W)Archives:
The Buddhist Al-Baghdadi
Nick Danforth May
8, 2015 · in (W)ARCHIVES
I’ve always been skeptical of the kind of historical op-ed that relies on building some
absurdly precise parallel between a contemporary political event
and an obscure precedent from the past. The Greek debt crisis
really isn’t all that similar to the Fourth Crusade,
post-9/11 America isn’t really reminiscent of
fin-de-siècle Vienna, etc. But given the ongoing debate over the Islamic nature of ISIS, I can’t
resist throwing caution to the wind and offering my own
contribution to the genre: Baron Roman Fedorovich
von Ungern-Sternberg — The Buddhist al-Baghdadi. If nothing
else, the gruesome adventures of an aristocratic 1920s Buddhist
convert provide one more bit of evidence for why we should
understand ISIS in a political or structural context, rather than a
specifically Islamic one.
The most dramatic account of Baron Ungern-Sternberg’s reign of
terror is undoubtedly the 1922 classic Beasts, Men and
Gods, penned by Polish adventurer Ferdinand
Ossendowski. Ossendowski’s tale of meeting Ungern-Sternberg in
Mongolia while fleeing the Red Army makes for engaging reading,
though that may have something to do with long-standing accusations that he made up the most engaging
parts of it. Yet when it comes to the outline of Ungern-Sternberg’s
career, as well as the depths of his savagery, the essentials of
Ossendowski’s book are all supported by Peter Hopkirk’s
better-documented and still quite engaging book, Setting the East
Ablaze.
Baron von Ungern-Sternberg was a Russian officer from a long line
of Baltic barons, “Huns from the time of Atilla” he supposedly told
Ossendowski. The baron served in World War One, then fought with
particular distinction and savagery for the Whites during the
Russian Civil War. When the tide turned decisively in the
Bolsheviks’ favor, Ungern-Sternberg found himself deep in
Siberia. There, he organized a small army made up of defeated White
Russian soldiers and set out to conquer Mongolia — a place he felt
a great affinity for, having visited there previously and having
converted to his own idiosyncratic form of messianic
Buddhism. In conquering Mongolia, he would avoid death at the
hands of the Bolsheviks while he reorganized his forces for an
eventual liberation of Russia. Named “the incarnated God of
war and Khan of grateful Mongolia” by Bogdo Khan, the Living
Buddha, Ungern-Sternberg imagined himself the reincarnation of
Ghengis Khan. He explained to Ossendowski, that he wanted to forge
a “great State from the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the shore of
the Volga,” in which “the wise religion of the Buddha shall run to
the north and the west.” Pausing only to order beatings and
executions, he also told Ossendowski of his efforts to form an
order of Buddhist militants in Russia. If Ossendowski was
skeptical of the baron’s grandiose claims, it is likely many other
Buddhists were as well, though for political and personal reasons
many found it expedient to play along. In his invasion of Mongolia
the baron received advice from the oracle bones of his soothsayers,
a detachment of bodyguards from the Dalai Lama, and the support of
Mongol cavalry seeking to free their country from Chinese
rule.
In 1920, following almost three years of vicious fighting,
Central Asia was in chaos and its population was inured to
violence. Von Ungern-Sternberg established a modicum of order by
being even more violent, finding ever more dramatic ways to torture
and kill his enemies that could inspire fear in a desensitized
population.
Peter Hopkirk describes Ungern-Sternberg’s
systematic atrocities in terms that sound all too familiar
today. In first building his army, the baron made a point of
executing recruits who did not meet his expectations. As one of his
officers explained, “His Buddhist teachers taught him about
reincarnation, and he firmly believed that in killing the feeble
people he only did them good, as they would be stronger beings in
their next life.” Entering Mongolia, Ungern-Sternberg sought to
terrorize anyone who resisted his advance. Officers were burned at
the stake, villagers in their huts. To what extent the baron’s use
of exemplary sadism — a bakers’ apprentice baked to death in his
own oven, men thrown into the boilers of trains — contributed to
his success is unclear, but he quickly succeeded in driving a much
larger Chinese garrison out of Urga (now Ulan Batur) and making it
his capital.
By 1921, the baron had consolidated his rule in Urga and was
preparing to return to liberate Russia. It is unclear if Urga would
be his Mosul or his Raqqa in this case. Here is where the
comparison breaks down. Ossendowski, who was staying in Urga as the
baron’s nervous guest, recorded the beginning of the end before
wisely leaving town. Ungern-Sternberg went to a Buddhist temple to
pray for success in his new anti-Bolshevik crusade. Instead, he
received a prophecy that he would die in 130 days. Instead of
losing hope, he simply took this to mean he would have to act fast.
But the Bolsheviks were now better prepared. They ambushed the
baron’s men shortly after he crossed the border, forcing them to
withdraw and regroup. A few minor victories gave the baron the
chance to commit a final atrocity — burying captured Bolshevik
Cavalry alive — but soon his troops turned against him. The Red
Army found him on the ground, covered in ants, where his former
Mongolian allies had left him to die. Supposedly, he was then
executed by a Bolshevik firing squad exactly 130 days after his
death had been foretold.
As Baron Ungern-Sternberg’s short and bloody career shows, the
combination of extreme faith and extreme violence can prove
effective in times of extreme chaos, but wielding them is not
always conducive to long-term strategic planning or winning the
loyalty of those around you. Whether Al-Baghdadi himself survives
much longer than Ungern-Sternberg did remains to be seen. But even
if he doesn’t, his death would be unlikely to sweep away the
region’s volatility and insecurity, out of which he emerged as an
Islamist leader, just as the baron’s death hardly brought
tranquility to Soviet Central Asia.