Amanullah Khan letter to Vladimir Lenin (1920)
by Amanullah Khan,
Muslim World Review, crediting the Manchester Guardian. Written December, 1920.
To the great, the humane defender of civilization, the sincere protector of Eastern peoples and the friend of the free Afghan State and nation, his Supreme Excellency the President of the great Russian Republic, may Allah preserve him.
“On the occasion of the satisfactory ending of the recent negotiations concerning the establishment of a basis of neighbourly and friendly relations between the governments of the Russian Soviet Republic under your High Presidency and my Imperial Government, and their conclusion by a friendly treaty — I congratulate my high friend President Lenin, expressing my delight in this matter, and I hope that the aforesaid treaty will be confirmed and its provisions enter into force as speedily as possible.
In view of the fact that the Government of the Russian Soviet Republic has directed its well-intentioned purposes and sympathies towards the overthrow throughout the world of the policy of Imperialism, and especially towards the liberation of the peoples of the East from the despotism of world Imperialists and towards the establishment of conditions in which each people shall itself decide its fate as a State, these matters were in themselves reason for supreme eagerness and for the regulation of relations between my Imperial Government and the Government of the Russian Soviet Republic.
The mutual obligations, which are in the concluded treaty where it concerns that policy, with regard to the assurance and preservation of the complete independence of the Governments of Bokhara and Khiva, we consider also as a material proof of these freedom-loving ideas.
From his Highness Jemal Pasha, who has since been in our capital, we have heard of all the noble ideas and intentions of the Government of the Russian Soviet Republic with regard to the enfranchisement of the whole Eastern world, and of the fact that the aforesaid Government has concluded an alliance with the Government of Turkey, which in the present war has suffered attack of the most unjustifiable kind, and in confirmation of that alliance has given her material and moral help. These explanations and informations strengthen and confirm more than ever our hopes and beliefs in the actions of your Government.
The Afghan Government has great hopes concerning this common object, to which it attributes very great significance, and places as the very foundation of its policy this aim, humane with regard to all mankind, and is ready by all means and at all times to pursue the continuance of our mutual friendship. Wherefore the Afghan Government hopes that the sincerity of its ideas and hopes will meet with the respect and trust which it deserves on your high part. And I, in the very strongest manner, hope that, for the sake of the realization of these ideas and hopes, you, in a special way, on your high part will facilitate the efforts that are being made in the attainment of certain immediate possibilities.
The treaty we have concluded established the bases of our sincere relations, and we have no doubt that in future these bases will be still further strengthened and confirmed, and that the attainment of these high mutual aims will justify the desires of both parties.
Since it is my Imperial wish that certain misunderstandings hitherto caused by officials on both sides in the current relations of the two States should be speedily liquidated, necessary instructions have been given to the proper person. I hope that you, on your high part, will be so good as to give similar instructions to the proper persons with the object of facilitating friendly relations.
In particular, I beg you not to refuse to give your instructions that the suggestions made by our Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, concerning certain supplementary agreements, economic and with regard to consular representatives, to confirm and regularize the relations between the two States, should be accepted as speedily as possible.
I hope that the efforts we are making, the object of which is the liberation of the whole Eastern world, will be crowned with success, and I beg you to accept the expression of my extraordinary respect.
Your friend,
Amir Amanulla.