To Follow the Faith

For years, on the borders of the vast, desolate, far western Chinese province of Sinkiang, imperial Britain and imperialist Muscovy, Red Russian and White, China's bandits, warlords, Communists and Nationalists skirmished for power and position. None of them, however, won the allegiance of the hard-riding Kazak tribesmen who wandered the empty plains. Islamic nomads of remote Turkish origin, the proud and independent Kazaks went on pitching their flannel tents, eating only meat, playing polo with the inflated skins of whole sheep and 200 men on a team, proclaiming allegiance to Allah alone, and generally thumbing their noses at the march of civilization, as they had since the days of Genghis Khan.

The thumbing was not always easy. Twelve years ago the Russians launched a determined effort to wipe out the rebellious Mohammedans in Sinkiang. Some 10,000 Kazaks were driven out of Barkol, high in the northeast. They fled southward. Some made their way across the frozen Himalayas to India. Some stayed to fight under the leadership of a tribal chieftain named Osman Bator who, singlehanded and armed only with outmoded equipment from China's Nationalists, declared war on the whole Soviet Union.

Over the Hills. Last year, with the Nationalists finally driven to the hills, the Russians widened the caravan trails through Sinkiang and brought their tanks and heavy artillery to bear on the Kazaks. In four battles, the rebellious tribesmen lost 3,000 killed. Osman was captured and killed. His 5,000-odd survivors split into groups and headed south. Last week, after months of agony, picking their way through uncharted passes across the highest mountains in the world, one party of 120 Kazak men, women & children reached the end of the trail--Mohammedan Kashmir and its "City of the Sun," Srinagar. They brought with them a proud family heirloom--their leader's wife's sewing machine--and all that was left of 3,000 animals they had started with--21 camels, 53 horses and 40 black sheep.

"We often had no water and no fuel," said the goateed Kazak Thaji (Chief) Kussa In. "Sometimes we lived only on the animals' milk. Often we killed camels to get drinking water." Forty of the Thaji's party, including the youngest of his three wives, nine brothers, and two boys, aged one and five, were lost. One night while they slept in their tents at Urduk on the Tibetan frontier, the nomad refugees were attacked by Communists, who killed eight men and drove away 300 sheep, 13 camels and 25 horses. "But we killed ten Reds," said Thaji Kussa proudly.

Better to Live Poor. Despite their hardships, the Kazaks were cheerful. The men were clean-shaven and clear-eyed. The women's cheeks were like red apples; their flowing black robes were hung with silver coins to denote the wealth of their menfolk. Once-wealthy Kussa In himself displayed a huge Swiss watch at the end of a silver chain on his corduroy jacket. "Of the hundreds of horses I once owned," he said, "only six are left, and now I am selling them. But it is better to live poor in a land where one can follow his faith than in a godless country. To the Communists, there is no God but Stalin. Communists burn the Koran and punish those who are caught reading it. They turn our mosques into theaters. They say that Islam is the product of a madman's raving, used by reactionaries to sanction the exploitation of the poor. They eat pork and drink wine --both forbidden by our religion. But nothing is forbidden to the demented followers of the blasphemous faith of Stalin."

Some of Kussa In's followers hoped to go on to Mecca to give thanks to Allah. Others planned to get jobs as teamsters. And what of those who had fallen into the hands of the Reds? "The lucky ones," said Thaji Kussa In, "were shot."

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