SOME FRESH NEWS ABOUT THE 26 COMMISSARS: REGINALD TEAGUE-JONES AND THE TRANSCASPIAN EPISODE

Abstract

One of the great founding legends of Soviet Union is that of the murder in September 1918 of 26 Soviet Commissars in Transcaspia, allegedly by a British officer, Reginald Teague-Jones. The episode which became the legend took place at the end of the First World War, at the very end of the eastern front, where the Russian withdrawal from the war left a vacuum and a situation which was confused, to say the least. Independent Soviets were springing up and one of these was the short-lived Baku Commune (also mythologised by the Soviets) When the Commune collapsed its leaders, the 26 Commissars, were imprisoned. Weeks later, in the confusion of the capture of Baku by the Turks, the Commissars escaped by boat, bound for Astrakhan, then held by the Bolsheviks. But they ended up in Krasnovodsk, in the hands of the anti-Bolsheviks and they were subsequently executed. Limited British forces (Malmiss and Dunforce) were in the area. They were initially deployed against the Turks, who were fighting on the German side, but then the Bolsheviks became the primary concern for the British. It is clear that Teague-Jones had a liaison role with the anti-Bolsheviks, but modern evidence suggests that it is very unlikely that he was even present at the execution of the 26 Commissars. The article shows how the legend grew and why the involvement of an agent of British Imperialism fitted a propaganda need.

Notes

1. Reginald Teague-Jones, The Spy Who Disappeared, Diary of a Secret Mission to Russian Central Asia. London: Gollancz, 1990.

2. Taline Ter Minassian, Most Secret Agent of Empire. London: Hurst, to be published, April 2014.

3. Reginald Teague-Jones, The Spy who Disappeared, op. cit., 1990, p.99.

4. BL, IOR, Mss C 313/6, f.69.

5. BL, IOR/L/PS/11/3441, 3578, 3633.

6. Charles Howard Ellis, The Transcaspian Episode. London: Huntchinson, 1963, p.13.

7. Michael Reynolds, Shattering Empires, The Clash and the Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908–1918. Cambridge University Press, 2011, p.225.

8. See Brat'ia naveki, Dokumenty i materialy ob istoritcheskoj drujbe russkogo i azerbaidjanskogo narodov. Baku, Az.Gos.Izd., 1987, document no. 235, pp.327–329.

9. Anastase Mikoyan, (translated from the French version), Une Vie de Lutte, Moscou, Editions du Progrès, 1973, p.137.

10. Reginald Teague-Jones, The Spy Who Disappeared, op. cit., p.140.

11. British Library, Mss C313/12, ff.11–14, 12 November 1922.

12. Ibid.

13. On the context of Vadim Chaikin's inquiry and on the accusation, see Brian Pearce's essential study. Brian Pearce, ‘On the fate of the 26 Commissars’. Sbornik Vol. 6–7 (1981): 83–95.

14. Anastase Mikoyan, Une vie de lutte, op. cit., p.176.

15. Quoted by Brian Pearce, ‘On the fate of the 26 Commissars’, op. cit., p.85.

16. Ibid, p.86.