Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
turned to writing plays, film scripts, as well as
songs, which brought him the greatest recogni-
tion. He became a popular singer of satirical bal-
lads, accompanying himself on the guitar. Like
Bulat
OKUDZHAVA
and Vladimir
VYSOTSKY
, Galich
enjoyed an immense popularity that was in
great part due to the growing availability of tape
recorders, which made it possible for his songs to
be recorded and duplicated. This was the era of
magnitizdat,
uncensored recordings of popular
songs that circulated clandestinely, much like
the better-known phenomenon of
samizdat
(self-
publishing). Eventually, the recordings reached
the wrong hands, because he was severely repri-
manded in 1968 and expelled from the Union of
Writers and the Union of Cinematographers in
1971, making it almost impossible for him to
gain legal employment. He was forced to emi-
grate in 1974, settling first in Munich, then in
Paris. He worked with Radio Liberty, broadcast-
ing regularly to the Soviet Union. He died in
Paris on December 15, 1977, when he acciden-
tally electrocuted himself while “fumbling” with
his stereo equipment. Under
GORBACHEV
's policy
of glasnost (openness), he was rehabilitated and
posthumously reinstated in the Union of Cine-
matographers in 1988.
that all oppressed colonial peoples should coop-
erate with the
BOLSHEVIKS
by forming national
liberation movements, an idea that was later
developed more extensively by Mao Zedong
and Ho Chi Minh. While the Bolsheviks were
engaged in consolidating and spreading Soviet
power to the borderlands of the former Russian
Empire, they supported Galiev's ideas, recog-
nized an independent Muslim Communist Party,
and allowed for a Muslim Military College
under Galiev's direction. Some of Galiev's other
ideas, notably the creation of an autonomous
Islamic Soviet Socialist Republic, began to take a
pan-Islamic coloration that diverged from the
increasingly nationalist-statist agenda of the Bol-
shevik Party. By 1923, with the establishment of
Soviet power in the Turkestan region, Galiev's
views now posed a threat to Bolshevik rule and
hegemony in the area. He was first arrested in
May 1923, at Stalin's instigation, and accused of
“national deviation.” Released soon after owing
to international pressure, he was rearrested in
November 1923 on a charge of treason and sen-
tenced to 10 years' hard labor. In 1928 he was
sent to the notorious Solovki labor camp near
the White Sea. Galiev was rearrested in early
1938, sentenced to death in December 1939, and
executed in January 1940.
Galiev, Sultan Mirsaid
(1880-1940)
revolutionary
The most famous Muslim national Communist
in the Soviet Union, Galiev attempted to graft on
aspects of Islamic teaching to Marxism-Lenin-
ism, thereby giving it a distinctly non-European
national face. Of Tatar ethnicity, he was born in
present-day Bashkortostan and taught and pub-
lished in Ufa. He took part in the Muslim Con-
gresses of May and July 1917, and joined the
Bolshevik Party after the
OCTOBER REVOLUTION
.
In January 1918, he was appointed chair of the
newly created Central Muslim Commissariat. As
member of the inner collegium of the People's
Commissariat of Nationalities, he worked closely
with its commissar,
STALIN
. Drawing from
LENIN
's
belief that imperialism was the highest stage of
capitalism, Galiev argued to the Muslim world
Gapon, Georgii Apollonovich
(1870-1906)
priest and trade union leader
An Orthodox priest who became an influential
trade union leader at the instigation of the St.
Petersburg police, Father Gapon's career cap-
tures some of the contradictions of the attempts
by some in the government to promote “police
socialism.” Seeking to undermine Marxist influ-
ence over the growing urban proletariat, police
officials under the influence of Sergei
ZUBATOV
developed the strategy known as “police social-
ism.” They encouraged the formation of trade
unions that would press for what they consid-
ered to be fair workers' demands, but without
the broader revolutionary agenda of the socialist
movement. In 1903, Father Gapon founded the
Search WWH ::
Custom Search