922 British Secret Intelligence Report alleged that Mustafa Kemal, deeply concerned about Russian intentions, assured the Russians that he would not sign any agreement with the Entente Powers that would jeopardize the common interests of Nationalist Turkey and Bolshevik Russia; that he hoped he would not be forced to declare open adherence to Bolshevik principles; and that any necessary changes in the administration of Anatolia should be made gradually.

It was claimed that Mustafa Kemal proposed these undertakings to the Soviet leadership personally and in writing and that even Ali Fuat, who was based in Moscow, was not aware of this. According to the same intelligence report, Kemal's "secret" undertaking proposal was carried to Moscow by his young aide Sami Bey (whereas an earlier British intelligence report had mentioned Arif Bey as the courier). Satisfied with this assurance, the Bolshevik leaders sent Aralov and General Frünze to Ankara a little later, implementing a very ingenious plan to prevent Enver's attempts to disturb Ankara. They organized a form of uprising against him in Ba- tum and gave the impression that this uprising was the work of Caucasian nationalists.


This plan was being implemented with such skill that Enver, who was surprised by this, could not cope with the situation. Mustafa Kemal, who allegedly received information from the Russians, sent Colonel Sami to Trabzon in order to withdraw the two army regiments that had sided with Enver and to deal with the Mudafaa-i Hukuk Societies. Sami successfully carried out his mission, capturing and imprisoning Yahya, the housekeeper of the boatmen in Trabzon. The British intelligence report continued as follows: "Despite the protests of Karabekir, who had no idea what was going on, a reign of terror was going on in the Eastern Provinces." Seeing that all his plans had failed, Enver returned to Moscow; his partisans were disbanding. In Moscow, the Bolsheviks welcomed him and, attributing his failure to his lack of organization, promised to help him again in the future[88]. Thus, following Ankara's complaints, the Russians were forced to remove Enver Pasha and his henchmen from the scene, and the Soviet diplomatic representative in Ankara, Natzarenus, who had conspired with Enver's supporters, was later dismissed from his post at the request of the UNM administration[89].

Enver Pasha, most of whose supporters in Anatolia were arrested,[90] was persuaded by the Russian leaders to go to Turkestan to help suppress a very serious uprising against the Bolsheviks among the Muslims in Central Asia[91]; once there, one of his own supporters, Haji Sami, convinced him to lead the revolutionaries known as "Basmachi" to fight against the Russians[92]; he was later shot and killed by the Russians while fighting in Turkestan