The Insurrection in Kurdistan.
The revolt which has suddenly broken out among the Kurds in Turkey has assumed a serious form. The Turks have been compelled to mobilize an army of 40,000 men. The Angora government has had to expend a considerable sum for the purpose of suppressing the revolt, but has not up to the present achieved satisfactory results.
At the head of the insurgents is Sheik Said. Religious and national grounds are put forward as the cause of the revolt.
On the one hand the Kurds have entered into the revolt for the restoration of the Kalifate, which was abolished by the Kemalists on the 2nd March 1924, and on the other hand for the setting up of an independent Kurdistan.
The Kurds are a small nation comprising about three million people, divided among three States: Turkey, Iraq and Persia. The cultural and material situation of the Kurdish people is on a very low level; the majority of the Kurds lead nomadic or semi-nomadic lives carrying on cattle breeding. In the towns the Kurds are employed as porters and for similar work.
In old Turkey the Kurds played the same role as did the Cossacks in Tsarist Russia. They were organised in special cavalry division which were named "Hamidi", after their founder,
the sultan Abdul Hamid.
The Kurds are constantly at war with the neighbouring nomadic tribes, as well as with the government which places heavy taxes upon their flocks. They are also continually fighting
over the question of right of pasturage.
Now, after the world war, the Kurds find themselves between the devil and the deep sea. As they comprise a considerable portion of the population of the Mosul district, they have
become the object of imperialist policy and at the same time
a weapon of the imperialists. The young Turkish imperialism based its historical rights to Mosul on the fact that it is inhabited by the Kurds. The English, on the other hand, maintain that the Kurds and the Turks have nothing in common, and that Mosul should therefore fall to the capitalists. As is known, the struggle for Mosul has dragged on through the whole post-war period, and neither the Treaty of Sevres nor the Treaty of Lausanne, which took its place, nor the numerous Anglo-Turkish conferences commissions etc, have been capable of bringing about any solution of this much disputed question. Meanwhile, however, the above-mentioned rivals attempted to bring about a de facto solution of the Mosul question. The Turkish frontier guards have repeatedly attempted simply to overrun Mosul and thereby bring it into their possession. The government of Mesopotamia (Iraq) with the help of the English air fleet, replied to the Turkish attacks with regular bombardments. In the conflict between the English and Turkish imperialists the Mosul question takes an important place.
The mineral oil of Mosul has become not only in the physical sense, but also in the political sense a highly inflammable material. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company has laid down in the district of Mosul more than 300 kilometers of Oil pipes, which convey in a month more than 32 million litres of Petrol.
Already in 1919 the English had inserted a clause in the Treaty of Sevres providing the formation of an independent Kurdish State. An independent Kurdistan, however, means the end of all Turkish claims to Mosul.
After numerous collisions and mutual attacks the League of Nations finally undertook the solution of the Mosul question.
For a long time the Turks refused to trust the "honest" judgment of the League of Nations. They dreamed that they could somehow solve the question with the help of their own army.
But now the French, intervened, who had already for a long time looked askance towards Mesopotamia and the activity of the Anglo-Persian oil Company in Mosul, and very eagerly
desired to stab their English Ally in the back. For this purpose they wished to play the part of "neutral" judges.
The League of Nations, in which France plays a great role, pointed out that it must reckon with the facts. The Turks accepted this hint and endeavored to wait upon the session of the League of Nations with facts, that is, they wished to seize actual possession of Mosul. France of course shut her eyes for a time. French generals and diplomats began to visit the
Turkish capital, Angora, in short, the Mosul frontiers began to get lively.
At the moment, however, when the French began to make eyes at the Turks, the noble lords and politicians undertook а tour through Mesopotamia and caused delegations from Mosul
to come to Mesopotamia.
The result is the revolt in Kurdistan, which was made to break out punctually before the decision in the Mosul question. When the League of Nations demands facts, both sides take pains to supply facts. If the Turks cannot manage the Kurds in their own territory, then this is a proof that they would not be able to manage the Kurds in the district of Mosul. Hence the necessity for instigating the revolt of the Kurds within the territory of the Turkish republic. Of course English money and English weapons play a great role in this revolt. As a counter-thrust, France has given the Turkish government permission to send its troops through Syria. England immediately protested, giving as a reason that it is not permissible to interfere in the quarrel between the Kurds and the Turks (!).
The revolt of the Kurds is a new offensive manoeuvre of English imperialism in the Near East.
International Press Correspondence, March 26, 1925
Weekly newsletter published by the Communist International 1923-1938
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