"One of the first acts of the new Communist International was to call a 'Congress of the Peoples of the East' in Baku in September 1920. Although the emphasis at this congress was on antiwesternism rather than on a 'proletarian' revolution, the leaders were Comintern figures: Zinoviev, Radek, Bela Kun. About 2,000 easterners were present, including 235 Turks, 192 Persians, 157 Armenians, and a few Chinese.
....Zinoviev brought a long speech to a passionate oratorical climax with the following outburst: 'The real revolution will blaze up only when the 800,000,000 people who live in Asia unite with us, when the African continent unites, when we see that hundreds of millions of people are in movement. Now we must kindle a real holy war against the British and French capitalists.....We must say that the hour has struck when the workers of the whole world are able to arouse tens of millions of peasants, to create a Red Army in the East, to arm and organize uprisings in the rear of the British, to poison the existence of every impudent British officer who lords over Turkey, Persia, India, China.'
At this moment the audience, mostly clad in colorful oriental costumes, sprang up. Swords, sabers, and revolvers were flourished in the air, while the vow of jehad, or holy war, was pronounced. Radek endeavored to conjure up the spirit of Tamerlane and Genghiz Khan. After saying that the East, under capitalist oppression, created a philosopy of patience, he added:
'We appeal, comrades, to the spirit of struggle which once animated the peoples of the East when they marched against Europe under the leadership of their great conquerors. And when the capitalists of Europe say that there is the menace of a new wave of barbarism, a new wave of Huns, we reply: Long live the Red East, which, together with the workers of Europe, will create a new culture under the banner of communism.'
Although the immediate results were limited, the congress showed the direction and trend of the Comintern's drive in the Orient."
FACTS ON COMMUNISM, Volume II, The Soviet Union, From Lenin to Khrushchev, Committee On Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Edition, December 1960
Thanks. Very interesting.