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Because the Turkmen generally were indifferent to the advent of Soviet rule
in 1917, little revolutionary activity occurred in the region in the years that
followed. However, the years immediately preceding the revolution had been
marked by sporadic Turkmen uprisings against Russian rule, most prominently the
anti-tsarist revolt of 1916 that swept through the whole of Turkestan. Their
armed resistance to Soviet rule was part of the larger Basmachi Rebellion
throughout Central Asia from the 1920s into the early 1930s. Although Soviet
sources describe this struggle as a minor chapter in the republic's history, it
is clear that opposition was fierce and resulted in the death of large numbers
of Turkmen.
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Turkmens resented losing their grazing land and in 1916 joined a Muslim
uprising throughout Russia's Central Asian territory.
After the February Revolution of 1917, several political forces competed for
power in Turkmenia. The Turkmens were divided between Islamic traditionalists
and the more progressive nationalist intelligentsia. At this time, both
Bolshevik and White armies sought the loyalty of Turkmenia's Russian population.
A provisional government, established by Turkmen nationalists with support of
the White forces and limited British assistance, was able to maintain itself
against the Bolsheviks until mid-1919. Thereafter, Turkmen resistance against
the Bolsheviks was part of the general Basmachi Rebellion, which reemerged
sporadically until 1931. By 1920, however, the Red Army controlled the
territory, and in 1924 the Turkmen Republic was established in accordance with
the national delimitation process in Central Asia...
In the first years of their rule, Soviet authorities continued the
colonization policies of the tsarist regime. The Soviet government mitigated its
policy, however, after the Basmachi Rebellion, a popular Turkic nationalist
movement that swept former Turkestan from 1918 to 1924 and recurred periodically
until 1931. In the mid-1920s, the Soviet government permitted traditional Kirgiz
culture to flourish. It also promoted the creation of native leadership and
slowed the influx of Slavs into the region. In the late 1920s and throughout the
1930s, these policies were replaced by Stalin's program of forced denomadization
and collectivization and replacement of the Kirgiz intelligentsia and leadership
with an ideologically acceptable Stalinist elite. Some Kirgiz protested by
slaughtering their herds or driving them into China. Nevertheless, by 1933 about
67 percent of the nomads were collectivized. The Kirgiz intelligentsia was
decimated. Many Kirgiz members of the CPSU in the republic were purged. Despite
the turmoil, the Kirgiz subsequently achieved some industrialization, a higher
standard of living, and substantial achievements in education...
In spite of tsarist toleration of the Muslim religion and customs, Russian
conquest of Turkestan had an immediate impact on some of the indigenous culture
and society. Early in the twentieth century, economic development came to
Turkestan, new towns sprang up, cotton grew where once nomads grazed their
herds, and railroads linked Turkestan with markets in Russia. The nomadic Kirgiz,
Kazakhs, and Turkmens were especially resentful of the evolving changes. In
1916, when the Russian government ended its exemption of Muslims from military
service, much of Russian Central Asia rose in a general revolt against Russian
rule.
In November 1917, the Bolsheviks established Soviet power in the city of
Tashkent. In April 1918, they proclaimed the Turkestan Autonomous Republic. The
great mass of the Muslim population, however, took no part in these events. Only
after the Bolsheviks attacked the Muslim religion, intervened directly in native
society and culture, and engaged in armed seizure of food did the indigenous
population offer fierce resistance in a national and holy war against the Soviet
regime, known as the Basmachi
Rebellion (see Glossary).
The autonomous soviet republics of Khorzem (formerly
Khiva) and Bukhara were
established in 1920 and incorporated into the Soviet Union. In 1924 and 1925,
the entire Soviet Central Asian territory was reorganized by an act known as the
national delimitation process in Central Asia. The Turkestan Autonomous Republic
was abolished and divided along ethnic and linguistic lines into the Uzbek and
Turkmen union republics, the Tadzhik Autonomous Republic within the Uzbek
Republic, and the Kirgiz Autonomous Republic and the Karakalpak Autonomous
Oblast within the Russian Republic. At the same time, the Kazakh Autonomous
Republic within the Russian Republic was also established. The Tadzhik
Autonomous Republic became a union republic in 1929, and the Kirgiz Autonomous
Republic became a union republic in 1936. The Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast
became an autonomous republic in 1932 and was transferred to the Uzbek Republic
in 1936. The same year, the Kazakh Autonomous Republic was transformed into a
union republic.
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An indigenous resistance movement proved the last barrier to assimilation of
Central Asia into the Soviet Union. In the 1920s, more than 20,000 people fought
Soviet rule in Central Asia. The Russians applied a derogatory term, Basmachi
(which originally meant brigand), to the groups. Although the resistance did not
apply that term to itself, it nonetheless entered common usage. The several
Basmachi groups had conflicting agendas and seldom coordinated their actions.
After arising in the Fergana Valley, the movement became a rallying ground for
opponents of Russian or Bolshevik rule from all parts of the region. Peasant
unrest already existed in the area because of wartime hardships and the demands
of the amir and the soviets. The Red Army's harsh treatment of local inhabitants
in 1921 drove more people into the resistance camp. However, the Basmachi
movement became more divided and more conservative as it gained numerically. It
achieved some unity under the leadership of Enver Pasha, a Turkish adventurer
with ambitions to lead the new secular government of Turkey, but Enver was
killed in battle in early 1922.
Except for remote pockets of resistance, guerrilla fighting in Tajikistan
ended by 1925. The defeat of the Basmachis caused as many as 200,000 people,
including noncombatants, to flee eastern Bukhoro in the first half of the 1920s.
A few thousand subsequently returned over the next several years.
The communists used a combination of military force and conciliation to
defeat the Basmachis. The military approach ultimately favored the communist
side, which was much better armed. The Red Army forces included Tatars and
Central Asians, who enabled the invading force to appear at least partly
indigenous. Conciliatory measures (grants of food, tax relief, the promise of
land reform, the reversal of anti-Islamic policies launched during the Civil
War, and the promise of an end to agricultural controls) prompted some Basmachis
to reconcile themselves to the new order.
*****
Russian BASMACHESTVO, insurrection against Soviet rule in Central Asia, begun in 1917 and largely suppressed by 1926. An amalgam of Muslim traditionalists and common bandits, the Basmachi were soon widespread over most of Turkistan, much of which was under regimes independent of but allied to Soviet Russia.
In the early 1920s the revolt threatened the Soviet government with the permanent loss of much of Turkistan. But the Bolsheviks enjoyed military superiority, greater discipline, and a singleness of purpose. The Basmachi, on the other hand, were nearly as inclined to attack each other as to fight their common foe. By conciliating nationalist sentiment in Central Asia, the Soviet government defused the revolt and paved the way for successful incorporation of the area into the Soviet Union.
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