land, and his wild tribesmen, pouring
across the border, set the North-West Frontier on fire. After some hard
fighting the British succeeded in repelling the Afghan invasion, and
Amanullah was constrained to make peace. But Britain obviously dared not
press Amanullah too hard, for in the peace treaty the Ameer was released
from his previous obligation not to maintain diplomatic relations with
other nations than British India. Amanullah promptly aired his
independence by maintaining ostentatious relations with Moscow. As a
matter of fact, the Bolsheviki had by this time established an important
propagandist subcentre in Russian Turkestan, not far from the Afghan
border, and this bureau's activities of course envisaged not merely
Afghanistan but the wider field of India as well.[301]

During 1920 Bolshevik activities became still more pronounced throughout
the Near and Middle East. We have already seen how powerfully Bolshevik
Russia supported the Turkish and Persian nationalist movements. In fact,
the reckless short-sightedness of Entente policy was driving into
Lenin's arms multitudes of nationalists to whom the internationalist
theories of Moscow were personally abhorrent. For example, the head of
the Afghan mission to Moscow thus frankly expressed his reasons for
friendship with Soviet Russia, in an interview printed by the official
Soviet organ, _Izvestia_: "I am neither Communist nor Socialist, but my
political programme so far is the expulsion of the English from Asia. I
am an irreconcilable enemy of European capitalism in Asia, the chief
representatives of which are the English. On this point I coincide with
the Communists, and in this respect we are your natural allies....
Afghanistan, like India, does not represent a capitalist state, and it
is very unlikely that even a parliamentary regime will take deep root in
these countries. It is so far difficult to say how subsequent events
will develop. I only know that the renowned address of the Soviet
Government to all nations, with its appeal to them to combat capitalists
(and for us a capitalist is synonymous with the word foreigner, or, to
be more exact, an Englishman), had an enormous effect on us. A still
greater effect was produced by Russia's annulment of all the secret
treaties enforced by the imperialistic governments, and by the
proclaiming of the right of all nations, no matter how small, to
determine their own destiny. This act rallied around Soviet Russia