Homage to Majesty

Not unto glamorous "Holy Russia" but into the drab, mechanized Soviet Union came last week the first Reigning Sovereign to enter Moscow since the days of Tsar Nicholas the Last. The visiting potentate was His Majesty, King Amanullah of Afghanistan, styled by his Moslem subjects, "The Peace of God." Accompanied by his Queen, Thuraya, "The Starry One," he is now completing a tour of the Occident (TIME, Jan. 23 et seq.) which has taken him on state visits to Rome, Paris, Berlin, London and several smaller Capitals. Last week the royal party, including Crown Prince Rhamatullah Khan and highest dignitaries of the Afghan State plunged from the Polish border into Russia aboard a new and sumptuous Soviet special train of 14 salon cars. The plunge was momentous because King Amanullah, whose Realm lies between India and Russia (see Map), holds the balance of power in Middle Asia betwixt the British Empire and the Soviet Union. He has just learned secretly at London how much Great Britain is prepared to offer for his friendship. Last week it was Russia's turn to cap the British bid and to dazzle King Amanullah with a display more imposing than the English pageantry and war games in his honor which have just cost the British Exchequer some -L-45,000 ($219,000).

Reception. To welcome and impress the Afghan Potentate, when his train chuffed into Moscow last week, there stepped forward a scrubby-bearded one-time peasant, clad in a plain dark overcoat topped by a soft felt hat. This was Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, beloved President of the Soviet Union.* The effect of his sombre simple garb upon King Amanullah, who for four months has been feted by Presidents in sleek tail coats and Monarchs attired as field marshals, must indeed have been impressive. Darting a quick glance about the station, His Majesty saw not a single silk hat or full dress uniform. Behind the President were grouped several Commissars (Ministers) clad as simply as he, and behind them, filling the station square, stood rank upon rank of Soviet infantry and a detachment of Red Cossack cavalry. President Kalinin, stepping forward and extending his hand, said briefly in Russian: "In behalf of the Soviet Government I greet your Majesty's arrival in the Soviet Union." Then as Queen Thuraya descended from the train, that great and polished linguist Soviet Foreign Minister Georges Tchitcherin advanced and addressed Their Majesties in their own tongue. He said:

`` T^ u ^^ F j o L" , l-; ul 1 Comrade Tchitcherin words may be translated: "O King and Queen, you are welcome!"

Soon President and Potentate strode from the station to review the Red troops. First the infantry and then the cavalry wheeled past. Meanwhile Her Majesty chatted with the Soviet's most famed female diplomat, Mme. Alexandra M. Kollontai, who had come from her post as Ministress to Norway especially to attend Queen Thuraya. Their conversation was presumably "advanced," for Mme. Kollontai is an avowed, die-hard exponent of free love, while Her Majesty, a tireless educator, is easily the most emancipated woman in backward Afghanistan. Both these sagacious ladies paid small heed to President Kalinin, whom ignorant peasants affectionately call the "Little Father," as they once did the Tsar. The Queen and the Ministress know that Comrade Kalinin is but a willing and placid figurehead, who serves to mask the activities of seclusive Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin. Characteristically the seldom-or-never-seen Dictator kept himself within the thick-walled Kremlin, last week, while the Royal Afghans were lodged just outside, in a sumptuous marble palace overlooking the Moskva River. Soviet press censors would take care that no word of secret conferences between King and Dictator should leak out until favorable results could be reported.

Banquets & Portents. To provide festivity on the night of Their Majesties' arrival a banquet and a ball were given, with all Russians present attired, according to sex, in double-breasted serge suits, or the plainest of frocks. The setting, a refurbished and resplendent palace, seemed like a coronet of gold and platinum studded with pebbles. The banquet menu, however, was less incongruous. Delicate appetizers, including three kinds of caviar, were followed by an exquisite bisque, then many a fish, roast game in abundance, a fragile salad, and fruits from every quarter of the Soviet Union, some fresh and some in syrup. Because the Afghans are Moslems and accordingly teetotalers, however, there was not served that profusion of vintage wines which enlivens typical Soviet banquets.

Subsequent diversions for Their Majesties included a horse race at the Moscow Hippodrome and a gala performance at the onetime Imperial Opera of the Communist Ballet Red Poppy, the theme of which is the present Chinese civil war (see China).

Meanwhile the Soviet press was vigorously astir with discussion of the significance of the Afghan visitation. Since the Russian proletariat has been taught to hate and despise "kings" and "emperors," His Majesty was ambiguously referred to in the press, by order of the Soviet censor, as a "Padisha." Curiously enough, however, the verbal use of "Majesty" was not barred, because research had established that the late Nikolai Lenin, founder of the Soviet State, whose every act and word has become a sanctified example, once addressed to the "Padisha of Afghanistan" a letter which began, "Your Majesty. . . ."

Finally the official attitude of the Soviet State toward Afghanistan was discreetly set forth by Foreign Minister Georges Tchitcherin in a long editorial which he contributed to Izvestia. Naturally Comrade Tchitcherin omitted to mention the matter of subsidies (bribes) which have been paid to King Amanullah at various times by both Great Britain and Russia. Nor did the Foreign Minister allude to arrangements with His Majesty which have occasionally furthered the infiltration of Soviet agitators through Afghanistan into India. Such matters are not for the press. But Comrade Tchitcherin did stress in able and complimentary fashion the vital importance of Afghanistan in three respects. First, as a militant and independent power, dominating the junction of important Asiatic trade routes. Second, as a nation without railways, which thus interrupts the bands of steel which would otherwise stretch from Europe to India. And third, as an undeveloped virgin field for commercial expansion.

Upon these three points alert folk fixed their attention, deeming them trustworthy guideposts for a swift survey of Afghanistan:

Militance & Independence. So early as 328 B. C. Alexander the Great marched victoriously over the chill Hindu Kush mountain passes of Afghanistan on his way to conquer in India; but it is a rule of modern history that no Occidental people can conquer and then hold the bleak land of the fanatically warlike Afghans. During the last century Great Britain repeatedly occupied the Afghan capital of Kabul and the town of Kahandar (see Map) but her troops were always withdrawn and invariably with heavy losses. True the Afghan casualties were likewise heavy, but Britons have not forgotten that during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-42) a British force numbering 4,500 was obliged to "retreat" until only one survivor, Dr. Brydon, reached the Indian frontier as "a half dead man on a half dead horse." Not less notorious than the fierceness and atrocious cruelty of Afghans in battle, is their characteristic instability which gave rise to the Indian proverb: "Trust a Snake before a Harlot, and a Harlot before an Afghan." Naturally assassinations of Afghan rulers have been frequent, and indeed the present King Amanullah came to the throne in 1919 only after other persons had murdered his father, Habibullah, and he himself had forcibly wrested the succession from an uncle and two elder brothers. His Majesty's principal distinction is to have forced Great Britain in 1921 to acknowledge the complete independence of Afghanistan.

No Railways. Two projects exist for linking India to Europe by rails. The first would begin by completing the famed Berlin-to-Bagdad link (which already functions to a point some miles south of Aleppo) and then extend the line from Bagdad through Persia to India. A development of prime significance in this region, last week, was the signing at Teheran, Persia, of a $100,000,000 contract whereby an international group including Ulen & Co. and J. G. White Engineering Corp. of Manhattan have agreed to build a railroad from Bander Abbas on the Persian gulf to the Persian capital of Teheran and thence on to an undetermined point on the Caspian seashore.

The second and much shorter way to connect up rail linkage between India and Europe would be simply to extend across Afghanistan the lines which already come up from India and down from Russia to the very borders of King Amanullah's realm. Although funds for such a project are not immediately in prospect, His Majesty arranged while in Berlin to have two German engineering firms make preliminary surveys of these routes.

Commercial Opportunities. Keenest disappointment is felt by business firms in European capitals visited by King Amanullah that he let practically no important contracts, and made few large purchases, except to buy some furniture for his new palace, several airplanes, and a brace of automobiles. It is not true, as has been widely stated, that Their Majesties in purchasing clothes and personal effects, carried the goods away on credit and have not yet paid. It is true that they received numerous valuable presents from firms which hoped for further orders. Thus the German Lufthansa company presented to His Majesty a seven-seater three-motored airplane. Generally speaking the Monarch's circumspection in letting contracts or concessions may be considered as due to the fact that the securities market is not yet ripe for any investment in Afghanistan. As the country becomes gradually civilized--a process which King Amanullah is furthering by every means in his power--Afghanistan will indeed open up as a land of richest mineral promise and virgin soil.

* His exhausting official title is: "Chairman of the Union Central Executive Committee of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics."