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Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an…
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Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an Empire in Asia (Oxford Paperbacks) (original 1984; edition 1986)

by Peter Hopkirk (Author)

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381866,406 (4.11)9
“Setting the East Ablaze” (1984) is another book by Peter Hopkirk, and could well have been called The Great Game, part 2 (even though it was written before his book, The Great Game). It deals with the arrival of Bolshevism in Central Asia, and the renewed threat to British India. Tashkent features prominently, as the initially chaotic Bolshevist base from where both Samarkand and Bukhara were subdued, as well as the subversive strategy against British India was conducted. Equally thrilling book, which reads like another adventure story, with occasional sidetrips to Mongolia and Chinese Kashgar. ( )
1 vote theonearmedcrab | Jan 13, 2016 |
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This is a very interesting book about a geographical area that was and still is sort of a powderkeg best left alone. Of course, as current politics shows us that cannot happen due to the area's strategic position. World powers keep stirring up mayhem in this highly unstable area.

Although focus is on attempts of Bolsheviks to bring the revolution to the East - East being nearest to the what was then Tsarist Russia taken by Bolsheviks - Hopkirk draws a very vivid picture of Bolsheviks, Tsarist Whites, British, China, Afghanistan and other forces - local or international fighting to keep their foothold in the area during the 1910-1920's periods and not holding up in any way - massacres of thousands are common thing and it seems that power cannot be obtained or retaken without enormous price in human life.

Highly recommended, writers style is excellent and you wont be able to put down the book until you get to the very last page. ( )
  Zare | Jan 23, 2024 |
NA
  pszolovits | Feb 3, 2021 |
This is the book that introduced me to Peter Hopkirk. "Setting the East ablaze", like other Hopkirk books I have since read, read like an adventure story rather than a dry history.

Following the Russian Revolution, Asia was seen as the next domino to fall to the Communists. This led to men with ties to various political theories trying to get the jump on each other, popping up in small, remote villages and displaying derring do wherever possible.

We know the result of all this but "Setting the East ablaze" admirably sets out who was who and what they did. ( )
  MiaCulpa | Mar 3, 2016 |
“Setting the East Ablaze” (1984) is another book by Peter Hopkirk, and could well have been called The Great Game, part 2 (even though it was written before his book, The Great Game). It deals with the arrival of Bolshevism in Central Asia, and the renewed threat to British India. Tashkent features prominently, as the initially chaotic Bolshevist base from where both Samarkand and Bukhara were subdued, as well as the subversive strategy against British India was conducted. Equally thrilling book, which reads like another adventure story, with occasional sidetrips to Mongolia and Chinese Kashgar. ( )
1 vote theonearmedcrab | Jan 13, 2016 |
Hopkirk's special expertise is the history of that not very well known, but hugely significant, territory of Western China and Central Asia. Hopkirk tells the story in this and two previous books, of how Britain, China and Russia fought for control and influence over this region, most often using the tools of espionage, but from time to time with the use of armed bands and armies. This is not, however, a dry history of events, but a gathering of tales of extraordinary individual adventures and sympathetic portraits of places and peoples who are still in large part very much under the control of foreign powers. For the sake of understanding some of the earlier history of Western involvement in Afghanistan this book is invaluable, but it actually succeeds at every level. This is history written so vividly that it could be the front page headlines of todays newspaper's (as indeed it was then and still is now). Highly recommended. ( )
1 vote nandadevi | Sep 11, 2012 |
The Soviet Union tries to establish Soviet rule in Central Asia as the first step in overthrowing British rule in India. Hopkirk centres his story on the roles of individuals, starting with Colonel Bailey, "an absolutely first-class man", a spy so talented that he was hired by the Soviets to liquidate himself.

The history itself was fascinating, from the earliest days of the Soviet Union until Indian independence. I disliked the tone of the book, far too breezy for describing massacres, almost schoolboyish. It has however, made me want to know more. ( )
  pamelad | Mar 12, 2009 |
Notable for including the exploits of Col F. M. Bailey (see also Mission To Tashkent). A spy so deceptive that the Bolsheviks hired him to hunt for himself! ( )
  jontseng | Jun 29, 2007 |
This is one of those rare books that demands to be read. I finished it in a single sitting and had to call in sick to work the next morning because I hadn’t slept.

Hopkirk, a former soldier and newsman for ITN and the Times, has been studying Central Asia for years and has made the shadow war between the British and Russian empires in the region his particular subject.

His earlier book, The Great Game, covered the period up until the signing of the “spheres of influence” agreement in the 1900s. Setting the East Ablaze takes up the tale in the dying days of the Great War, following the exploits of an unofficial British mission sent to Central Asia to discover Bolshevik intentions there. The result is a fantastic tale of bandits, secret agents, white Russians generals, Soviet commissars, hair raising escapes and desperate battles. Hopkirk has often been compared to John Buchan, the author of Greenmantle and The Thirty Nine Steps, and this certainly holds up as he manages his material with the dash and verve of a novelist.

Most of Hopkirk’s information comes from recently declassified files from British military intelligence, where Buchan worked during the war, and it would be a dull fellow indeed who could produce a bad book from such extraordinary raw material. The two characters that particularly stand out for me are the “Mad Baron” von Ungern-Sternberg and Colonel Bailey of British intelligence.

Von Ungern-Sternberg was an anti-bolshevik, who raised an army, fought against both Whites and Reds during the Russian Civil War and occasionally committed acts of such medieval cruelty that he is a name to frighten children with in the area even to this day. Putting people who have offended you in the boiler of your armoured train and then eating their remains, may not be a great system of man management, but it certainly makes for a great yarn. Though I suppose it helps if you think that you’re the reincarnation of the Buddha.

While Von Ungern-Sternberg is a superb villain, Colonel Bailey is a hero in the classic Buchan mold. When he discovers that his mission has been compromised and he and his friends must escape, he help his comrades (one of whom brought his wife!) to safety and then goes on the run himself, gathering intelligence as he goes. On the run for five months, he endures many hardships and has a great many extraordinary adventures, before escaping through the use of a very unusual ruse*.

If you like tales of courage and adventure, this is the book for you. If not, read it anyway. To dislike this marvelous book is just to prove that you have no poetry in your soul.

*You’ll have to read the book to find out. It’s one of the highlights and I couldn’t spoil it for you. ( )
5 vote thequestingvole | Sep 13, 2006 |
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