The Kalmyk Project was the name given to Soviet plans to launch a surprise attack on the

North-West Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ) was a province of British India from 1901 to 1947, of the Dominion of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955, and of the Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Pakistan from 1970 to 2010. It was established on 9 November ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

via

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

and other Himalayan

buffer state A buffer state is a country geographically lying between two rival or potentially hostile great powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually agreed upon area lying between t ...

s in 1919–1920. It was a part of Soviet plans to destabilise the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

and other Western European imperial powers by unrest in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

. British Indian intelligence sent agents, such as F. M. Bailey, to

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

to trace the early

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

designs on India.

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

intended to nurture political upheaval in British India in its strategy against British imperialism. In 1919, it sent a diplomatic mission headed by the orientalist N. Z. Bravin. That was while Afghanistan had seen a ''coup d'état'', which placed the young Prince

Amanullah Khan Ghazi (warrior), Ghazi Amanullah Khan (Pashto/Dari: ; 1 June 1892 – 26 April 1960) was the head of state, sovereign of Afghanistan from 1919, first as Emirate of Afghanistan, Emir and after 1926 as Kingdom of Afghanistan, King, until his abdic ...

in power and precipitated the

Third Anglo-Afghan War The Third Anglo-Afghan War was a short war which began on 3 May and ended on 8 August 1919. The new Amir of the Emirate of Afghanistan Amanullah Khan declared a Jihad against the British in the hope to proclaim full independence, as well as ...

. Bravin proposed to Amanullah a military alliance against British India and a campaign for which Soviet Turkestan would bear the costs. The negotiations, however, failed to reach concrete conclusions, and the Soviet advances were also detected by British Indian intelligence. Among other works, the Bravin expedition established links at

Herat Herāt (; Dari/Pashto: هرات) is an oasis city and the third-largest city in Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Se ...

with the Austrian and German remnants of the

Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition The Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition, also known as the Kabul Mission, was a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan sent by the Central Powers in 1915–1916. The purpose was to encourage Afghanistan to declare full independence from the British Emp ...

and liaised with the Indian revolutionaries of the

Provisional Government of India The Provisional Government of India was a provisional government-in-exile established in Kabul, Afghanistan on 1 December 1915 by the Indian Independence Committee during World War I with support from the Central Powers. Its purpose was to ...

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

. A later plan considered by the Soviets had the raising a force of nearly 40,000 cavalry troops from Turkestan or the Urals and advance to India through Afghanistan, with help from Afghan tribes that rallied against Amanullah.

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

, then head of the RMC of the

RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

, was a proponent of this version of the plan. However, the plans presented their own problems. Other routes to India that were explored included plans to foment unrest in Tibet and the Himalayan buffer states of

Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...

Sikkim Sikkim ( ; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Koshi Province of Nepal in the west, and West Bengal in the ...

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

and

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

through the Buddhist

Kalmyks Kalmyks (), archaically anglicised as Calmucks (), are the only Mongolic ethnic group living in Europe, residing in the easternmost part of the European Plain. This dry steppe area, west of the lower Volga River, known among the nomads as ...

and to use the places as a staging ground for revolution in India and the shortest route to Bengal, which was the centre of the revolutionary movement in India. That was to proceed under the cover of a scientific expedition under the Indologist

Fyodor Shcherbatskoy Fyodor Ippolitovich Shcherbatskoy or Stcherbatsky (Фёдор Ипполи́тович Щербатско́й) (11 September (N.S.) 1866 – 18 March 1942), often referred to in the literature as F. Th. Stcherbatsky, was a Russian Indologist who, ...

, and it would arm the indigenous people in the North-East Frontier with modern weaponry before a regular supply could be arranged. The Kalmyk project may have been the brainchild of

Raja Mahendra Pratap Raja Mahendra Pratap (1 December 1886 — 29 April 1979) was an Indian freedom fighter, journalist, writer, revolutionary, President in the Provisional Government of India, which served as the Indian Government-in-exile during World War I from ...

, who had led the Niedermayer-Hentig Expedition into Afghanistan in 1915 and later established the nationalist

at Kabul in December that year. Pratap liaised with the Nascent Bolshevik Government and the Kaiser after 1917 to explore the scopes of a joint Soviet-German invasion of India through Afghanistan. The most notable meeting was Pratap's audience with

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

, which was arranged by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in 1919, when he met him with a group of Indian revolutionaries from the

Berlin Committee The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee () after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the committe ...

. The project had the approval of Lenin. Pratap had a strong obsession with Tibet and had made efforts as early as 1916 to penetrate into the Himalayan Kingdom to cultivate

anti-British Anti-British sentiment is the prejudice against, persecution of, discrimination against, fear of, dislike of, or hatred against the British Government, British people, or the culture of the United Kingdom. Argentina Historically, anti- ...

propaganda. His efforts were resumed after his return from Moscow in 1919. He was close to

and

Sergey Oldenburg Sergey Fyodorovich Oldenburg (; – 28 February 1934) was a Russian orientalism, orientalist who specialized in Buddhism, Buddhist studies. He was a disciple of Ivan Minayev, the founder of Russian Indology. Biography Sergey Feodorovitch Old ...

, intended to participate in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs planned expeditions to Tibet in summer 1919, and was privy to its designs for the region. However, the project was ultimately curtailed after the Czechoslovak uprising in the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway, historically known as the Great Siberian Route and often shortened to Transsib, is a large railway system that connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway ...

. Pratap himself set out alone unsuccessfully to pursue his goal in Tibet.

References

Literature

*{{Citation , last = Andreyev , first = Alexandre , year = 2003 , title = Soviet Russia and Tibet: The Debacle of Secret Diplomacy, 1918–1930s , publisher = Brill , ISBN = 90-04-12952-9 . 1919 in British India Foreign policy doctrines 1919 in international relations 1920 in international relations Foreign relations of the Soviet Union India–Soviet Union relations Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations Cancelled invasions 1920 in British India Indian independence movement Cancelled projects in Russia