Did you know the world’s oldest leather shoe is a right-footed size 7? In this episode, we talk all things leather. From the science of tann
Did you know the world’s oldest leather shoe is a right-footed size 7?
In this episode, we talk all things leather. From the science of tanning (using everything from tree bark to animal brains) to the world's oldest right-footed shoe, we explore how humans have used animal skins for over 70,000 years. Join us and travel from an ancient cave in Armenia to the snowy Schniedejoch Pass in the Alps to see how our ancestors stayed warm, protected, and stylish.
Highlights include: 🦴A 4,000-year-old purse flap made of 100 dog teeth. 🦏 Chinese warriors wearing 7 layers of rhinoceros skin. 🧵 The difference between Saddle and Saddler's Stitch.🎥 A shoutout to the impeccable style in Netflix’s The Dig (Sutton Hoo fans, unite!).
Whether you’re a seasoned leatherworker or just love that "new leather" smell, this episode is for you.
Sponsored by Folkwear Patterns. Visit Folkwear.com to explore our collection and join a community that's been stitching history for half a century.
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From 1860 to 1890, Russia conquered Central Asia. What started as crafting a strong border along their Siberian territories grew into the conquest of most of modern day Central Asia.
Russia and Central Asia have a long, intertwined history that altered between coexistence and conflict. The Russians didn’t start expanding eastwards until the 1500s and they didn’t ’t really consider invading the region until the 1700s and even then, it’s contained to the Steppe lands. We don’t really see engagements with major Central Asian powers until the late 1700s/early 1800s. Their approach isn’t systematic or well planned. The Russians are responding to events unfolding, both in the region and from the around the world, as much as they are trying to shape events to fit their own priorities. They don’t fully subdue the region until the 1880s and roughly 30 years later WWI begins. By 1917 the Tsarist Empire collapses, and Russia loses all control over their conquered territories, including Central Asia. It would be up to the Bolsheviks and the various Central Asian republics to determine what relations would look like during the rest of the 20th century.
Early Russian Incursions (1580s-1700s)
As we mentioned, Russia and the various peoples of Central Asia traded and interacted with each other for most of their early history. The Russians did not consider expanding eastwards until the 1500s, starting with the overthrow of the Kazan khanate in 1552 and Astrakhan khanate in 1556 (two main centers of trade for people from all over the world). In 1580, they overthrew the Khanate of Sibr, opening up Siberia and introducing Kazakh peoples to Cossacks and Slavic merchants, and officials.
Peter the Great
[Image Description: A colored painting of a white man with curly brown hair and a mustache leaning against a chair. Behind him is a grey sky. The man is wearing a dark blue military frock coat with a light blue ribbon and a golden and green metal at his thought. His collar and cuffs are a bright red. He holds a sword with his right hand and a map with his left.]
Up until Peter the Great’s reign in 1682, the Russians and Central Asians spent their time learning about each other and establishing centers of trade. Neither saw each other as a source of danger since the Central Asians khanates were more concerned about fighting each other and resisting pressures from Safavid Iran and China whereas Russia was establishing itself as a state.
It was Peter the Great who turned Russia into an empire and pushed into the Central Asia region, sparking conflict with the Bashirs, Astrakhans, Khiva Khanate, and even Iran. Peter ordered several forts to be built along the current Kazakhstan border and took the Volga and Ural lands, encircling Central Asia. Their first proper incursion into the region was within Steppe lands. The Russians tried to implement tribute and oaths of loyalty, but the Kazakh people either resisted or manipulated Russian demands to fit their needs. They often played the Russians against their other enemies such as China, the Zunghar people, and the different Uzbek Khanates. However, the more involved they became with the Russians, the more restricted their political freedom became and by 1730 they officially asked the Russians for their protection.
Kazakhs and Kyrgyz peoples 1700s-1800s
The first Tsarina to truly interact with her Muslim subjects was Catherine the Great. She chose a position of tolerance while enforcing methods of police control. Catherine believed that if she could use the Islamic hierarchy to manage the people, she could instill law and order in the region. As long as she controlled who was recognized by the state as a legitimate source of religious authority, she could control the people and bind Islamic ideals to the Tsarist system. She implemented this policy with the Muslims in Siberia, the Volga and Ural regions, and the Crimea, utilizing the indigenous Tatars. When Russia tried to implement this system with the Kazakhs they ran into issues.
Catherine the Great
[Image Description: A colored painting of a white, big woman with grey hair pinned up and held in place by a golden crown. She is wearing a tan furred dress and a silver necklace with ornaments in the shape of snowflakes.]
Lack of knowledge is a key component in the Russian rule, and they were aware of this. As they incorporated the land, they sent several expeditions into the region to understand the territory, the people, and the benefits they could reap from the area. Ian W Campbell’s book Knowledge and Ends of Empire goes into great detail how much the Russians didn’t know as they conquered the Steppe lands and the efforts, they went through to fill in their knowledge gap.
Since the Kazakhs were nomads, they did not practice a type of Islam recognized by the Russians, so they were unable to utilize any existing religious structure, like they did with the Tatars. Instead, they had to engage with the different tribal leaders and indigenous informers and spies to manage the steppe peoples and enforce a form of sedentary lifestyle (with mixed results).
In an effort to “bring civilization” to the Kazakh people the Russians abolished the hordes and reorganized the land along tribal lines into three regions. They implemented a heavy bureaucracy consisting of auls, townships, and districts. In 1844, the Kazakhs traditional courts were stripped of authority over serious criminal cases and subjected Kazakhs to Russian military courts.
Authority was maintained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and military governors, which tried their best to manage the theft and abuse the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz peoples experienced from Russians officials and the Cossacks. This abuse seems to have been driven by the lawlessness common to vast frontiers (one can think of the US’s own Wild West as an example) and because most Russians looked down on the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz as inferior people.
Uzbek Khanates 1800-1900
Driven by mistreatment, starvation, and fear of the Russians, many Kazakh peoples found shelter in the Uzbek khanates. By the 1800s, all three khanates were experiencing civil wars and intense rivalries with each other and either ignored or were disinterested in the Russian encroachment. They were vaguely curious about the increase of British visitors but didn’t seem to realize that it meant trouble for their people. To be fair, the British were notoriously bad at trying to enlist the aid of the khanates as can be seen with the Conolloy-Stoddart-Nasrullah affair.
Nasrullah, Khan of Bukhara
[Image Description: An ink drawing of a man in a turban and long, wispy black beards. He also had a drooping black mustache and a white long dress shirt. The paper the painting is drawn on is tan and below the man are words written in Arabic]
Charles Stoddart was sent to Bukhara by the East India Company to win over the emirate, Nasrullah. Instead Nasrullah found him so insulting, he threw him into a bug pit for a few days. Stoddart remained in Bukhara for three years before the Company sent Captain Arthur Connolly to rescue him. Connolly traveled disguised as a merchant, but the Emirate was on alert since Britain was invading Afghanistan at the same time. Around the time Connolly was arrested, the Afghans organized a revolt that drove the British out of their country (only one British survivor made it back to India). Nasrullah wasn’t impressed and felt even more insulted by Connolly’s and Stoddart’s behavior, so he beheaded them when he caught them trying to smuggle letters to India.
Modern historians have poked several holes into the Great Game narrative, and it may be safe to say that the Great Game is more of a reflection of Britain’s own insecurities and fears than reality (with the Russians taking advantage of said fears). At the same time, Russia was feeling insecure compared to the other European states, had a need to make up for the humiliating defeat suffered during the Crimean War, were concerned about the security of their southern frontier, and held racist beliefs about the inferiority of the Central Asian peoples.
Their first attempt was to invade Khiva in 1839, but that ended in disaster. They would not try again until 1858, pushing southward, along the Syr Darya. By 1860 they had taken and established forts in what is modern day Almaty, Kazakhstan and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In 1864 Colonel Mikhail G. Cherniaev finished the conquest of the land along the Syr Darya by taking the towns of Yasi and Shymkent. In 1865, he took Tashkent from Kokand, conquering the last bit of Kazakh land.
At this point, we can organize the Russian conquest around three major events: the subjugation of the Bukhara and Khiva Khanates, the abolishment of the Kokand Khanate, and the slaughter of the Turkmen people in the Ferghana valley
Conquering the Bukharan Khanate
However, conquering Tashkent dragged them into the rivalry between Kokand and Bukhara. The Russians wanted to turn Tashkent into a buffer state between themselves and Bukhara while Bukhara hoped the Russians would return the city to them. When Emir Muzzafar sent an envoy to embassy to the Tsar, he was arrested and Muzzafar was told he no longer had the right to speak to the Tsar directly. Muzzafar was stunned and furious so he arrested a Russian diplomat sent from Tashkent. The Russians attacked the Bukharan town of Jizza but returned from lack of supplies. The Bukharans responded by marching on Tashkent but were defeated by the Russians at Irjar. The Russians then took Khujand, cutting off communications between Bukhara and Kokand, preventing a coordinated resistance.
Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufmann
[Image Description: A black and white lithograph of a white man with a receding hairline. He has a grey bushy mustache. He wears a grey military tunic with epaulettes and several medals. His hands rest on his shoulder hilt.]
To neutralized Kokand, further the Russians a treaty with Kokand granting Russian merchants free trade rights in the khanate and vice versa in Russian Turkestan. However, since Russia’s economy was bigger, this made Kokand an economic vassal.
Bukhara tried to resist the Russians but because of a divided military, internal rebellions, and antiquated technology, Muzzafar was forced to surrender in June 1868. The treaty restored Muzzafar’s sovereignty but took Samarkand away, controlling Bukhara’s main water source. Russian merchants were allowed to conduct business in Bukhara with the same rights as local merchants and Bukhara had to pay a compensation for Russia’s expenses during the war.
While the conquest of the Syr Darya basin and Tashkent had been approved by ministers in St. Petersburg, the Bukharan conflict was decided by officers on the ground. They actually recalled Cherniaev in 1866 only for his replacement, Romanovskii to attack Khujand. In 1867, Romanovskii was replaced by Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufmann (who was a bit of an asshole) who served as Turkestan’s first governor-general. Despite the fact that its military had gone rogue, the Russians could not tolerate retreating or returning the land. Think about how it would affect its standing amongst the European powers (sarcasm)
Kaufman called his conquered territory Turkestan and made Tashkent as its capital. Given its distant from St. Petersburg, Kaufman enjoyed remarkable independence and was more like an emperor than a civil servant.
Conquering the Khivan Khanate
By 1859, Russia had conquered the North Caucasus and created a port in modern day Turkmenboshi, Turkmenistan. This allowed the Russians to transport goods via the river, instead of making the long and dangerous journey from Khiva to Orenburg. This deeply hurt Khiva’s income and cut into the incomes of the Turkmen who protected or raided the traveling merchants.
That, combined with the Russian conquest of Kokand and Bukhara and Khiva was in serious trouble. Khivan Emir Muhammad Rahim, learned from Bukhara, released all Russian prisoners, and negotiated with Russia for peace. Kaufman, however, wasn’t interested in peace. Instead, he sent message after message to Alexander II to complain about Khiva’s insolence and the danger it posed to Russian merchants, finally getting his permission to launch a military campaign to punish Khiva. In 1872, Kaufman led an invasion of four columns, consisting of over 12,000 men and tens of thousands of camels and horses and attacked Khiva from three directions. The Khivans did not resist vigorously whereas the Turkmen fought viciously.
On June 14th, Muhammad Rahim surrendered and Kaufmen forced him to govern under a Russian led council while he ransacked the palace for personal prizes. On August 12th, 1873, Rahim signed a stricter treaty then the one Muzzafar signed. The treaty forced the khan to acknowledge he was an obedient servant of the Tsar, granted control of navigation over the river Amu Darya to the Russians, and granted extensive privileges to Russian merchants. They also agreed to pay Russian 2.2 million rubles over the course of twenty years.
The Turkmen
While Khiva was subdued, the Turkmen were as rebellious as ever and Kaufman jumped at the opportunity to expand his power and earn more “glory”. In July 1873, he required that the Turkmen pay 600,000 rubles with only two weeks to deliver, knowing it would be impossible to do. When they failed, Kaufman launched an attack on the Yomut, a Turkmen tribe. American journalist Januarius MacGahan reported the following:
This is war such as I had never before seen, and such as is rarely seen in modern days…I follow down to the marsh, passing two or three dead bodies on the way. In the marsh are twenty or thirty women and children, up to their necks in water, trying to hide among the weeds and grass, begging for their lives, and screaming in the most pitiful manner. The Cossacks have already passed, paying no attention to them. One villainous-looking brute, however, had dropped out of the ranks and leveling his piece as he sat on his horse, deliberately took aim at the screaming group, and before I could stop him, pulled the trigger. Fortunately, the gun missed fire, and before he could renew the cap, I rode up and cutting him across the face with my riding-whip, ordered him to his sotnia. - Januarius MacGahan
By end of July, the Turkmen agreed to pay and Kaufman extended the deadline.
Even though Russian conquered Kokand, they had a hard time implementing political control, having to deal with a still strong khanate and an angry populace. The death of the old khan, Alim Qul, allowed Khudoyar Khan to return to rule. However, his close ties with Russia inspired a revolt amongst the Kokandi Kyrgyz nobles who drove him out in August 1875. The Russians placed his son, Nasruddin on the throne, but another revolt drove him out as well and Russia was stuck with a region deep in civil war with no clear factions.
Kaufman, worried that Bukhara or the British would take advantage, launched another military campaign. This campaign was particularly bloody, with Major-General Mikhail D. Skobelev making it a point of murdering civilians to crush all future rebellions. Vladimir P. Nalivkin, a young officer serving under Skobelev wrote the following of an incident where Skobelev ordered his Cossacks to charge fleeing civilians while their divisional commander countermanded the order. He then told Nalivkin to chase after a Cossack bearing down on an unarmed man carrying his child. Nalivkin wrote the following:
“With a cry “leave him alone! Leave him alone!” I rushed towards the man (sart), but it was already too late: one of the Cossacks brought down his sword, and the unfortunate two or three-year-old child fell from the arms of the dumbfounded, panic-striken man, landing on the ground with a deeply cleft head. The man’s arms were apparently cut. The bloody child convulsed and died. The man blankly stared now at me, now at the child, with wildly darting, wide eyes. God forbid that anyone else should have to live through the horror I lived through in that moment. I felt as though insects were crawling up my spine and cheeks, something gripped me by the throat, and I could neither speak nor breathe. I had seen dead and wounded people many times; I had seen death before, but such horror, such abomination, such infamy I had never been seen with my own eye: this was new to me.” - Vladimir P. Nalivkin
The war ended in 1876 with the bombing of Andijan, which Skobelev described himself as a pogram. Kaufman abolished the Kokand Khanate on February 19th, the same day as the anniversary of Alexander II’s ascension to the throne. He renamed the region the Ferghana District and named Skobelev its governor.
Finally, the Russians finished their conquest by subjugating the Turkmen Tekke tribes who lived around the oases in the Qara Qum desert. The reason for the attack was geopolitical. The Russians had won a war against the Ottoman Empire in 1878 but the British prevented the Russians from seizing Constantinople, so Kaufman was ordered to march on India.
Kaufman sent three columns towards Afghanistan and Kashmir and a fourth column heading towards the town on Kelif on the Amu Darya. To get there, they had to march through Tekke Turkmen territory. The attack was called off a week later, but the Russians continued south to establish a line of forts on the border of Iranian Khurasan. These forts were vulnerable to Turkmen attack, so the Russians laid siege to the town of Gok Tepe.
Their artillery was devastating but the Russians were defeated by fierce Turkmen fighting when they decided to storm the town. Skobelev led a revenge campaign in November 1880, finally blowing up the walls of Gok Tepe in January 1881. He ordered the Cossacks to pursue and kill anyone fleeing. The total cost was 14,500 Turkmen killed, including many non-combatants, destroying the Tekke Turkmen for decades and finalizing Russian control over Central Asia.
References
For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia by Robert D. Crews Published by Harvard University Press, 2006
The Rise and Fall of Khoqand: Central Asia in the Global Age 1709-1876 by Scott C. Levi Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017
The Bukharan Crisis: a Connected History of 18th Century Central Asia by Scott C. Levi Published by University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020
Tatar Empire: Kazan’s Muslims and the Making of Imperial Russia by Danielle Ross Published by Indiana University Press, 2020
Russia and Central Asia: Coexistence, Conquest, Coexistence by Shoshana Keller Published by University of Toronto Press, 2019
Russia’s Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924 by Seymour Becker, Published by RoutledgeCurzon, 2004
Tournament of Shadows: the Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia by Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac Published by Basic Books, 1999
Not only was Turar Risqulov instrumental in salvaging Central Asia after a near decade of civil war, establishing an indigenous government within Soviet Turkestan, and managing the Sovietization of Central Asia, but he was also a key member of the Soviet Union beyond Turkestan and formidable intellectual.
Turar and The Revolutions of Central Asia 1916-1918
Turar Risqulov was born in Semireche to a poor, but highly respect Kazakh family in 1894. His father worked for the Tsarist administration that managed the Semireche oblast. In 1904, his father and older brother had a dispute with one of the Tsarist administrators and murdered him. They were arrested and thrown into prison (Turar’s father would die in prison) and Turar moved in with his uncle in the town of Merke.
Turar would attend a Russo-native school, work for a Russian lawyer in 1910, before attending the agriculture school in Pishpek (not Bishkek). He doesn’t seem to have taken part in the Central Asia Revolt and responded to the Russian revolution by returning to his hometown of Merke and founding the Union of Revolutionary Kazakh Youth. When the Bolsheviks took over the Russian government following the October Revolution, Turar joined the Bolshevik administrative center for his uezd and focused on managing the 1918 famine.
The Russian solution was to requisition food from the population, claiming it would be redistributed as needed. The Russians did not trust the indigenous people with food or supplies, believing they were hoarding necessities and would refuse to share with their Russian counterparts. Risqulov despised the Russian’s attempts to take food, writing in May 1918, that the requisition squads were “drunk and violent…taking whatever suited them” and contributing to a “atmosphere of animosity” between indigenous party members and the Russians. (Jeff Sahadeo, Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865-1923, pg. 212) In November of 1918, he wrote to the Bolsheviks of the situation in the Avilyo Ota uezd where half of the 300,000 Kazakh peoples had starved to death. Despite this ghastly statistic, the Soviets in the area were still levying an additional tax of 5 million rubles from the survivors. Risqulov called it colonial exploitation, the very thing the Communist Party was supposed to be fighting against.
Turar Risqulov
[Image Description: A black and white photo of a man sitting down, resting his chin in his hand. He has black hair and is wearing round, wire frame glasses, a white collared button down shirt, a grey vest, and a grey suit jacket. He has a small, black mustache]
Turar was rewarded for his hard work by being named Turkestan’s Commissar for Health. He moved to Tashkent, but remained focused on the famine, creating the Central Commission for Struggle Against Hunger in November 1918. In an attempt to apply Communist language to the deteriorating situation, he would write that the “starving mass, being today a backwards and darkened population, is the real proletariat of Turkestan. (Xavier Hallez, Turar Ryskulov: the Career of a Kazakh Revolutionary Leader, pg. 127) His efforts were stymied by Russian settlers and Bolsheviks who believed they were better suited to manage the food supply.
From 1916 to 1918, Risqulov develops a political ideology for the first time. He wasn’t involved with the Jadids or Alash Orda and it doesn’t seem like he was involved with the Central Asian Revolt of 1916. When the February Revolution occurred in 1917, Risqulov returns to his hometown and tries to create a political entity, but it doesn’t get a lot of traction and at some point, he becomes involved with the Soviets in the region. As we’ve mentioned in other episodes, Risqulov is a nationalist-Communist. Someone who engages and seems to believe in Communist theory and values while also engaging in nationalism and nation-building. It’s this dual approach that allows me to form a working relationship with Bolshevik agent Pyotr Kobozev and the various Muslim reformists in Turkestan.
The Musburo
As we discussed in our last episode, Pyotr Kobozev went to Turkestan to end the strife between the Russian Settlers and Bolsheviks and the indigenous peoples. His record is mixed, but one of his most significant decisions was creating the Central Bureau of Muslim Communists organizations of Turkestan, also known as the Musburo.
The purpose of the Musburo was to organize the indigenous population around Communist principles. They created a network of organizations and conferences all over Turkestan, providing the indigenous peoples an institutional framework to wield governmental power. Basically, a Communist approved Kokand government. The Musburo had the right to communicate directly with Moscow and ran their own paper, the Ishtirokiyun.
Risqulov was named the chairman of the Musburo in 1919. He used this position to further develop his own theory of anticolonial communism and to address the famine and ethnic violence ravaging Turkestan. He also used the Musburo and, later, the Muslim majority in the Central Executive Committee, to create a network of indigenous communists and allies, empowering the indigenous population. Despite this new power, Risqulov still experienced great resistance and pettiness from the Russian Soviets and Settlers, particularly around matters of food and supplies.
In 1919, Risqulov estimated that half of the population of Turkestan was starving as food production had declined by half from two years earlier. The local Soviets responded by diverting grain to Russian cities in Turkestan, dissolving the Old city soviet provision committee, and banning non-Russians from seeking food from any state organ. They also organized new provision brigades composed of Russian workers to confiscation, purchase, or trade food from the countryside and encourage peasants to increase their yields for the following year. These brigades had the right to take all food beyond the peasant’s personal needs without compensation.
Turar Risqulov offers words of caution, even though he approved of the brigades for Russian villages, “the city must understand the Muslim mass has a different psychology than the Russian peasants…[We] need to keep in mind the fanaticism of the population and the danger of approaching them.” He wanted to protect the Muslim villages from the brigades and avoid feeding the flames that was the Basmachi. The Soviets agreed to send Muslim agents to Muslim villages when possible but otherwise dismissed Risqulov’s warning. Predictably, the requisitions failed, and the Soviets were forced to disband the brigades in October 1919. This didn’t prevent increased Basmachi activity or Russian peasant uprisings.
Ideological Development
While Risqulov was trying to manage a famine and develop indigenous power during a civil war, he was also developing a nationalist-communist ideology that centered a Turkic nationality and nation-state.
Risqulov believed that the best future for Turkestan was a region wide national identity, one that could unite all peoples of Central Asia. He wanted to re-establish Turkestan as the Turkic Soviet Republic, an identity that could encompass all Central Asian nationalities. He also wanted to remain the Communist Party of Turkestan (KPT) to the Communist Party or Turkic Peoples. He wrote that the
“Turkic Soviet Republic should fully answer to the customary, historical, and interests of the international unification of toiling and oppressed peoples” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 111
He wanted the already existing Turkic republics to unite with Turkestan and hoped that future republics (such as Bukhara, Khiva, Afghanistan, etc.) would join the republic as well.
He believed in Communism but was also keen to put out when the Bolsheviks failed to live up to their ideals. In 1920, he would write Lenin that:
“In Turkestan, there was no October Revolution. The Russians took power and that was the end of it, in the place of some governor sits a worker, and that’s all...the October Revolution in Turkestan should have been accomplished not only under the slogans of the overthrow of the existing bourgeois power, but also of the final destruction of all traces of the legacy of all possible colonialist efforts on the part of Turkist officialdom and kulaks” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, 108-109
Turar pulled out the Bolshevik’s mentions of self-determination, equality, and anti-colonial rhetoric and used to shape his own ideology of anticolonialism. He wrote that:
“One of the most important conditions for the achievement of the goal [of Communism] advanced by the Communist Party is the self-determination of oppressed…peoples…. If Soviet Russia needs to show the working class of Western capitalist countries the correctness of its system, then it needs even more to show the oppressed East the proper restricting of the social life of Muslim society in Turkestan and elsewhere.” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 110-111
He would go even further stating that:
the crude colonialism of Tsarism produced hate and distrust toward the ruling nation. If the proletariat of the ruling nation now scorns the proletariat of the oppressed nations, it will only produce more distrust” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 110-111
Turar was basically arguing that for Communism to thrive in former and current colonies, then it needed to focus on anti-colonialism, holding up Turkestan as an example of how Communism restored rights to indigenous actors and implemented policies that would address harms caused by colonialism while also building the capacity and infrastructure to have a thriving future. He believed in a united republic that honored individual communities, traditions, and histories.
Turar wasn’t the only person arguing this, but he didn’t have the organizational ability to unite with other groups and Muslim intellects who were writing the same things. No was Moscow keen to create organizations or opportunities for Turkestani Communists to meet and interact with their other Muslim counterparts.
Risqulov vs Frunze
Despite Risqulov’s and Kobozev’s best efforts, Moscow believed a sterner hand was needed to restore order to Turkestan. Thus, in October 1919, they sent the Turkestan Commission also known as the Turkkomissa. This Commission consisted of plenipotentiaries supported by General Mikhail Frunze’s Red Army and were meant to govern the region. At first, the Musburo were hopefully that the Commission would be a stronger ally against the Russian settlers, but it quickly became clear that the Commission planned on being the ultimate authority in the region. This stance was solidified with the arrival of General Mikhail Frunze in Tashkent in February 1920. Born in Pishpek (now Bishkek), he was considered as a Turkestani, even though for the indigenous peoples he was just another settler. He attacked the Musburo for their “narrow petty bourgeois nationalism” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 114) and suggested abolishing the KPT and starting new.
Turar Risqulov
[Image Description: A sepia tone photo of a man with thick dark hair and a short dark mustache. He is wearing a round, wire frame glasses. He is looking down at a white paper. He is wearing a white, collared button down shirt, a black tie, a black vest, a black shirt jacket, and a dark coat that sits on his shoulders.]
For Frunze, the nationalist communists had grown too emboldened and needed to be reminded of their place. For Risqulov and the others, it was a matter of addressing the continued colonization of Tsarist Russia wearing the guise of Bolshevism. A war developed between the Commission and the Muslim Communists with the Muslim Communists refusing to follow any order from the Commission unless it had been approved by the Musburo. Furthermore, Risqulov threatened to expulse the Commission since it violated territorial integrity of Turkestan.
Eventually Risqulov decided to take his case to Lenin himself. In May 1920, he organized and led a delegation to Moscow, followed by a delegation sent by the Turkestan Commission, and pleaded his case. Risqulov reminded Lenin of Turkestan’s significance to the Soviet’s Eastern policy and the importance of dismantling colonialism in former colonies. Risqulov demanded that Turkestan be named an autonomous state with rights to conduct its own foreign policy and print its own money amongst other things.
Lenin refused and the Politburo published a resolution on June 22, 1920, announcing that Turkestan was an autonomous part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Russia would manage its external relations, trade, and all military affairs and its internal economy had to operate within the framework of economic plans established by the center. The Commission was changed to the Turkestan Bureau (Turkburo) and would eventually become the Central Asia Bureau or Sredazburo in 1922. Finally, Moscow forced reelections in Turkestan, kicking Risqulov and his followers out of office. This was followed by a sweep of all nationalists in the region with nearly two thousand Europeans deported from Turkestan throughout the autumn of winter of 1920 into 1921. Risqulov, himself, was banished to a desk job first in Narkomnats, then Moscow (where he served as the Deputy People’s Commissar for Nationalities), and finally Baku.
Creation of Central Asian Nation State
Risqulov returned to Turkestan in 1922 because the Bolsheviks were terrified of the influence Turkish leader, Enver Pasha, and Bashkir nationalist Zeki Validov Togan were having on the people of Turkestan. Both leaders had sided with the Basmachi bringing them the legitimacy and organizational skills needed to defeat the Bolsheviks. While Enver Pasha would die in combat, Risqulov actually reached out to Togan to negotiate peace, but Togan refused to work with the Soviets and fled Turkestan.
Risqulov was named Chairman of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkestan ASSR) in 1922 and sat on the Sredazburo.1922-1924 would be spent “Sovietizing” Turkestan after close to a decade of war, famine, and ethnic violence. This involved revolutionary education and social norms, redistributing land, destroying all sources of nationalism and anti-Bolshevism, and integrating the economy.
For Turkestan, the economy equaled cotton. In September 1921, the Council of Labor and Defense established the Main Cotton Committee (Glavkhlopkom) which was responsible for buying the entire cotton harvest in the USSR and ensure nothing disturbed the cotton market. For Central Asia, this meant that cotton was its number one product and everything else should be sacrificed to produce as much cotton as possible. Additionally, the price of cotton was indexed to the price of grain, which never covered the costs of production. Risqulov wrote in 1923 that the Soviets should pay Turkestan world prices for its cotton, but this was ignored.
While the struggle of ultimate control between the indigenous people and their Soviet partners would continue for most of the 1920s, they also supported many of the Soviet’s initiatives and Risqulov was no different. While he did resist measures he thought were harmful to Turkestan (such as the cotton price indexing), he also worked hard to bring about a socialist utopia to the region. He supported educational opportunities, such providing funds so students could study abroad, expanding the communist party within Turkestan, liberating women, and land redistribution.
However, his power within Turkestan was curbed by a growing distrust from Moscow and a new crop of true Muslim Communists who weren’t tainted by any nationalist inclinations. This new cadre pushed out the old Jadids, Alash Orda, and Nationalist-Communists and later their disagreements would turn deadly.
Later Life and Execution
Risqulov spent the last decade of his life serving the Soviet Union in several different capacities. He seems to have served a term as the Komintern’s representative to Mongolia in 1925 before returning to Turkestan. From 1926-1927 he served on a commission to study the relationship between the central organs of the Russian Republic and the national autonomous republics. He tried one last time to advocate a nationalistic policy that would unite the Turkic republics, but it didn’t go anywhere. He was also involved with the building of the Turkestan-Siberian Railway, a 1,520 mm broad gauge railway that connects Central Asia to Siberia, starting in Tashkent, making a detour to Almaty in Kazakhstan, and ending at Novosibirsk.
His most tragic assignment was managing the collectivization and sedentarization of Kazakhstan in the 1930s. The goal was to end nomadism in Kazakhstan and end, not only private property in the Steppe, but disrupt the relationship the Kazakhs had with their own land. Many Kazakhs appealed to Risqulov to assist with the famine (one can imagine not only how nightmarish this must have been him for him, but also the bitter taste of déjà vu as he was once again force to address a famine partially caused by Russian mismanagement). Despite his attempts to diminish the brutal affects of collectivization, approximately 1.3 million Kazakhs died from the famine.
Turar Risqulov was arrested in 1937 during Stalin’s Great Purge and was executed in 1938. His crime was being a nationalist communist.
Turar Risqulov is a perfect example of the contradictory nature of Soviet intervention in Central Asia from 1917 to the 1930s. The Soviets allowed for indigenous participation and culmination of power in their system of government, but the indigenous person in question had to be loyal to Communism and Communism alone. So, while the Bolsheviks created opportunities for Risqulov to exercise real political power and allowed him to join their party and ideology, the Soviets also marginalized that power and later turned against it. As the leadership changed in Moscow and new policies were put in place, the indigenous peoples of Central Asia felt their power shrink. Soon those, like Risqulov, who were instrumental in salvaging Central Asia from the violence of the Russian Civil War were marked as the Soviet’s greatest enemies and eliminated. Whatever little freedoms Risqulov and others like him tried to carve out of the Soviet Union were eliminated as well, replaced by sycophancy and corruption.
References
“Turar Ryskulov: the Career of a Kazakh Revolutionary Leader during the Construction of the New Soviet State, 1917-1926” by Xavier Hallez
Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR by Adeeb Khalid
Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865-1923 by Jeff Sahadeo
Episode 39 The Basmachi Organize in the Ferghana 1918-1920
The Basmachi, who are often thought of as the great bogeyman of Turkestan, spent most of 1918 and 1919 organizing themselves, mostly in the Ferghana, but there were a few units in the Khiva and Bukhara Emirates as well. The Basmachi originated in the aftermath of the 1916 Central Asian Revolt, but don’t really form the concept of the Basmachi until the fall of Kokand in 1918. By the end of 1918, there were 40 plus self-organized Basmachi units with three men emerging as effective enough leaders to unite the different groups: Irgush of Kokand, Madamin Bey whose family originated from Kokand royalty, and Ibrahim Bek who was organizing in Bukhara and was loyal to the Bukharan Emir. For this episode, we’ll focus on Irgush and Madamin in the Ferghana and save Ibrahim’s story for the greater story of the Bukharan Emirate
Irgush, who was the chief of Kokand’s militia, and Madamin both fled to Ferghana after the fall of the Kokand Autonomy and organized different branches of Basmachi. Irgush led the first attack against the Russians and by the end of 1918, he had raised an estimated 4,000 fighters (Olcott’s article). Madamin Bey enjoyed the support of the ulama, merchants, and moderate members of the Basmachi and the Ferghana Valley. By the end of 1918, both men had built minor fiefdoms for themselves, and it was clear that either they learned how to work together or risked destroying their own movement by fighting with each.
The Situation in Turkestan in 1919
In 1919, the Basmachi were facing three main problems: famine, the Bolshevik forces and the Jadids, and competition amongst each other.
As we’ve talked in our previous episodes, the Russian Civil War disrupted Turkestan’s food supplies, plunging the region into mass starvation while the Russians used armed groups to forcibly requisition food from the poor indigenous and Russian farmers. According to Jeff Sahadeo, an estimate 30% of the Ferghana population died in the famine, which is one of the reasons why it became a Basmachi stronghold. The more the Russians stole from the people, the more they fled into the Basmachi’s ranks. Some of these new recruits included Bashkir, Tatar, and Jadid reformers as well as ulama and conservative merchants. To try and counter this, the Russians switched the focus of their requisition efforts from the indigenous peasants to the Russian peasants while waiting for Red Army reinforcements.
For their part, the Basmachi focused on raiding military supply depots, burning warehouses and ginning factories, as well as attacking mines and oil wells. While the Russians tried to enforce mass arrests, they could never penetrate the Basmachi’s territory in the Ferghana. Instead, their efforts seemed to only help the Basmachi recruitment efforts. Yet, while the Basmachi and Russians were enemies, which didn’t prevent local units from making agreements with each other and it seems like deals were frequently made and broken. During the winter, when food was scarcer than it was already, the Basmachi would reach out to local Russian garrisons to share food and supplies. Once winter was over, the Basmachi would resume attacking Russian units and supplies.
While the Basmachi raided and fought with the Russians, their true enemy were the Jadids and other Muslim reformers. Given the Basmachi’s conservatism and belief in traditional Islam, they thought the Jadids were the greatest enemies of Turkestan. Ibrahim Bek, the leader of the Bukharan Basmachi, once wrote to a Red Army commander:
“Comrades, we thank you for fighting with the Jadids. I, Ibrohim-bek, praise you for this and shake your hand, as friend and comrade, and open to you the path to all four sides. I am also able to give you forage. We have nothing against you, we will beat the Jadids, who overthrew our power.” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan pg. 88
Ibrahim’s hatred of the Jadids seems to have matched the Emir’s own views. One of his officials once wrote,
“Irgush-Bek of Kokand and Muhammad Amin of Margealn with their courage and fortitude have for some time been…exposing and killing Jadids and Bolsheviks” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 88
It seems he was still sore the Bukharan Jadids used Kerensky’s Provisional Government to curb his power.
Despite the Basmachi’s antagonism to all indigenous people who threatened traditionalism and conservatism, Turar Risqulov, the leader of the Musburo, actually reached out to Madamin Bey to negotiate an uneasy peace so they could address the raging famine. Madamin was open to negotiations and in the end, they agreed that Madamin’s forces would keep their arms and organization but would become local units of the Red Army. The local Russians allowed this until Frunze arrived and broke the agreement, killed Madamin, and focused on breaking the Basmachi as an alternative form of government in the Ferghana.
Finally, the Basmachi, who were really modern-day warlords, realized they needed to organize their forces and split up their territories before they ended up fighting with each other.
How Does One Organize a Guerilla Force?
The Basmachi were neither coordinated nor centralized and as more and more groups popped up and more and more people joined their ranks, Irgush and Madamin realized they needed to get properly organized. So, in March 1919, Irgush called a meeting of 40 Basmachi leaders to talk about a unified command. By the end of the meeting, Irgush was nominated as the Supreme Commander with two deputies: Kurshirmat, a well-known ally of Irgush, and Madamin. Each of the 40 leaders present received control over a separate territory to protect and administer with support from the ulama as their religious-political advisors.
This structure lasted until the summer of 1919 when Madamin went his own way. At some point in 1919, Madamin met the Russian commander, Konstantin Monstrov, commander of the (Russian) People’s Army in Turkestan. He was just one of the many armed organizations in the region at the time. They united their forces, Madamin’s guerilla unit transformed into the Muslim People’s Army, and together they created the Ferghana Provisional Government which would outlive both of its founders by a few months.
Madamin and Monstrov created a constituent assembly and drew up an eight-point platform to ensure freedom of speech, press, and education for the people. They called for an elected assembly and a five-member cabinet, although it’s doubtful if they ever held elections. Like the Kokand government, it failed to execute any meaningful policy, but gained political recognition and aid from abroad. This would lead to claims that this government was an evil British plot to take Turkestan away from the Russians, nullifying any independent action on the basis of Madamin and Monstrov. While it seems that the British were aware of Madamin and his work, sent him financial support, and even sent agents to negotiate with him, it’s doubtful they masterminded the creation of the Ferghana Provisional Government. The Soviets would make similar claims about the Turkestan Military Organization, a unit consisting of former Tsarist officials and generals. You can learn more about them and the Soviet’s claim by joining our Patreon and gaining access to our exclusive episode on Osipov’s Uprising.
Monstrov and Madamin knew they would not survive long if they did not defeat the Bolshevik forces in the region. Together, they took the city of Osh in September 1919 and were involved in the siege of Andijan where they encountered Frunze’s Red forces. He pushed them to the modern-day Kyrgyzstan-Xinjiang border. Frunze captured and executed Monstrov in January 1920 and Madamin surrendered his forces and formally joined the Bolsheviks in March 1920. He would die later that summer.
By the end of 1919, the Basmachi of the Ferghana attempted to organize their forces to improve their effectiveness. They recruited 20,000 fighters, organized a Provisional Government with a Russian army also aligned against the Bolsheviks, and were impeding the Bolshevik’s efforts to gather supplies and establish their hold on the Ferghana. Even though Madamin would die in 1920, he left behind an organized guerilla force under the command of men like Irgush, Ibrahim Bek, and others who would prove, not only to be a thorn in the side of Frunze and the Red Army, but also entice a certain former Ottoman general to join their cause and attempt to regain lost glory.
References
“The Basmachi or Freemen’s Revolt in Turkestan 1918-1924 by Martha B. Olcott
“Revolution in the Borderlands: The Case of Central Asia in a Comparative Perspective” by Marco Buttino
“Some Aspects of the Basmachi Movement and the Role of Enver Pasha in Turkestan” by Mehmet Shahingoz and Amina Akhantaeva
Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent 1865-1923 by Jeff Sahadeo
The “Russian Civil Wars 1916-1926 by Jonathan D. Smele
Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR by Adeeb Khalid
Central Asia: Aspects of Transition by Tom Everett-Heath
Episode 50 – After the Russian Civil War: The Fall of the Alash Orda and the Jadids 1925-1938
For the European Soviets, the creation of the five Central Asian states was a “second revolution,” one that strengthened their presence and power within the region. Gone were the days when they’d have to compromise on the cultural and religious fronts. Instead, they could take advantage of the centralization of government to implement true Communist reforms and initiatives. Its biggest threat was the cadre of nationally-minded intelligentsia. By 1926, a war had been declared against the Alash Orda and the Jadids. It was initiated by the OGPU and spearheaded by indigenous actors, some who had been Jadids themselves or were educated by them, who wanted to prove their Communist credentials. However, the OGPU and European Soviets didn’t trust these new attack dogs, finding an ever increasingly large number of local actors who were guilty of nationalism. And thus, a fake conspiracy was created that grew so large everyone lost control of it until it finally ate itself to a painful and bloody death.
The First Arrests
It all started in January 1925, when the OGPU created the Commission for Working Out Questions on Attracting the Party’s Attention to the Work of the OGPU in the Struggle with Bourgeois-Nationalist Groups and with Counter-Revolutionary Ideology. This commission’s goal was to root out a nationalist and counter-revolutionary conspiracy and reported it to the higher ups as proof that the local actors could not be trusted. As Lev Nikolaevich Bel’skii an OGPU officer in Central Asia, explained:
“it was no secret to anyone” that those who “fought us for five years…have not been beaten either physically, economically, or spiritually and that their influence on the masses is still enormous” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 319
This predicament worsened by the “petit bourgeois governments” of the Central Asian states, who, “wanted to insure themselves against Soviet influence and the attraction of the model of Soviet rule in Central Asia” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 319). He further explained that the OGPU’s task was
“a harsh struggle with the malicious national intelligentsia by way of revealing [to the masses] their pan-Islamic and their sell-out-anglophile essence” Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 319
Of course, they made their jobs easier and harder by defining nationalism incredibly broadly. They claimed that nationalism could cover everything from outright condemnation of the Soviet order to expressions of discontent with the pace the Soviet polices were being implemented. They viewed korenizatsiia (which was supposed to integrate local actors into the Soviet system) as a “manifestation of the contemporary tactic of the anti-Soviet struggle of Uzbek nationalists: the infiltration of the Soviet apparat and the party, the preparation of youth, etc.” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 319,)
What is really interesting about that last quote is the fear of infiltration or impurity. We even see the ever-popular argument that the indigenous actors were “corrupting the youth” and turning them against Communism. It’s an interesting saying the quiet part out loud moment: the OGPU were afraid of being contaminated by the local actors and that any apparatus that relied on Central Asians could never truly be communist.
In his book, the Veiled Empire, Douglas Northrop argues that by 1926 the Soviets were identifying themselves in opposition to their Central Asian counterparts. I’ve talked a bit about this in Episode 48, but there was this nagging feeling that as Europeans and as vanguards of the Communist revolution they had to be better than their Central Asian counterparts and if Communism wasn’t really working out in Central Asia it’s because the heart of the Communist apparatus had been infected by the local actors. And thus, the OGPU could prove itself as a true Communist bureau by finding this secret conspiracy to infiltrate and destroy Communism from the inside out.
In spring 1926, the OGPU arrested several people who had been members of the Kokand Autonomy, but didn’t join the Soviet apparatuses of power. The OGPU claimed that they were “former leaders of armed struggle against Soviet power” (pg. 320, Making Uzbekistan) but several members of the Samaqand intellectuals recognized these arrests as an “ill-fated colonial policy of Soviet power, its tendency to cleave the national intelligentsia for colonial goals” (pg. 340, Making Uzbekistan)
A Society Turns on Itself
The OGPU arrests triggered a new series of attacks against the Jadids. Akmal Ikromov (Fayzulla Xo’jayev’s rival) and his Young Communists publicly attacked the Jadids for failing to align their previous reforms and activists to Communist principles (which would have been impossible because class hadn’t meant anything in pre-1920 Central Asia and there was no tradition of political organization along socialist lines at the time). Ikromov also called the Jadids the mouthpieces of national bourgeoisie who had resisted Soviet for so long by using the ideology of Turanism, Turkism, and Islamism, and had gone as far as calling for help from the Basmachi and English imperialists.
Several articles attacked the Jadids, proclaiming that there were two groups of intellectuals: those who developed before the revolution and were thus “nationalists and representatives of mercantile capital” and those who developed during Soviet rule and were thus servants of the workers and the peasants. The Jadids were denounced for being involved with members the Soviets deemed as reactionary, counter-revolutionary, and dangerous.
A few indigenous Soviets argued that the Jadids could still be of some use. Abdulhay Tojiyev, Secretary of the Tashkent obkom of the party and a Young Communists wrote:
“Of course, [the party] does not want to cast them aside or to have no dealings with them. It would be wrong to do so. Of course, we have to use those old intellectuals who can be used, to work those who can be worked” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 322
Rahimjon Ino’gamov, the Young Communist commissar for education, wrote:
“Our task should be to turn intellectuals who are close to the ideals of the Soviets into true servants of the Soviet order” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 322
This sentiment however, earned Rahimjon the wrath of Ikromov and other Young Communists and he was marked as a nationalist who provided “support to the nationalist intelligentsia” He was demoted to a low-level position in a rural village and was persecuted throughout his life. Soon there was no one to defend the Jadids except for the Jadids themselves.
Fayzulla Xo'jayev
[Image Description: A black and white photo of a men with black hair, a sharp nose, and a grey suit.]
Fayzulla took the lead in trying to defend his Jadid comrades. He shielded Fitrat from Ikromov’s attacks, claiming that Fitrat’s books should continue to be published because “Fitrat’s books are the property of our culture and do not contradict our policy” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 324). He argued that the Jadids were not a bourgeois movement but a semi proletarian group. It wasn’t a homogeneous entity that could be painted with one brush. Some Jadids turned their backs on communism, but others embraced communism. His arguments didn’t go far and instead opened him up to attacks by Ikromov and the historian P. G. Galuzo who accused him of not using Marxist categories in his analysis and for turning the Young Bukharans into revolutionaries and Communists. Xo’jayev was forced to amend his analysis, but he remained in power – for now. It’s unclear if he ever realized how fragile his hold on power was.
The attacks against the Jadids reached fever pitch during the Second Uzbekistan Conference of Culture Workers in October 1927. Ikromov attacked Vadud Mahmud (the jerk who was like Tajiks don’t exist) for being a nationalist. He riled the crowd up until they shouted:
“Enough! Away with such people! Vadud get lost!” until Vadud left. Botu, a Young Communist wrote, “Red cultural workers of Uzbekistan shamed an opponent of proletarian ideology and kicked him out of their midst” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 326
By 1927, the European Communists had a stranglehold on the local press, and they used their reporters to spread communism and be the front-line soldiers in their battle against the Jadids. These correspondents were often beaten, threatened, and sometimes killed for their work, but the Soviets did their best to protect them (even making it illegal to reveal the identity of these correspondents).
The Central Asian Bureau purged books they deemed harmful and discussed finally close the maktabs and madrassas for good. They placed their own handpick workers into the position of editors in several newspapers and slowly exerted control over what was and wasn’t published. Using their control over the press, the European Soviets steamrolled their own understanding of their own history on the Central Asians.
Any desire to talk about Central Asia’s unique position, needs, and development were overwritten was a “universal” (and Russian centric) version of the October Revolution. The true revolution arrived in Central Asia when the Tashkent Soviet took over Tashkent (never mind the disaster they were) and thus people could be persecuted for not lacking proletarian credentials in a society without proletariats. Any attempt to center the work of the local actors was decreed as nationalist. Instead, one had to only acknowledge the good work of the Russians who brought communism and salvation with them.
On the literary front, there was a new crop of writers who spoke Communist better than their own counterparts. Like the Young Communists, they saw themselves as the true guardians of Communism. Some like G’afur G’ulom, Oybek, and Hamid Olimjon would become the fathers of Soviet Union Literature in Central Asia. Others such as Botu and Ziyo Said were purged but remembered while others such as Qamchinbek, Anqaboy, or Amala-xonim, the first woman prose writer in Uzbek, have been almost forgotten. Some of these new Soviet writers had been taught by Jadids and may have been on friendly terms with them before the Soviet Union made it clear that to prove oneself a communist one had to destroy the nationalists.
Botu in particular, had a very violent break from the Jadids attacking Cho’lpon in publicly, proclaiming:
“You are a slave to yourself, I am
my own force
I visit your thoughts, your dreams in
nonexistence.
Your plan against light, your cause is
hollow
My cause commands fighting your cause.” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 333)
He argued that the Jadids were confined to the limits of “madrasa literature” and after the revolution “continued to fill the minds of schoolchildren with the poison of homeland and nation” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 333)
People loved to attack Cho’lpon actually. If it wasn’t Fitrat, it was Cho’lpon (poor Cho’lpon). Olim Sharafiddinov, a member of the new literary class, once wrote: Who is Cho’lpon? Whose poet is he? Cho’lpon is a poet of the nationalist, patriotic, pessimist, intelligentsia. His ideology is the ideology of this group” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 334). He argued that Cho’lpon saw all Russians as colonizers and blamed them for “all wretchedness afflicting Uzbekistan” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 334).
Usmonxon Eshonxo’jayev, a childhood friend of Cho’lpon, piled on adding:
“The defect and harmfulness of Cho’lpon’s poetic lies in its ideology…which from the point of view of our time is reactionary…the Poet is an idealist and an individualist, and therefore sees every political and social event not from the side of the masses but from his own personal point of view” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 335
The Alash Orda weren’t faring any better in Kazakhstan. Uraz Isaev, a European Communist argued that the Alash Orda were a really the beginnings of a bourgeois class in Kazakhstan and attacked them for siding with the White Army, “the most inveterate enemies of the revolution.” (Maria Blackwood, Personal Experiences, pg. 139). He further argued that:
“We should not think that former Alash-Ordists represent a stiff and indivisible whole. There are some incorrigible political hunchbacks who will only be reformed by the grave. But there is also a certain segment of young people who were not especially active in Alash-Orda in the past, who under the influence of our positive work have noticeably changed their convictions. Such people must be more closely drawn into Soviet work and be given the opportunity to more actively cooperate with us.” - Maria Blackwood, Personal Experiences, pg. 139-140
While the goal was to try and rehabilitate those who had fallen from the Communist ideals, it was far more important to root out those who were using Communism to advance their own goals. He wrote:
“Such elements entered our Party either because they have the wrong address, or because they want to use the Party in their own interest. […] Such elements should be decisively removed from the Party ranks.” - Maria Blackwood, Personal Experiences, pg. 139-140
Two of these elements were Alikhan Bukeikhanov and Akhmet Baitursynov. Alikhan was banished to Moscow in 1923, but he was able to travel back and forth from 1923-1924, participating in scientific conferences, expeditions, and research. Despite his best efforts, he never managed to earn a permanent position within Kazakhstan. He was arrested several times between 1923 and the time of his death, July 1937.
Alikhan Bukeikhanov
[Image Description: A black and white photo of a man with black hair and a black mustache and goatee in a black suit and white shirt]
Akhmet Baitursynov would serve in several academic positions mostly in Kazakhstan and Siberia, before being arrested for the first time on June 2nd, 1929. He was held in Butyrskiy prison until E. Peshkova, Maxim Gorky’s wife, intervened and petitioned for his release. He would be arrested again in 1937 and executed along with several other Jadids and Alash Orda members.
Tactics to Survive the Onslaught
For the poor Jadids there weren’t many options to escape these attacks. Some retreated in scholarly work, others tried to recreate themselves in order to continue doing public work, and others made public statements of repentance and loyalty. Fitrat wrote a play in support of the land reform being carried out and Cho’lpon wrote a letter to the Second Congress of Culture Workers admitting he had had nationalist feelings in the past and promised to rectify his mistakes. Qodiriy retreated to fiction writing that was published despite being acknowledged as not Soviet enough while others tried to write Soviet only novels.
Poor Elbek was arrested by the OGPU in 1927 and was asked to write testimony about non-Soviet actors Jadids and Nationalists in Uzbekistan. Munavvar qori, who the Soviets hated, spoke at a conference of cultural workers in 1927, admitting his mistakes, and argued that many people who held power in the party were taught by the Jadids. He said:
“Over the course of thirty years, we could not carry out land reform and unveiling. The Bolshevik party has accomplished these in ten years…We are ready to support the revolution…One or two Jadids have sinned, but it is not good to tar all of them with the same brush” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 338
His plea was met with mockery, and he never made a public appearance again.
Others adopted a strategy of learned helplessness. In her book, Despite Cultures, Kassymbekova argues that when the Soviets complained about Central Asian “backwardness” or inability to implement and support Soviet goals, they were identifying a coping mechanism many people utilized to survive the upheaval that followed the Russian Revolution. If the Soviets could complain that Central Asians simply didn’t understand Communism or were purposely trying to impede progress, the Central Asian could claim that the Soviets had failed to teach them properly.
One time an Iranian Communist who was sent to Tajikistan to help with the Soviet program, apologized for his missteps, claiming, “I think that I have many defects, a lot of mistakes, a lot of misunderstanding, which need to be reeducated.” A Tajik Communist reportedly replied, “Too many defects will not do. A little bit is ok” (Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 2).
Living Within a Soviet Society
Kassymbekova makes a fascinating argument in her book, Despite Cultures, that the only way the Soviets could unite all their republics was to create the language of bureaucracy. This, however, was a stupefying, alienating language that many people simply couldn’t understand and thus it became a tool to obfuscate and condemn.
Kassymbekova argues that early communism depended on individual party members who were dedicated to communist principles. These individuals needed to embody these principles a hundred percent with the utmost purity. They had to have a complete understanding of communism and the politburo’s goals, and be able to identify the true roots of inequality. They were not bound by law or language because those were the tools of capitalism and thus it was ok to tell a lie if it furthered the Communist project. It was ok to work with class traitors for a while because it helped communism. It was action that proved truth. If a lie saved communism, then it was a pure act. If a lie hurt communism then it was punished.
The reliance on individual cadres allowed Soviets to claim they were anti-colonial and anti-capitalist which relied on institutions. This strategy was cheaper than building institutions from the ground up, it enabled mass-scale campaigns since communism depended on all individuals coming together for the greater good and if an individual resisted he was identified as a threat and treated accordingly. It allowed deputized individuals to spread throughout the wide terrain and bring communism to the most remote of villages. However, it also made communism dependent on the local leaders on the ground. A leader could get away with a lot as long as they kept up with agricultural and industrial demands. This also meant that communism wasn’t implemented consistently and left a wide range of experiences within the communist system.
The soviet leaders were idealized and had tremendous power but were constantly hounded and spied on to ensure they remained pure. This taught local leaders to speak “Bolshevik” to upper party leaders while pursuing whatever policies they wanted on the ground. For many people in Central Asia this meant learning the language while utilizing the Bolshevik’s assumption of backwardness to their favor.
This meant that words were no longer used as means of communication, violence was. If they didn’t like something, they violently punished the perpetrators. But that also meant guessing which crime someone was killed for, so no one was ever sure what Moscow really wanted and what it really detested.
Disgruntlement with the Soviet Order
Of course, attacking nationalism right after a nation had been created was counter-productive and the Soviets couldn’t ignore the persistence of colonial inequalities and ethnic division in the region. The lack of a local proletariat and the increase of fascination with having a nation led the OGPU to become obsessed with the rise of “pan-Uzbekism” and “chauvinism.”
Europeans continued to stream into Central Asia looking for work, many of the economic sectors were dominated by Europeans, and the Soviets with power and trust of the OGPU were the Europeans. This led to quiet disgruntlement with the failing of the new order. Some of the complaints the OGPU recorded were as follows:
“The Russians are conducting a chauvinist policy. In Tashkent, all factories are packed with Russians if an Uzbek ends up there, he is fired right away.”
“Ferghana’s peasantry is in a very difficult situation: colonists command everything. The situation is so catastrophic that one may expecting an uprising. The line of the CC in regard to the intelligentsia is incorrect, [and the struggle] with kolonizatorstvo is conducted indecisively” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 339-340
Worse of all were the whispers that because of the forced production of cotton, Uzbekistan had become nothing more than a red colony, like India or Egypt under British rule. A teacher in Tashkent told his students that Uzbekistan was “in fact, a colony that exports cotton as a raw material” (pg. 340, Making Uzbekistan). One student asked, “What is the difference between the English colony of India and the administration of Kazakhstan by Goloshchekin?” (Adeeb Khalid Making Uzbekistan, pg. 340).
A Kyrgyz official once called the Bolsheviks “Colonizers with Party Cards” (what a burn) because they never understood the local needs. They only pushed what they thought the region needed.
Sobir Qodirov, an accused member of a nationalist counter-revolutionary organization, wrote:
“The national policy of Soviet power in Uzbekistan we regard as colonial policy, as a continuation of the great power policies of Tsarism. Such a policy, in reality, provides for the well-being exclusively of the Russian nation at the expense of the exploitation of the indigenous population. Thus, for example, Europeans living in Uzbekistan find themselves in the most favorable situations, when the Uzbek part of the population is doomed to the most pitiable, beggarly existence.
…We consider that Uzbekistan has enough natural wealth and commodity production for it to be an independent economic unit, and consequently to have its own industry, both light and heavy.
We consider that Soviet power wittingly does not allow the development of independent industry in Uzbekistan exclusively because it seeks to keep Uzbekistan as a base for raw materials in order to extort its riches. In other words, Uzbekistan is a colony of inner Russia, supplying raw material for its industry.” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 378
In 1929, Yodgor Sodiqov, a party member from Khujand, wrote to Stalin directly
“Peasants and artisans endure deprivation; they cannot complain, for they are afraid of arrest by the OGPU. But the cup of the peasantry’s patience is full to the brim. Waiting until it flows over is harmful. If the leadership of the party does not change and the people continue to be despised, then, without regard to my twelve years of work and the loss of my health in this work, I will consider myself to have left the party” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 378
Things were similar dire in Tajikistan, who had to deal with a weak infrastructure and government apparatus and constant Basmachi incursions. Their government was made out of Communists who were either in Tajikistan as a form of punishment or who had nowhere else to go. The Basmachi and questionable Communists drew a large number of OGPU into the region. Many officials actually wanted to leave Tajikistan, but the Soviets made it impossible to resettle. When that failed, the presence of the OGPU was enough to keep people in line. The OGPU was above the local government’s power, and this upset many officials. Two Soviet members in Tajikistan complained that:
“We have no authority! Our secret communication is being opened by the [O]GPU, our telegrams are not being sent. There is war against the Revolutionary Committee. You should either help us or remove us from Tajikistan” Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 49
The OGPU acted like cops always do. One time they kept an eyewitness prisoner for seven months. Another time a party member received several complaints about an OGPU member who:
“Pushed peasants off the road; they were half-dressed and half-shod with donkeys stuck in the mud up to their ears i.e., you surely know what kind of roads are here in winter. Moreover, he stopped at the mosque and raped a woman who was heading to a first-aid post. The peasants saw this and were shocked, and I have an eyewitness – the chief investigator. Does this not discredit the authority of the party and branches of the [O] GPU?” (Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 49
It is hard to tell how widespread this dissatisfaction was, but it made the Soviets paranoid, leading a massive purge in 1929.
Destroying Islam
For years, the Soviets uncomfortably tolerated Islam because they were afraid of sparking a mass exodus to the Basmachi ranks, but 1926 they launched a new initiative untie society and culture from Islam. In 1927, the Soviets officially closed all maktabs in the Central Asian states. However, the Soviet schools were not increased to handle the 35,000+ new students and so many kids simply went without an education. After dealing with the maktabs, they went after the madrasas, finalizing the nationalization of waqf land and cannibalizing the buildings for other purposes. Those they could not repurpose, they closed by 1928.
The Soviets also turned on the “progressive” ulama who they had relied on in early 1920s to help spread support of the Soviet reign. The OGPU worried that, to quote a report from the Kazakhstan central committee:
“Today’s clergy is not the clergy of five or ten years ago. It is a clergy that understands the moment of the struggle of labor with capital, of socialism with capitalism, going on in the country where socialism is being built, and adapts all its tactics to the current movement” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 346)
Basically, by educating the ulama about communism, they actually made them more powerful and dangerous. To counter their dangerous influence, the Soviets abolished the qazi courts and shariat administration in 1927. They increased rhetoric that placed all of the blame for the violence of the civil war on the ulama (even the reformist or progressive ulama) and the Basmachi. The Soviets argued that the Basmachi and ulama were united against the people of Central Asia (and absolving all Soviets and Europeans of violence they definitely committed).
Hamza Hakimzoda Niyoziy
[Image Description: A black and white picture of a bald man with a black mustache. He is wearing a tubeteika and a striped robe]
While the committees and executive were concerned with the maktabs and madrasas, lower-level Communists turned their attention to the mosques and shrines. This movement gathered considerable support amongst the local Soviets, forcing the central committees to support them or be called counter-revolutionary. The secretary of the Bukhara party committee wrote:
“Mosques were closed by decisions of party cells, by decisions of Komsomol cells, by decisions of rural soviets, of meetings of the poor or simply without any decision at all. Such an abominable situation continued from the beginning of 1927 to the end of 1928…the closing of mosques took on the character of a competition.” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan,. pg. 353
Because this was led from the ground up, the closures were not as sudden or as effective as the closures of the maktabs or madrasas. When the Soviets couldn’t destroy a mosque, they repurposed them into clubs, Red Reading rooms, warehouses, schools, or stables for OGPU horses. The mosques closed in spurts between 1927 and 1929 and it picked up in the 30s as it became part of the collectivization efforts.
Shohimardon
Great violence could occur when the Soviets tried to destroy the mosques and shrines. One of the most famous examples was in March 1929 in the mountain village of Shohimardon in the Ferghana Valley. Jadid playwright, Hamza Hakimzoda Niyoziy was overseeing the destruction of the mazor attributed to Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law. The caretakers of the mazor were dozens of families of sheikhs and xo’jas. Hamza wanted to convert the mazor into a resort for the poor peasants. Hamza argued that the site was corrupt, claiming:
“The Xo’jas in the hamlet of Shohimardon have turned the fake grave of Ali into a resource and they rob the people with it. The sheikhs claim to have the key to paradise in their hands because of their descent from Hasan and Husain. They send those who do the proper sacrifice [and pay the sheikhs] to “paradise,” and those who don’t to “hell.” These sheikhs of Shohimnardon have to this day never worked, never labored, but, dressed in the garb of cunning, they have adopted the principles of Satan and, turning their rosaries, have fattened like the pigs of the Shohimardon steppe…They have poisoned the minds of workers with superstition and [now] feed off their possessions.” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 351
Hamza brought with him several peasants to march on the mazor, place a red flag on its cupola, and padlock the door. He also established a Red Teahouse and kiln, hiring thirty-five families to run the site and to crowd out the xo’jas. He threatened to call the red army unless the sheikhs publicly announced that they were indeed corrupt and feeding off the people and their misplaced faith. The standoff lasted throughout the winter of 1928, until in early March, on the evening of the end of Ramadan, Soviet police entered the mosque, took off the wall hangings, and arrested the muezzin. On March 17th, the demolition began. A crowd of three hundred people defended the shrine, disarmed the police, destroyed the red teahouse, and stoned Hamza to death.
The OGPU arrested 54 people and put them on public trial in June. 9 were executed, 16 sentenced to prison, 25 exiled to other parts of the Soviet Union, and 4 were acquitted.
Despite the fact that the Soviets were anti-clerical and anti-religions, the OGPU, of all people, noticed that the closing of mosques was causing too much disruption. They asked the central committees to try and quelch the closing of mosques. Even Akmal Ikromov said
“As it is, nowhere does the population trust Soviet power…if someone wants there be an uprising in Uzbekistan, then a few more such abominable facts will be enough.” Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 353
Like the hujum, the unveiling of women, the closing of mosques was constructed without taking the local population in consideration, it quickly spiraled out of control because it was left to the lower ranks of the Soviet apparatus, and once it spiraled out of control it created flash points for people who were already upset with the Soviet regime, to violently vent their frustration and anger.
Collectivization
While the Soviets were trying to slowdown the hujum and closing of mosques, in 1929 they implemented maybe the most disruptive policy: collectivization. This policy was designed to establish Soviet control over the countryside and break all resistance. It would produce great violence and mass starvation. This same collectivization effort would create the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1930 and while Ukraine suffered the most in terms of the number of dead, the suffering in Kazakhstan, specifically, shouldn’t be underestimated. To give you a sense of perspective, the conservative estimate is that 3.9 million people died in Holodomor and the conservative estimate for the Kazakh famine is 1.5 to 2 million people. It’s estimated 30-40% of all Kazakhs died.. The Holodomor and the starvation of the Kazakhs were genocides.
The goal of collectivization was to collect individually owned farmlands and livestock into collective holdings controlled by the state. The idea was that the state would most effectively decide how the food should be distributed and you wouldn’t have pesky price gouging or shortages because the state (i.e., Stalin) was all knowing and never got anything wrong.
Turning Central Asia into an agricultural dispensary came out of the pain of the Russian empire collapsing and Moscow losing access to food in Ukraine, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. It was also a matter of self-sufficiency. If they could grow their own cotton, they wouldn’t have to import so much (cotton made up 1/3 of the values of all imports in 1924) and enable them to export more textiles (creating jobs in Russia proper as well). Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan, accounted for 75% of the Soviet Union’s domestic cotton supply, but it could never hope to meet the Soviet Union’s need. The Soviets imported 45% of their cotton fiber, meaning it made up 15% of all imports between 1924-1928. The world prices for cotton fluctuated widely, inspiring Stalin’s desire of “cotton independence.”
To increase cotton production, the Soviets fixed the purchase price of cotton to 2.5 and then 3.0 times the market price of grain from 1922 to 1926. Many Central Asian farmers and peasants took advantage of the lucrative prices, increasing cotton acreage from 171,255 acres in 1922 to 1,412,915 acres in 1926. The Soviets further encouraged cotton growth by offering various forms of aid such as agricultural credits, subsidies, farming implements, draft animals, and land-improvement aid. In 1928, the Komsomol even went as far as to create cotton holidays, declaring cotton as a key component of Uzbek honor, and cotton became the symbol of Uzbekistan.
In Tajikistan, cotton was identified as its pride and glory, “the happiness and hope of the Soviet Union” and “the measure of the republic’s achievement and successes” (Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 72). A Soviet official described Tajikistan’s role in growing cotton as:
“The Tajik SSR is a wonderful illustration of the Comintern thesis about the possibility of noncapitalist development in the world’s most backward countries under the leadership of the proletariat. Who does not understand that the Central Asian republics, including Tajikistan, already became inseparable parts of one whole economic system of the Soviet Union and that they have particular functions in the industrialization of the USSR? The cotton program in this regard is a program of Union industrialization and socialist kishlak (village) rebuilding. The Union’s industry does not only receive cotton from Tajikistan; it also gives powerful support to the development of industrial capacity, increases material support, and raises cultural awareness for the sprawling masses of working dekhkans [peasants]. There is obviously a dual relation. Those who did not understand the duality of the relationship understood nothing. They devolve from our national policy either as great imperial chauvinists or local nationalist.” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures pg. 73
Cotton was the ultimate status of achieving Sovietization, of having a culture, of being part of a bigger whole, and avoiding conquest by other European powers who would abuse the Tajiks – unlike the Soviets of course.
Despite the desperate need for cotton, the Soviet’s policies were costly because it required the Soviet Union to ship enough grain in Central Asia to make up for the grain the region wasn’t producing. This meant that the Soviet Union was diverting grain from exporting it to world markets to feed its own people internally, increasing their trade deficit. However, many found the quality of grain and wheat to be terrible. They bought locally grown grain instead which prevented the government from recouping some of its losses and took land away from growing cotton. The cherry on the miserable sundae was that despite all of these benefits and aid, cotton growth itself didn’t improve. It never met their yield before the revolution, falling below the 80% goal.
Predictably the focus on cotton created mass food shortages in the cotton producing districts, which culminated in the terrible famine of the 1930s. Areas that had formally been able to feed themselves faced starvation as prices skyrocketed and grain shortages increased. For example, in January 1928, a year before collectivization was even put in place, Uzbekistan was supposed to receive 3.8 million poods of grain from Russia. They only received 40%. These shortages would grow to include most household items by 1930. To make up for the lack of grain, the Soviets implemented the policy of “import substitution” in 1927. The idea was to look for ways to import food from regions within Central Asia where it was impossible to grow cotton. This included transporting livestock from non-cotton regions to cotton regions, leaving the people who lived in non-cotton regions at an even greater risk of starvation. It was these regions, not the cotton producing regions, which suffered the worst during the 1930s famine.
Peasants of all strata came together to demand the reversal of new obligations and taxes, the release of those who had been arrested while protesting, the end of the cotton program, and permission to “live according to the Shariat.” When that didn’t work, they turned to the Basmachi, briefly resurrecting the failing guerilla movement (which we talked about in the last episode.) Other armed resistance movements cropped up in Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and even local Communists resisted collectivization. In 1925, thirty Kyrgyz officials signed a letter protesting their exclusion from making any decisions regarding their own state. In 1927, Makhmud Tumailov, a Turkmen official, publicly attacked the Economic Council for robbing the national republics of their economic autonomy. 44 prominent Kazakh intellectuals were arrested in 1928 for opposing Filipp Goloshchekin, the European Party Secretary of Kazakhstan, plan to forcibly settle nomadic Kazakhs in order to promote grain cultivation. Goloshchekins also expelled Smagul Sadvokasov, a prominent Kazakh Communist and educator, for questioning if Bolshevik style communism was applicable to the nomadic Kazakh lifestyle.
When resistance failed, people simply left, fleeing to Afghanistan, Iran, and Xinjiang as long as the borders were open. However, Soviet (and in Xinjiang’s case, Chinese) pressure forced those states to close their borders and then there was no escape.
Collectivization was not a success because farmers didn’t understand it. It artificially cut their prices in half, they preferred to eat their cattle and sell what remained. The Moscow administration didn’t offer any clear idea what a collective farm should look like or how it should operate and so the peasants panicked, wanting to save as much of their property as possible. Tajikistan in particular was already hard hit by the confiscations that were meant to starve the Basmachi. Collectivization seemed to guarantee that everyone else would starve as well. The Soviets turned to violence, especially as the local party leaders failed to meet five-year goals and they were being accused of not being loyal communists by higher ups.
In 1929-1930, the Tajikistan’s Central Executive Committee planned to collectivize 16,000 households. By April 1930, a party newspaper reported that 98% of the collectivization plans were fulfilled. Yet, members in the know reported that Tajikistan had only fulfilled 40% of the plan because of Basmachi disturbances. The Tajik Executive Committee decided in 1930 to change plans and created Tozes, the joint cultivation of land, not the cultivation of cattle and tools (like in kolkhozes). In 1931 20-25% of all grain and 50% of cotton sowing lands were turned into Tozes. By 1932 this increased to 41.9% and by 1937, 98.3 % of all land was reported as collectivized.
Collectivization a Test for European Communists
Collectivization not only tamed the indigenous actors, but it also tested the European Communist leaders, allowing them to prove themselves as true Communists or as counterrevolutionaries. For Central Asia, this put Suren Shadunts and Karl Bauman, the leaders of the Central Asian Bureau, and Davud Guseinov, the Secretary for Tajikistan, in a tough place.
Shadunts was in charge of supervising the cotton cultivation of 1929-1930 and was responsible for the anti-Basmachi campaign that led to the capture of Ibrahim Bek. Guseinov would eventually be recalled from Tajikistan for his “failure” and Shadunts would replace him after the Central Asian Bureau was eliminated. While Shadunts was in charge of the cotton industry in Central Asia, Bauman was in charge of collectivization. Both of these men had questionable histories of nationalism which was why Stalin sent them to Tajikistan. It was an easy way to get them to “prove” themselves to him.
However, the pressure of meeting impossible goals while being hounded by OGPU members broke many Soviet officials as this conversation between Shadunts and Guseinov reveals:
“I just arrived from Kurgan-Tiube and I feel terrible. I could hardly drag myself to the telegraph…According to information of [May] 25 on the basis of the last directive from Bauman, 6,000 metric tons [of grain] must be delivered by July 15. We [now] have 2,900 metric hundredweights…I am sure we will fulfill the plan. Undivided attention is paid to Garm. There we will send our camels and take further measures. [Tajik OGPU chief] Dorofeev is in Garm one Central Committee brigade…Five [O]GPU people are also heading there; according to their information, we already collected 2,200 metric hundredweights of grain…We are thinking of bringing all our cars there from Stalinabad (modern day Dushanbe) …What’s new? What’s going on in Moscow? How is your health? Koba, Sergo? I have to inform you that there is no way I can leave Stalinabad and come to Tashkent. I need, frankly speaking, a holiday. I just physically cannot move. I insistently ask you to delay my report [in Tashkent] for at least two to three days, better, seven days. I repeated that I am unable to move from this place” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Dispute Cultures, pg. 86
As we can see from the quote. Guseinov was not a strongman in control of the situation in Tajikistan. He was a tired and sick man surrounded by the OGPU who were as interested in forcing local peasants to give up their food as they were in turning on failing Communists.
For an ideology that is supposed to put the community first, the application of collectivization was a very individualized affair. The local leaders were held personally responsible for failures, even in places like Tajikistan which was never going to meet its grain requirements because of its landscape and raids from the Basmachi. Yet, when Bauman reported the failure of the 1931 Central Asian Cotton campaign to Stalin, he knew he would be held personally responsible. He wrote:
“I want to warn you and the Central Committee that we will not be able to fulfill the plan and I do not want to appear before you as someone whitewashing the situation…Unconditionally, there are masses of failures and mistakes in our work. But I firmly declare that I took up the struggle to the best of my abilities and I lost on the front with a clear conscience…Please let me continue my work in Central Asia for a couple more years, and I think I will justify your trust and help the Party in its struggle for cotton.” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Dispute Cultures, pg. 87
The five-year plan was completely disconnected from reality, making it hard for local leaders to meet their goals. The peasants often asked the Soviets where they were supposed to plant their grain as they had no arable land and the Soviets would reply, “Sow anywhere you want, even in your huts!” and “You have no soil on your breast, but your hair is thick enough. You can sow the seeds there, just fulfill the plan.” (Botakoz Kassymbekova, Dispute Cultures, pg. 87)
The forced stealing of food left many people, including Soviet officials starving and unable to work (even though they were forced to by the secret police). The Soviet police often went months without pay and when that happened they joined the wandering bands of guerillas and warlords, leaving Soviet officials unprotected. The peasants lead revolts when they could and sometimes managed to kill local Soviet officials.
These miserable conditions led to severe alcoholism and abuse on part of the European Soviets. Rape was frequent and even though the Soviets found people to scapegoat for the most excessive acts of violence, it was part of the plan. What the peasants wouldn’t give up willingly would be taken by force.
The Murder of the Central Asian Intelligentsia
1929 was a year of great change in Central Asia. Tajikistan was elevated to a full republic; Stalin proclaimed the year as the “year of the Great Breakthrough” and the attacks against the old intelligentsia in Central Asia intensified to new heights. From 1929-1931, the Soviet apparatus would purge the indigenous ranks, leaving no other alternative to Soviet power.
The OGPU Craft a Conspiracy
With collectivization came resistance and failures, meaning that the Soviets needed scapegoats to explain why Stalin’s “great” five-year plan and genocides weren’t achieving the results he expected. For the OGPU in Central Asia, the obvious solution was to uncover a nationalistic, counter-revolutionary conspiracy amongst the Central Asian intellectuals. People like Fitrat, Xo’jayev, and Bukeikhanov, only pretended to convert to communism so they could use Soviet resources to create a bourgeoisie, nationalist state they would then betray to the English, for some reason…As one OGPU agent wrote:
“Materials in our possession indicate that 1929, especially it second half, was characterized not just by the general growth by anti-Soviet manifestations of the bais in the countryside, but also the growth in the activity of nationalist counterrevolutionary forces [including] a significant rearrangement of forces also among the national intelligentsia” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 373
The conspiracy began with an article titled “The Bark of the Chained Dogs of the Khan of Kokand” by El-Registan, the future writer of the Soviet national anthem of 1943. He attacked the Uzbek State Publishing House for financial irregularities and for publishing chauvinistic, nationalist, anti-Soviet works. The Uzbek State Publishing House was directed by Hadi Fayzi, who had been a member of the Soviet bogeyman, the Kokand Autonomy. When the article wasn’t attacking Fayzi, it attacked Cho’lpon. El-Registan called Cho’lpon “a prostitute of the pen and a stoker of chauvinism” whose anti-Soviet songs were sung “in chorus by Basmachis taken prisoners.”
Cho'lpon
A color picture of a man with brown hair, a small mustache, and circular wire framed glasses. He is wearing a tubeteika and a tan shirt]
Cho’lpon defended himself by claiming, “It is an old matter, for which I was abused plenty then. Now it’s necessary to abuse [me] for new misdeeds, if there are any.” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 372). Others attacked El-Registan for being a chauvinist and in the pocket of other ultranationalists such as Ramziy, Botu, and Fitrat. The Jadids weren’t the only “snakes in the grass.” The Soviets in Kazakhstan attacked the Alash Orda just as viciously, claiming:
“The Alash party set itself the task of collectively joining the Party, thus hiding behind their Party cards in order to defend their work. They joined the Soviets only so that they could use legal forms to fracture the Soviet apparatus and use it for their own goals as bais.” - Maria Blackwood, Personal Experiences of Nationality and Power in Soviet Kazakhstan, 1917-1953, Pg 112
On November 6th, 1929, the OGPU arrested several alleged members of the Committee of National Independence. One of the people arrested was Munavvar qori, a Jadid who had been under surveillance for a long time because of his association with Zeki Velidi Togan and his “mismanagement” of the Waqf office. Munavvar was accused of
“Having preserved an irreconcilable enmity to Soviet power. [He] continued to group around himself the counterrevolutionary element of the bourgeois intelligentsia, conducted systematic anti-Soviet propaganda, in particular among the student youth, [and having] conducted espionage work on the instructions of Afghan diplomats” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 374,
The OGPU expanded their arrests from Tashkent to Namangan where they arrested several other people, including the staff of New Ferghana, where Hamza had been a contributor before being stoned to death. Based on the “activities” of the new Ferghana staff, the OGPU created another secret counterrevolutionary org called the Botir Gapchilar which consisted of thirteen formal members. The OGPU claimed:
“During this short three-month period, it had strengthened organizationally, worked out programmatic and tactical arrangements, [and] determined its most immediate goals” Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 374
Not bad for an organization that didn’t exist.
In February 1930, the OGPU expanded their reach once more and arrested Sa’dulla Qosimov, the head of the chief court of Uzbekistan, and placed him on trial for corruption and using “Soviet institutions and his position in the interests of the enemy class” (pg. 374, Making Uzbekistan). During the trial, it “became clear” that Qosimov was part of a carefully planned nationalist plot. He was involved with bais, ulama, anda pan-Turkist organization in Tashkent led by none other than Munavvar qori (all the love in the world for poor Munavvar, but given his mental state after being hounded by the OGPU since his first arrest, I don’t think he was capable of organizing anything in 1929). Qosimov was charged with planting the organization’s agents in every Soviet institution and wrecking it from the inside.
Poor Qosimov was executed in June, but the chief witness for the prosecution, Obid Saidov fell ill during dinner and died on June 23, 1930. The OGPU investigated his death and discovered he was poisoned (I had a Russian babushka who used to tutted with grave disappointment that the Russian state “always use poison” to kill its victims). The OGPU took this as evidence of a grand plot and arrested Obid’s brother, Nosir, who confessed he was in on the plot that had been ordered by Botu. The OGPU “discovered” that Botu was part of the Milliy Istiqlol, Veldi’s old pan-Turkic organization. Botu supposedly claimed that the goal of the organization was:
“The achievement of the independence of Uzbekistan in the form of a separate bourgeois-democratic republic” He supposedly claimed that “it is necessary to think not only of the present, but also of the future” He told Nosir Saidov that “our Uzbek petty bourgeois youth is in a very straitened condition…excluded from schools and the Soviet apparatus. In our thinking about education, we pay very little attention to the preservation in [the youth] of national feeling. Meanwhile, in the future [i.e., upon Uzbekistan’s secession from the USSR] we will need cadres of nationalist youth. It is necessary to strengthen the nationalist reworking of the youth through the school and literature” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 376
Botu was arrested on July 23, 1930.
More arrests followed and the OGPU made up another counterrevolutionary organization: G’ayratlilar Uyushmasi (Union of Enthusiasts). This group had infiltrated the Uzbekistan Narkompros, proving there was a conspiracy to destroy the Soviet Union from the inside out.
None of the people arrested were given show trials. Instead, they were shipped to Moscow to be interrogated in Butyrka prison. In total, 87 people were accused and 15 were sentenced to death on April 23, 1931. Munavvar qori was executed immediately but others had their sentenced changed to death at a labor camp instead. Botu would spend 1931-1933 being shipped from prison to prison until he was formally sentenced to ten years in a labor camp on Solovetsky Islands in the Artic. He would spend five years there before being recalled and shot during the Great Terror.
Over the decade, the OGPU (later turned into the NKVD) found similar secret societies in Tajikistan (Union of the East-Ittihodi Sharq) and in Turkmenistan (Turkmen Independence – Turmen Azatlygy).
While this first wave of arrests spared many Jadids, the verbal assaults increased in their ferocity. Jalil Boybo’latov, a Chekist who had been tracking Fitrat since the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic wrote a detailed attack on Fitrat’s entire catalogue, claiming he was a chauvinist and nationalist and attacked Chaghatayism as being a nationalist ideology. Fitrat defended himself (it was the last time he’d be published in a newspaper), but the die was cast. No longer were indigenous actors able to debate the future of their forming nations in the newspapers. They were officially iced out and only communist approved thought could appear in the papers.
It's not a hundred percent clear why Fitrat, Cho’lpon, and Qodiriy survived the arrests of 1929-1930. Adeeb Khalid postulates that it may have been because of Fayzulla Xo’jayev’s protection, although there isn’t any real documentary proof that that was the case (and there may not be). It could have been because they were easy lightning rods and scapegoats that others could trip over themselves attacking to prove their own communist credentials and so the OGPU didn’t yet see a reason to get rid of them. Better to use them to turn the indigenous intellectuals against each other, fundamentally break all bonds of social and cultural ties before killing everyone – a favorite Soviet game.
Scapegoats in Tajikistan
By 1933, the Soviet machine needed scapegoats to explain the failure of collectivization and cotton growing in Tajikistan. After a year of interrogations, recrimination, investigation, and paranoia, the OGPU selected Nusratullo Maksum of the Central Executive Committee and Abdurakhim Khodzhibaev of the Council of People’s Commissars to be the sacrificial lambs. They were accused of being part of counterrevolutionary organizations aiming to eliminate Soviet rule in Tajikistan. The OGPU arrested 600 people for being connected to the Maksum and Khozhibaev plot – many of whom had been Jadids transplanted from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan. One such Jadid was Abdulkadyr Mukhitdinov who became the Tajik Fitrat or Munavvar qori.
He was attacked for being a Jadid, for distrusting the five-year plan, for being a wealthy merchant who had made money from cotton in the past. Mukhitdinov was in charge of collectivization and his letters fell into OGPU hands. In one letter he asked Karl Baumann to confiscate only cotton, not cattle, so the people would not starve. Another local party member said Mukhitdinov asked him not to press grain collection and to keep as much grain for the people. He claimed that Mukhitidnov said,
“We made the revolution, but we destroyed ourselves. We Muslims, are not united. We tried to eat each other and destroy ourselves. Russians are united, but we report on each other and hence destroyed the Bukharan People’s Socialist Republic” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Dispute Cultures, pg. 117
Mukhitdinov was purged from the party and executed in 1934.
At first Bauman and Guseinov tried to protect Maksum and Khodzhibaev but by December 1933 they turned their backs on the pair and demanded their purge.
Publicly Maksum and Khodzhibaev were accused of being counterrevolutionaries, but the OGPU records revealed conflicting accusations depending on who they spoke with. Either Maksum and Khodzhibaev were too extreme in fulfilling the Soviet plan or they did too much to help the peasants resist collectivization. There is also an intriguing claim that Maksum and Khodzhibaev attacked the OGPU for driving people into the arms of the Basmachi and for getting in the way of collectivization. Frustrated with the OGPU and the situation in Tajikistan one of them warned another Soviet member “you worked for Soviet rule, you got medals, but now you can throw them away; you will not be thanked for your work, you will be arrested” (Botakoz Kassymbekova, Dispute Cultures, pg. 119)
Surprisingly neither were executed. Instead, they were transferred to different positions and then Moscow.
Guseinov was also dismissed from his post. Between 1933-1934 the Central Asian Bureau sent 105 new workers to Tajikistan and then dozens of new secret police agents
Abdullo Rakhimbaev replaced Khodzhibaev. He actually was involved in the delimitation between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and actually argued against the creation of Tajikistan. Grigory Broido replaced Guseinov. Broido was involved in the sovietzation of Central Asia back in 1917 and played a key role in the formation of the Bukharan and Khivan communist parties and led a Khivan military campaign. Urnbai Ashurov was sent to support Broido. Shirinsho Shohtemur, who had worked with Maksum and Khodzhibaev, was in charge of the purges of Tajikistan. With the exception of Shohtemur, all of these new leaders were outsiders brought in because they needed a chance to prove their communist principles and because they owed Stalin their lives and this new chance.
From 1933-1936, the Soviet apparatus attacked indigenous actors on charges of being nationalism and counterrevolutionaries and they attacked European actors of chauvinism and incompetence. Any time anyone tried to challenge the OGPU for being lawless and violent, they were caught within the OGPU’s web.
Shadunts eventually replaced Broido as leader of the Party. He was promoted during a period of recovery for Tajikistan. People were recovering from the first and second five-year plans and productivity was increasing.
Yet, 1935 was the same year for another purge. In total 476 party members lost their party card because they were “bureaucrats’ “corrupt officials” and class enemies. This was a precursor to the great purge of 1936-1938. The party members who were purged in 1935 were restored and the hunt for those who falsely accused the “good” communists began. Shohtemur proceeded cautiously, basically asking how it was possible for the NKVD to arrest clearly good Communists. However, he also knew that a restoration could be taken away as quickly and then he would be blamed for restoring a bad communist. His caution didn’t save him and he would be executed in spring 1938.
His sudden fall shocked the Communists of Tajikistan and the only way Rakhimbaev could explain it was:
“For almost two years Shadunts led the Party and suddenly he was removed from his post. What happened? This happened, because comrades, comrade Shadunts turned out to be a bad political leader. He turned out to be a liberal…He could not combine economic work with political soberness, with Party work. He failed in Bolshevik instinct to unmask the enemy in a timely manner, this is why he had to go…The Central Committee was fully right to dismiss Shadunts.” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Dispute Cultures, pg. 186
Rakhimbaev and Broido shortly joined Shadunts along with an entire generation of indigenous and European intellectuals and leaders who were unlucky enough to be targeted by the NKVD.
The Great Terror
The Great Terror arrived in Central Asia in 1937 with the arrest of Fayzulla and Akmal Ikromov. They were both arrested in July 1937 and were charged with several different counter-revolutionary activities. They were simultaneously part of:
A “bloc of Rights and Trotskyites” who wanted to dismantle the Soviet Union
Milliy Ittihod, whose goal was to either to engage in “wrecking, diversionist, and terrorist activities, undermining the military power of the USSR, provoking a military attack…on the USSR, dismembering the USSR”
Organizations that wanted to separate Uzbekistan from the Soviet Union and join a British protectorate.
Both men were executed on March 15, 1938.
Cho’lpon was arrested on July 13, 1937, Fitrat was arrested on July 22nd, and Qodiriy was arrested on December 31st, 1937. They were joined by hundreds of others, including many who attacked them so vehemently to prove they were in fact real Communists. The charges brought against them were ludicrous. They were the clear design of paranoid and bored minds who needed people to blame for the failures of Soviet policies and because the hounds of nationalism had been unleashed and could not be recalled.
Fitrat “confessed” to being a leader of Milliy Ittihod, recruited by Fayzulla (who was the Chairman of the Bukharan Soviet Republic at the time, so clearly had a lot of time on his hands for secret societies and counter-revolutionary acts). Fitrat, Xo’jayev, and Munavvar qori among others had organized the Basmachi to destroy the Soviet Union. Qodiriy was accused of being a Trotskyite and being associated with the terrible nationalists Xo’jayev and Ikromov.
Their records are said to survive but are sealed except to a select few. They paint a depressingly familiar picture of torture, false confessions, deep betrayals, and shattering of desperate humans. The hallmark of not only the Soviet Union, but any government that wants to break its people, not support them.
Over 383 lists (with almost 44,000 names) of accused nationalists and counter-revolutionaries were sent to the Politburo and then Stalin for his signature. A vast majority of them were executed. Some of the names included Evgeniia Zel’kind, Ikromov’s wife, Hadi Fayzi, and Rahimjon Inog’amov. Others who were not on the list were still arrested and executed such as Botu, and Turar Risqulov while others, like Laziz Azizzoda were arrested and went from camp to camp before being released. And then there was Sadriddin Ayni, who somehow managed to avoid arrest and died in his bed in 1954 at the age of 76.
In the biggest farce of this entire madness was the Supreme Military Court of the USSR. It held a session in Tashkent on October 5th, 1938, to sentence the guilty counterrevolutionaries. However, everyone had already been executed the night before, on October 4th. It was shameful window dressing of a massacre based on paranoia, colonialism, and a love for power.
References
Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR by Adeeb Khalid
“Colonizers With Party Cards” by Benjamin Loring
Despite Cultures by Botakoz Kassymbekova
“The Role of Alash Orda on the Formation of Kazakh SSR” by Yunus Emre Gurbuz
“Challenging Colonial Power: Kazakh Cadres and Native Strategies” by Gulnar Kendirbai
“Personal Experiences of Nationality and Power in Soviet Kazakhstan 1917-1953” by Maria Blackwood
Episode 49th – After the Russian Civil War: The Last Days of the Basmachi
Recovering from Enver Pasha: the 1923-1926 Campaign
When we last left the Basmachi, Enver Pasha was being Enver Pasha and led his followers into a disastrous series of frontal assaults that shattered their forces. He was then hunted down and killed by Red Army forces. Three Basmachi commanders survived Enver Pasha: Salim Pasha, Enver’s successor, Junaid Khan in the Kara-Kum Desert in Turkmenistan, and Ibrahim Bek in Tajikistan.
Salim Pasha and Ibrahim continued fighting for the Bukharan Emir, who was now in Afghanistan, and many Basmachi fighters survived by retreating into the mountainous rural terrain, like Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, or ride to and fro from Afghanistan. Salim Pasha, in 1922, rode to Afghanistan and received the Emir’s blessing for a large scale attack against Eastern Bukhara. He united several smaller Basmachi units into an army of 5,000 and targeted not only Soviet garrisons but Revkom members and local party workers. However, like Enver Pasha, Salim Pasha thought in a scale larger than his forces could manage and was surprised by the Soviet’s improved tactics and abilities.
Enver Pasha
[Image Description: A black and white photo of a man standing at an angle, looking into the camera. he has a thick mustache that is twisted upwards. He is wearing a dark fex and a dark military tunic with gold epaulettes. His arms are folded across his chest]
His unified force survived from December 1922 to March 1923, when the Soviets shattered his units. He fled to Afghanistan and was later killed far from Central Asia by Kemalist secret police. While Haji Sami and Ibrahim Bek recovered from Enver Pasha’s death, Junaid Khan in Turkmenistan took the city of Khiva.
In October 1923, the Khorezm Soviet Republic made a huge mistake and declared the separation of church and state. They deprived the clergies of their responsibilities, and called for the nationalization of waqf land. The Khivans merchants and cleric begged Junaid Khan to rescue them and defend Islam. He and his Basmachi took control of the city of Khiva for a month. The Soviet’s sent a garrison to retake the city and drove his forces back into the Kara-Kum desert where Junaid Khan would remain until he fled to Iran in 1927.
Soviet Military Response
The Soviets took advantage of their victory by launching their own campaign in March. This campaign was led by Red Army commander and a hero of the Russian Civil War, Pavel Andreevich Pavlov. Pavlov had three objectives which proved devastating to the Basmachi:
Focus all attacks on the Basmachi base of operations instead of chasing them around the region. These three bases were: the mountainous stronghold of Matcha, the Lokai and Gissar Valleys in the south, and mountainous Garm in the east. These three areas would be attacked simultaneously so the Basmachi couldn’t flee into each other’s territories either for safety or to assist each other.
Increase his forces until they are strong enough to meet the task. Moscow granted his request for more support and by 1923 he had 5,832 men with 222 machine-guns and artillery pieces in Eastern Bukhara.
Severe the cord tying the cavalry to the infantry. Normally cavalry was used to protect the infantry and ride forward just enough to find the Basmachi or lead them into an ambush. Pavlov freed the cavalry so they could operate again as an independent force, allowing them greater independence and freedom of movement.
Pavlov’s methods proved successful in March 1923 when they took Matcha, a previously impossible objective for the Soviets. He succeeded because he ensured that all supplies were available when needed. His machine guns and artillery were assigned to pack trains and supplies were stockpiled on the Samarkand-Pendzhikent line in advance, far away enough to be protected, by close enough for supplies to be sent where they were needed. He also utilized local volunteers to serve as scouts, interpreters, and engineer labor.
Garm fell shortly afterwards on July 29th after a twelve-hour battle. Fuzail Maksum, the Basmachi in charge of the forces around Garm, fled to Afghanistan with a slight wound on August 12th.
The Gissar-Lokai valley continued to prove difficult to subdue, but as long as Salim Pasha remained in the region, the Soviets were able to exploit the rivalry between him and Ibrahim Bek, to the detriment of both of their forces.
The Soviet Political, Economic, and Social Response
By 1923, the Soviets realized they couldn’t break the Basmachi with military might alone. They needed to respond on the political, economic, and social front as well. To that end, the Soviets flooded the rural areas with Cheka or OGPU agents to flush out collaborators and convert supporters of the Basmachi to their cause. These conversions or alliances were heavily publicized affairs and often took place in open air demonstrations where Soviets and local actors alike gave big speeches in front of a large gathering, publicly professing their new alliance and friendship with one another. These speeches can’t be taken at face value and even one Soviet claimed:
“Of course, one could not trust the sincerity of the bais who welcomed the Soviet power and land reform. Still, their speeches showed that bais realized their powerlessness.” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 21
One particularly painful conversion was of Ibrahim Bek’s own people the Lokai in December 1923. To add more salt to the wound, the Soviets also recruited a 60-man cavalry detachment of Lokai people to hunt Ibrahim.
The assimilation of local leaders also extended to the Basmachi leaders themselves. A perfect example of this behavior is Ishniiaz Iunusov. Iunusov fought against the Red Army as a Basmachi leader but was later hired as the head of Soviet Muslim voluntary detachment to fight against the Basmachi. During the Basmachi campaigns he won two Red Banner medals and eventually became a member of the Communist party. He was then named head of the Administration Department and commander of the Voluntary Detachment. A Soviet report about his abilities read:
“His authority was based on his Soviet position and his Soviet distinctions. As the head of the Administration Department and Voluntary Detachment, he thought of himself as the absolute master. He formed his detachment as he wished, from his close people and from 30 members of his detachment; six of them were bais and kulaks… “Not a single arrest of a disenfranchised or bai in the region evaded him. In all cases he took the arrested out on bail and tried to help him. He even participated in illegal searches, arrests, and extrajudicial shootings” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 31-33
Economically, the Soviets implemented the food for cotton plan, which forbade farmers from planting anything but cotton in exchange for food. This meant that the Basmachi could no longer raid fields and had to extort food from their own supporters. Tajikistan was already experiencing mass starvation and hoarding food was seen as anti-Soviet behavior. Soviets, fearful that if food was being reserved it was for the Basmachi, often confiscated desperately needed food, leaving the locals at the mercy of their neighbors and whatever social programs the Tajik government was able to implement. While people feared the Basmachi, they also blamed the Soviets for the lack of food. One Tajik citizen complained:
“The government knows that Ura-Tiube region is full of Basmachi and that we suffer [first] from their treatment of us; second, we suffer from high prices; third, from expense for the Red Army soldiers who are defending us from Basmachi…People run away to the mountains when they see the Red Army soldiers. If grain costs five rubles on the market, the Red Army pays only 1 ruble 40 kopeks. There are many deficiencies here; if some commissions would come and investigate things thoroughly, they would find a lot of material “- Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 35
The lack of food not only put a strain on the Basmachi’s relationship with the locals, but also put pressure on Basmachi commanders to prevent their soldiers from deserting because of starvation and dwindling prospects of success. The Soviets took advance of this tension by issuing promises of amnesty.
On March 15th, 1925, the Tajikistan government promised to free all sentenced people who were imprisoned for under two years or had already completed at least half of their sentence. They also promised to shorten current incarceration periods by 1/3. They offer full amnesty and immunity to existing fighters if they surrendered between March 15th and June 15th, 1925. They proclaimed:
“On this great day for Tajikistan…the Revolutionary Committee aims to return to peaceful work those workers and peasants who committed crimes due to their darkness and ignorance, under the influence of emir and tsarist officials. We wish to give them a chance to redeem their guilt before the rule of workers and peasants." - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 23
Of course, the Basmachi had to surrender their arms, rat out their collaborators, and publicly denounce their crimes. While the Soviets believed that if the state pardoned you, you wouldn’t forget it and would feel beholden to the state, there were more practical reasons to grant mass amnesty. The Soviet state wasn’t strong enough in Tajikistan to hold everyone in prisons. Some prisons were already holding 300% percent over their mass capacity. They didn’t have enough guards or food to feed the prison population.
Despite their promises the first few years of Tajikistan’s existence were filled with more executions of Basmachis than amnesties. Again, this is because of limited state capacity in Tajikistan. The high court didn’t exist outside of a couple of tables, which traveled with the judge, revolutionary committee members, and political police under red army guard.
Because they didn’t have the resources, manpower, or institutional support, many judges realized that the best way to handle the Basmachi was with quick show trials and executions. It also worked as a semi-military strategy in the Soviet’s battle over the territory. One judge wrote:
“Basmachi resistance demanded quick show trials and strict justice…delay of an execution, not to mention the revision of capital punishment, would undermine all our efforts in the fight against the Basmachi…During this month we heard 70 cases, 45 of whose defendants were sentenced to death.” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 25
Not all Basmachi were lucky enough to have a show trial. Many were killed in gunfights or extrajudicial killings. Between 1925 and 1926 the OGPU shot 208 Basmachi supporters. From March 1925 to September 1925, the Red Army killed 48 Basmachi leaders and 1,423 Basmachi soldiers.
However, the Soviet’s ability to kill its enemies depended on cooperation from local leaders and this wasn’t always forth coming. Many officials prevented trials or executions by not supplying translators, juries, or public defenders. However, this came at great risk to the people who delayed the trials. Many were executed as well.
The violence alienated people and the amnesties lost their appeal when it became clear that those who surrendered were left hungry, homeless, and destitute. Add clan disputes and personal rivalries and there were many reasons for Basmachi to switch sides. Abdukarim explained why he collaborated with the Soviets and then abandoned them as follows:
“At the beginning I was a Basmachi, and from your side many good words were said, so we surrendered and gave up our guns and sat calmly in our houses. But all your talk turned out to be a lie since we did not know what your rule was about, [your rule] actually made us Basmachi. The reason is that among us there are many bad people and each of us has many enemies, and so these bastards give you information that one or another person has weapons. You arrest these people only on the basis of their words without asking people themselves. This is the only reason we became Basmachi again” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 34
He complained to a Soviet commander that:
“Mirza Abul Khan worked for your rule so hard, but he did not receive any salary for eleven months. But today, Imam Ali Mukhat, the messenger who is unrighteous – does not accept Shariat—informed us that he has two three-line rifles, two sabers, one Berdan rifle, and one revolver.” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 35
He wrote:
“If [Soviet rule was just] in reality, it would not intervene in every person’s business for the past two or three years; I mean Basmachi resistance would have ceased to exist in the past two or three years…We have nothing but Allah and the Prophet. We have no guns, no finances, no soldiers to wage war, but because of fear for our lives, we run around without having any relation to your workers nor to your business… I swear by Allah and his Prophet that your rule made us Basmachi” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 37
If the Soviets thought it was impossible to find loyal cadre in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Tajikistan made them want to tear their hair out. Il’iutko, a Soviet representative in Tajikistan, wrote:
“The Shurabad Revolutionary Committee was formed from the following people: the chair – Abdul Rashid, a bai from the tribe Isan Hoja; his deputy was Abdul Kaim, a bai from the Badra Ogly tribe; kazis [judges] from Isan Hoja; one representative from the Badra Ogly tribe; and a representative from the Red Army. Abdul Rashid bai was appointed as chair with the following reasoning; the leading organs of East Bukhara thought this appointment would appeal to Abdul Rashid’s self-esteem, as he had fought against Ibrahim Bek for a long time and would encourage him to fight against Basmachi with full energy and responsibility. But our hopes were not borne out; he supported the Basmachi” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 29
The Soviets ran into issues trying to punish the leaders they were collaborating with. Many times, Tajik citizens would try to defend their local leaders one Soviet commander wrote:
“If a leader was arrested, people went to great lengths to get him out of jail, certifying their work against the Basmachi” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 31
Yet not all local leaders supported the Basmachi. Many found a way to fit within the Soviet order. Maksum Abdullaev, a Soviet Muslim, wrote:
“When in 1924 Ibragim Bek wrote me that if I joined him he would make me bek of Kuliab, I answered that Soviet rule had already made me a bek. Soviet rule is strong, but you are an outlaw” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 41
Ibrahim Bek’s Counter-Offensive
By September 1923, Ibrahim Bek was the last Basmachi commander standing in Eastern Bukhara, and he retained enough strength to launch a counter-attack. Ibrahim Bek attacked a garrison at Naryn at the moment of Soviet recruitment turnover – assuming this meant that the number of inexperience soldiers would be high. However, the recruits held until reinforcements could arrive and they drove Ibrahim Bek back, Soviets claiming they killed 117 Basmachi commanders and 1565 soldiers.
Ibrahim Bek
[Image Description: A dark skinned man with a scraggy beard. He is wearing a grey turban and a black and white long shirt. A black robe with embroidered flowers rests on his shoulders.]
The Soviets sent forces to occupy the land of Urta-Tugai on the Soviet-Afghan border making it harder for the Basmachi to slip to and fro. Pavlov worked hard to rip the roots of support out from underneath the Basmachi, effectively hurting their supplies and support.
In 1926, the Soviets achieved what they thought was the final victory against the Basmachi. In March 1926, Red Army commander Semen Mikhailovich Budenny led an all-out assault against Ibrahim’s remaining forces. Relying on Frunze’s tactics of flying columns and implementation of garrisons in key locations to cut Basmachi forces off from their supports, Budenny planned to beat Ibrahim Bek into submission. Because of Budenny’s tactics, Ibrahim Bek’s forces faced the choice of starving to death in the mountains while being hunted down by the Soviet flying columns or die making a last stand against the Red Army within the Gissar and Lokai valleys. An interesting development was the introduction of heliograph stations and a permanent mobile field staff in the region. Radio wasn’t available in 1926, but by using strategically placed heliograph stations, Soviet forces to warn units of approaching Basmachi, robbing the guerrilla soldiers of the element of surprise.
Ibrahim Bek held on until the Soviets took 1,500 sheep belonging to Ibrahim. Without this desperately needed food source, Ibrahim was forced to flee into Afghanistan, ending the Basmachi threaten in Eastern Bukhara.
Political Turmoil in Afghanistan and Tajikistan
One of the reasons the Soviets were able to defeat the Basmachi was the ability to win over the support of the local peoples via increased access to food and land, alleviating any fears that Communism would sweep away long held traditions and Islam, and forcing the Basmachi to hurt their own supporters while looking for supplies. However, by 1927, the Soviets had shot themselves in the foot by implementing increasingly unpopular measures such as the hujum, the unveiling and liberation of women, the ending of the Islamic courts, the further reduction of waqf lands, and the increased secularization of education (much of which was facilitated by the creation of nation-states, which we discussed last episode). Worse, maybe, was the forced collectivization and the forced settlement of the nomadic populations. The campaign started in 1929 and inspired a new wave of anti-religious fervor amongst the Soviets. When the Soviets weren’t forcing nomadic people to settle, they were closing mosques and madrasas and arresting clerics. Collectivization nationalized all land and forcefully resettled nomadic and semi-nomadic and rural populations as the Soviets saw fit. It would have tragic consequences in Kazakhstan and in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan it provided the spark for one last hurrah for the Basmachi.
After pushing the Basmachi into Afghanistan, the Soviets had a hard time keeping them in Afghanistan. In 1927, one OGPU officer wrote:
“The border is not secured; we have no guns or people to guard it; the militia is drunken and amoral. It is impossible to guard the border; it is impossible to stop Basmachi groups [and] to prevent damage to agricultural campaigns” - Botakoz Kassymbekova, Despite Cultures, pg. 55
It is easy to overstate the threat Bukharan Emir Muhammad Alim Khan presented to the Soviet Union. He had been staying in Afghanistan since his ouster in 1921 and so much had happened in the region since he fled. Even if people wanted him to return at one point, that desire had disappeared a while ago except for the most diehard of emirists. Still, he was able to provide some support to Ibrahim Bek and the Basmachi who fled to Afghanistan. Ibrahim used the time in Afghanistan to extort money from the Bukharan refugees who had settled in Afghanistan and to restructure his command. He centralized his command granting him a better understanding of what his supplies looked like and how many men he actually had. He also improved communications between his men in the field and himself and himself and the emir.
Despite signing a treaty of neutrality and non-aggression in 1921, the Afghan government had always tolerated the Basmachi. This became a problem in 1924 when northern Afghanistan underwent a power struggle. Ibrahim took advantage and made camp in Urta-Tugai island. The Soviets were so freaked out, they invaded Afghan territory in 1925. Now Urta-Tugai had an Afghan garrison that had mostly turned a blind eye to the Basmachi. When the Soviets invaded, they actually disarmed and occupied the Afghan garrison.
This scared the Afghan government, prompting them to sign another treaty of neutrality and non-aggression. A year later a popular uprising would make the treaty void and end any attempts to push the Basmachi out of northern Afghanistan.
The Basmachi would take advantage of the political turmoil in Afghanistan and in spring 1929, the Bukharan Emir called together the remaining Basmachi to him. He issued a decree placing leadership of the remaining forces under Ibrahim Bek’s command with the intention of invading Tajikistan and reclaiming it from the Soviets.
The Resurrection: the 1929 Campaign
In spring 1929, the Basmachi tested the units stationed on the Soviet-Afghan border and in April, Fuzail Maksum of Garm slipped across the border with fifteen men to connect with supporters in Eastern Tajikistan. His purpose was to raise local support and recruit and prepare for the arrival of Ibrahim Bek with the main Basmachi force. Maksum raised two hundred men and led several attacks against Garm, achieving several minor victories.
The overall Soviet Commander in Central Asia, General P. E. Dybenko, issued several emergency measures to address the growing threat. He ordered the raising of local self-defense units in Eastern Tajikistan and increased the local political work. He even tried to manipulate the local antagonisms within the population to defeat the movement, believing that the many cattle-breeders of the region would hate the Basmachi for their requisitioning efforts. Despite these efforts to engage with the local actors, the main Soviet strategy was still military in nature. The Russians countered Basmachi hit-and-run tactics by establishing militarized zones and used artillery and air raids to destroy villages suspected of collaborating with the Basmachi. The Cheka arrested and deported 270,000 Turkestanis suspected of collaborating with the Basmachi. During the Red Army’s occupation, they burnt Dushanbe, Andijan, and Namangan to the ground and damaged several other villages. In total 1200 villages were burnt to the ground.
Fuzail Maksum’s force of now 800 men led an attack against the city of Garm and then the neighboring airfield. The Soviets defended the airfield with 16 men waiting for reinforcements that would arrive by air and a seventy-five men cavalry regiment. Five airplanes arrived at 6:00 am on April 23rd, 1929, unloading 40 men, carrying machine-guns and ammunition. Fuzail Maksum’s forces fled, abandoning Garm. On May 3rd, badly wounded Maksum returned to Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s Problem
The Soviet’s retaliated against the Garm region hard and fast. They set up special OGPU campaigns to ferret out the people who supported Maksum, holding special tribunals and several people were executed. Despite these setbacks, Ibrahim Bek’s forces were able to cross the Afghan-Soviet border with ease.
The Soviets grew so concerned over these incursions that they seriously considered an invasion of Afghanistan to place a puppet government on the throne. They even sent a force of 800-1200 Red Army soldiers dressed as Afghans in support of one of the Afghans vying for leadership, but had to retreat when they were stopped by the Afghan army and their candidate abdicated. The situation in Afghanistan stabilized and the new government under Nadir Khan left the Basmachi alone. However, the Soviets gave up on diplomacy and started to chase the Basmachi across Afghanistan’s border, sometimes crossing 40 miles into the country before withdrawing. Nadir Khan was forced to act, and he dispatched Sardar Shah Mahmud the Afghan army’s commander-in-chief to deal with the Basmachi problem. He also started negotiations with the Soviets to renew the 1926 treaty of neutrality and non-aggression.
General Mahmud demanded the Basmachi disband, and Ibrahim Bek replied by saying he was going to unite with the Uzbeks and Tajiks in northern Afghanistan and create a nationalistic Uzbek-Tajik government independent of Afghan Control. In December 1930, Mahmud entered the northern territory. Through the spring of 1931, he led a large-scale campaign against Ibrahim Bek and reclaimed several major cities but could never capture Ibrahim Bek himself. Instead, on March 1931, they offered Ibrahim Bek to incorporate his forces into the Afghan army. He refused and in April 1931, he led 800 men into Tajikistan for a final invasion. In total, he had a command of 2000 men.
He swept into Tajikistan armed with reliable intelligence and the momentum of a sudden invasion. He executed pro-Soviet officials and locals, blew up several warehouses, state farms, and railway lines. The people of Tajikistan initially supported his uprising but grew disenchanted with his discounted political and ideological ideas. Trying to rally people around an Emir that had been deposed for about a decade and the return of feudalism held little appeal to most people. Too much had changed to go back to the old ways and Ibrahim Bek had been too disconnected from his people to fully understand what they wanted.
Anyone who tried to join him from Afghanistan ran into Soviet patrols and suffered severe losses. The Soviets created a special unit of OGPU, local volunteers, and Komsomol members to hunt Ibrahim Bek down. In May, the Red Army offered amnesty to any Basmachi members who surrendered causing 12 leaders and 653 men to abandon the Basmachi ranks. Ibrahim Bek was left with only fifteen men in the foothills of Baba-Tag avoiding assassination attempts and betrayals. On June 23, 1931, while attempting to cross the Kafirnigan river, he was betrayed by locals, and captured by Soviet forces. He was sent to Tashkent and executed, officially ending the Basmachi guerilla movement.
References
Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR by Adeeb Khalid
Despite Cultures: Early Soviet Rule in Tajikistan by Botakoz Kassymbekova
“Frunze and the development of Soviet counter-insurgency in Central Asia” by Alexander Marshall in Central Asia: Aspects of Transition by Tom Everett-Heath
“The Final Phase of Liquidation of the Anti-Soviet Resistance in Tadzhikistan: Ibrahim Bek and the Basmachi, 1924-1931” by William S. Ritter
“The Basmachi or Freeman’s Revolt in Turkestan 1918-1924” by Martha B. Olcott
Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan by Robert F. Baumann
Episode 48: After the Russian Civil War: Transforming Central Asian Republics into Nation-States
The Balance of Power in Central Asia by end of 1923
By 1923, the Basmachi had been neutered and while they still caused problems in the Ferghana and Turkmenistan regions, they were no longer seen as an existential threat. The roads to Central Asia were safer now that the Soviets had defeated the White Armies in Siberia which allowed the Bolsheviks to slowly build a cadre of European Bolsheviks within Central Asia and they were creating a pseudo-Communist indigenous cadre through the creation of the Soviet Republics. Men like Xo’jaev, Fitrat, Ayni, etc. were not true Communists, but they were willing allies in the reformation of Central Asia. All of these factors allowed for a stronger Soviet presence in the region, enabling the Bolsheviks to ensure that Communist principles were being implemented in the republics.
There is a big debate amongst historians whether the Soviet Union should be considered a colonial power or not and it’s particular contentious in Central Asian studies. People argue the Soviets can’t be colonists because they integrated local actors into various levels of government, actually worked with them to address problems, and supported the local actors’ efforts at reforms and nationalization. Both the Soviets and the local reformers believed the emirs were harmful, believed that a government that included all peoples of Central Asia was possible, fought against the Basmachi and the conservative ulama and merchants, wanted to reform Islam and lead several campaigns against the ulama and tradition centers of Islamic thought and belief, and believed that the role of women had to be rethought. And I don’t think this is true only on a superficial level. I think for a period, there was a true dialogue happening between the Bolsheviks and the local actors, a dialogue full of misunderstandings, mistakes, and some deception as both sides pursued their own goals, but it was a dialogue.
However, one can’t ignore that the Soviets could be very heavy handed when it suited them. We can’t ignore that Frunze dismantled the Musburo simply because they weren’t created by the Soviets and he threatened to recreate the Turkestan Communist Party because, again, it wasn’t communist enough. We can’t ignore that every attempt the republics made at having autonomy outside of the cultural and internal life was denied. They couldn’t be independent economically, they had to serve the Soviet economy first and foremost, their control over their own foreign affairs was limited, and even though both sides agreed women needed liberation, the approach adopted by the Soviets was heavy handed and ignored local feelings and needs. I, personally, think the Soviets were a colonial power because, even while allowing some local independence, Central Asia was still subjected to the needs of the center, at the detriment of their own ecology, culture, and people.
Douglas Northrop makes an interesting argument in his book Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia that by trying to define Central Asia, the Soviets ended up defining themselves and that’s where a lot of problems arise. The Soviets started to define themselves based on how they differed from Central Asians, allowing this narrative of everything European (or Russian) did was good because it was different from what the Central Asians did, which allowed them to continue to think of Central Asians as inferior, except this time with an ideological spin. It wasn’t racist to believe that Central Asians weren’t educated in Communist thought and thus they weren’t pure Communists and couldn’t be trusted with their own destinies. It was a fact. But they could one day be true Communists. They just needed to be re-educated and guided by the European Communists, the true vanguards of Communism. Traditional colonialism would never have believed that the local peoples could ever be more than colonized peoples, but Soviet Communism held out this promise that someday local actors to be real Communists, as long as they learned from their Communist betters, which is a racist and colonial.
Basically, the Soviets in Central Asia between 1920 and 1925ish are the perfect example of the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
The Rise of Nationalism in Central Asia
In our last episode, we talked about how the creation of the republics coincided with and encouraged local efforts at crafting a nationalist narrative – even if the Soviets didn’t fully realize it or understand it at the time.
Fayzulla Xo'jayev
[Image Description: A black and white picture of a man with eraserhead like hair and a sharp aquiline nose. He is wearing a black button down shirt with a black tie and a black suit jacket.]
We’ve talked a lot about how Abdurauf Fitrat helped create an Uzbek identity of Turkicness with deep connects to Temur and Turkic culture, which is different from the Turkic culture you’d find in Türkiye. For many Jadids who supported this identity, Turkestan was a land of Turks which left many other peoples out.
For example, the Kazakhs had a completely different nationalist story with different heroes, even though they claimed some of the same lands as the Uzbek Jadids. The Kazakhs didn’t really care about Turkestan as a whole, but they wanted to unite the former Steppe krai which included the Semirech’e and Syr Darya provinces. As we’ve discussed in other episodes, scholars and activists in the steppe had already made considerable progress in crafting Kazakh as its own language with its own distinct orthography and they wanted to establish a solid literature community. They also had dug into their own history and their environmental activism and had a strong identity. Many of the Kazakh elite had gone to Russian schools for education and thus were more comfortable conversing in Russian than in Chagatai or the new Uzbek language Fitrat was crafting. If we remember correctly, the Alash Orda had contributed to the Kokand Autonomy, but actually broke away from it and created their own government in the steppe that co-existed with the Kokand Autonomy.
In 1922, Nazir Torequlov, a Ferghana born bilingual Kazakh explained the growing difference between the two ethnic groups as:
“A lot has happened in the past ten or fifteen years. Turkestanis have grown a great deal in this period. Everyone has recognized himself and his companions. The Uzbek has found Amir Navoiy and the Kazakh has caught hold of Abay” - Adeeb Khalid, making Uzbekistan, pg. 267
Tensions between the Kazakh republic and Turkestan increased as they butt heads over issues ranging from food supply to trade to population migration. The Turkestan officials blamed the Kazakh officials for not implementing land reform which allowed European settlers to continue to oppress the Kazakhs who then fled to Turkestan and exasperated their many issues. The Kazakhs blamed Turkestan for no longer carrying food for the Kazakh republic on its trains and for searching the citizens of Kazakh republic as they traveled through Turkestan. The bitterness grew so bad, Moscow had to create a special commission to resolve disputes between the two republics. The Soviets were confounded by the tension. The head of the Central Asian Bureau wrote in 1924 that:
“National relations here are extraordinarily sharp for the simple reason that there is a constant struggle between Uzbeks and Kazakhs [in the party] for the right to be the ruling nation [in Turkestan]….Conflicts take place constantly between Kazakhs and Uzbeks in the struggle to acquire a dominant position in the state.” - Adeeb Khalid, making Uzbekistan, 267
The Kazakhs weren’t the only ones who clashed with the Uzbek Jadids. The Tajiks would have a big problem with Fitrat’s formulation of Turkic identity and the Kyrgyz and Karakalpak would fight to differentiate themselves from both the Uzbeks and Kazakhs. In fact, as early as 1922, the Kyrgyz Communists organized a conference that passed a resolution seeking the formation of an autonomous mountain oblast for the Kyrgyz people. The Turkmen in Bukhara organized to demand their own party and state. However, because the story of Turkmenistan is so connected to the Transcaspian campaign during WWI and the Russian Civil War, I’ve decided to discuss the formation of their state my upcoming season about the Transcaspian Campaign. There is so much that happened, and I want to do it justice and this season we’ve really focused on develops within what is now Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. To shoehorn Turkmenistan’s complex history doesn’t feel right, but I promise we’ll discuss their history in depth throughout an entire season.
State Creation
It is common to claim that the process of creating nation states in Central Asia was a Soviet invention forced onto the people of Central Asia. However, as we’ve seen, many Central Asians fought tooth and nail to be involved in crafting a political entity in Central Asia. When the Soviets organized the region into Soviet Republics, the indigenous actors acted fast to take advantage of the power that brought them. Similarly, the creation of nation states was a merging of Central Asian reformist and Soviet desires and needs.
From the Bolshevik perspective, the creation of Central Asian states was all about integrating republic economies and suppressing movement towards republic autonomy. They believed that if they redrew the republic borders, transforming them into Soviet states with Soviet bureaucracy, it would squash any remaining economic and administrative divides that were inherited from the Tsarist and Emirate rule, and replace them with Communist goals and principles. At first, the Central Committee was against drawing borders based on nationalist principles because they considered the region “too mixed.” However, because of the Russian’s lack of useful information on the region’s ethnic and racial identities, the indigenous actors were able to use the state creation to finish their reform efforts and create their own nationalistic states. So, really, the creation of the Central Asian states was an initiative discussed within the Central Committee but driven by the indigenous actors themselves. And honestly, this was what Fayzulla had been angling for when he wanted the Bukharan Republic to have control over their own economy and foreign affairs. This was the culmination of local actor efforts as much as it was out of Soviet desire.
The Delimitation Process
The delimitation process started in January 1924. The Central Committee sent Janis Rudzutaks on a tour of Turkestan to
“organize a meeting of responsible workers of Bukhara, Khorezm (if possible) and Turkestan in order to initiate a preliminary discussion of the possibility and expediency of the delimitation of Kazakh, Uzbek, and Turkmen oblasts according to the national principle” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 272
The three Central Asian central committees eagerly took up the task and discussed the issue in February and March. They presented their basic positions to the Central Asian Bureau in April. The Bureau sent it to the Politburo and the Politburo issued its own decree in June 1924. The Central Asian Bureau created a Territorial Commission to determine the boundaries of the future states which they finished by November 1924. On November 18th, 1924, the three central committees of the republics dissolved themselves and create the new republics for the new states.
This all happened very quickly and without any references to expert knowledge. The Russians never properly documented or understand the ethnic makeup of Central Asia. Instead, the Central Asian Bureau relied on claims and counterclaims, which could lead to ridiculous claims such as the Kazakh republic claiming 360,000 Kazakhs lived in the Bukharan Republic and the Bukharan Republic claiming it was only 36,000.
A map of Turkestan
[Image Description: A colored and simplified map of the different Soviet Republics. Russia itself and the surround countries are pale peach. The Kirgizistan A.S.S.R. is a flesh color. The Aral and Caspian Sea and Lake Balkhash are bright blue The Bukharan P.S.R. is red. THe Khorezm P.S.R. is light green. The Turkestan A. S. S. R. is a dark peach.]
These fights over nationhood and ethnic identity affected how the borders of the republics were drawn. For example, after the Kazakh republic was created, they petitioned for the Kazakh dominated Manghishlaq Peninsula to be transferred from the Turkestan republic to the Kazakh republic. They also wanted the Semirech’e and Syr Darya oblasts since “the Kazakh people in both the republics are of one blood, one culture, one language, and at the same stage of economic development.” However, the Syr Darya oblast included Tashkent which was a big fucking no for the Uzbeks. The Kazakhs continued their petition, claiming that 93% of the population of the two oblasts were Kazakhs and uniting all the Kazakhs together would make “connecting Soviet principles to Kazakh reality” easier (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 269)
One consideration that drove Soviet decision making was the need for the states to have economic centers for their hinterlands (although that didn’t apply to all states, like poor Tajikistan who didn’t get an economic center until after the state was already created). For other rural republics, such as Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, it was expected that cities would be the source of nationalization for its vast rural territory. Thus, even though certain cities like Osh, Dasoguz, and Jalalabat had large Uzbek populations and were desired by Uzbek leaders, they went to other republics to serve as a centralized location for economic and government needs.
As we can see, even though the process was very quick, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t complicated. I want to discuss the process from the perspective of the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz; however, these weren’t the only people affected by the delimitation. We’ve already mentioned the Turkmen, but there were also Tatars, Uyghur, Jews, Karakalpak, and others who called Central Asia home and who weren’t granted states or even oblasts of their own. I had to simplify the perspectives and the debates for this podcast, but want to acknowledge what I’m not covering, mostly because I don’t yet feel comfortable enough in my research to present those perspectives. I still want to acknowledge that those perspectives exist and are vital parts of the different state identities and I am planning to come back once I feel more comfortable about my knowledge base.
The Uzbek Perspective
I want to start with the Uzbek Perspective because their decisions greatly impacted the borders of what is now Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
The Uzbek cause was championed by Fayzulla Xo’jayev, the chairman of the Bukharan Republic. Rudzutaks visited the region to discuss delimitation in January 1924, Fayzulla had a proposal ready by February 1924. It may seem odd that Fayzulla, who fought so hard for increased independence for his own republic, would be excited about the creation of a state that would subsume the Bukharan Republic. But he saw Bukhara as the center of Uzbekistan, with its tendrils expanding into Ferghana, the Syr Darya, the Samarkand, and Khorezm provinces i.e., all of the territories that contained a majority sedentary population and all of Central Asia’s historic cities. He continued to explain:
“The Uzbek people, earlier united in the state of Temur and his successors, disintegrated in recent centuries into various parts. Over the course of centuries, this disintegration was characterized by the weakening of economic forces and of political structures, the final stage of which is the economic decomposition, the loss of state unity, and the physical destruction of the people under the domination of khanates, emirates, and Tsarism…[this disunity meant] the Turkic population could not historically resist its gradual disintegration or defend the unity of the people, the integrity and continuity of its culture…[the] Uzbek people and its various states (Bukhara, Khiva)…were thrown off the basic historical path and became the object of struggle.” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, 273-274
We can see the Chagatai influence at work here. He is placing Temur as the ultimate unifier with Central Asia blossoming under Turkic influence and control. When the state fragmented and lost its connection to its past, it left itself open to ill fortune and exploitation. He claimed that the Russian Revolution placed the Uzbek people on the path of historical development and economic growth, but it was vital to reject the “the old divisions imposed by force on Central Asia by conquerors” and give:
“All peoples bearing a single name – on a national basis, according to the specificities of their way of life and economic habits – their own Soviet political units” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 274
He further claimed that:
“The Uzbek Republic should include in it Tajiks and those peoples of Turkestan, Bukhara, and Khorezm who speak Uzbek and consider themselves related to the Uzbeks i.e., Uzbeks, Qurama, Kashgaris, Turks, Karakalpaks” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 274
Fayzulla was willing to sacrifice the Bukharan republic for a united, Uzbek nation and Uzbek nationalism (which Bukhara as a major player within internal affairs). It may also be fair to read this as Fayzulla understanding the Bukharan Republic was going to be disbanded no matter what (the Soviets forced him to expel four of his own ministers in 1923 after all) and it was better to destroy the republic on his terms and potentially gain something worthwhile. I think it’s also fair to say that there is an element of ruthlessness in his willingness to trade a republic for a state, especially a state that would be primarily Turkic but still wanted claim over peoples such as Tajiks, Karakalpaks, Qipchaqs etc. mostly because they “spoke Uzbek” and because he wanted the land they called home.
The Kazakhs, predictably, had a lot of problems with Fayzulla’s proposal, including a dual claim over Tashkent which was going to cause a lot of problems, but not as many problems as the Uzbek claim over Tajik lands.
The Tajik Perspective
When you build an entire identity on a handful of principles that are exclusionary, you are going to leave people out purposely and inadvertently in the cold. While the Chagatai project was meant to connect with Central Asia’s past, it was a very specific, Turkic past that either ignored or wrote off the Persianate past as foreign and the modern usages of Persian as inconsequential when it came to determined one’s nationality.
Before the Russian Revolution, language was a tool and a skill in Central Asia. It wasn’t tied to a national or state identity and many people were multi-lingual. Two popular languages, especially in the sedentary places, was Turkic and Persian, with Persian being associated with the madrasas, literature, and the Emir Court while Turkic associated with the marketplaces and everyday encounters. The usage of the Turkic languages increased in the 1900s and the usage of Persian decreased. One key reason was that when people left the region to learn they went to Russian and Turkic schools, not Persian schools. A member of the Tajikistan Communist Party claimed that an “enormous majority of educated Tajiks, having received their education in Uzbek, speak it better than Tajik, and many of them even call themselves Uzbek” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 297)
The Jadids, themselves, went to Türkiye, not Persia, to further their education and some, like Fitrat, were so inspired by the Young Turks, they stopped writing in Persian all together and wrote and spoke only in Turkic. This created an impulse amongst the Uzbek Jadids to downplay the existence of the Tajiks. Vadud Mahmud, a writer and friend of Fitrat’s amongst other Jadids, wrote, “that in Samarqand “there are no [Tajiks] there except for a few ‘sayyids’ and ‘aghas’ from Iran who preside over the current of Tajikness and who for a while published journals in Persian” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 297)
They also argued that given the lingual fluidity in the region, speaking Persian didn’t mean you were Tajik. Mahmud argued that:
“We know of many other peoples in the world who speak two languages, whose home language is different from their language of culture. These bilingual nations’ cultural life and literature is conducted in this official literary language… “Language is not simply a matter of acquiring literacy or reading the alphabet…Language must be understood as the instrument of civilization. A language should have a literature and it should provide all the necessities of today’s social life…For [establishing such] a civilized life, the Tajik language or the Persian language of Iran do not suffice. To implement these languages is to prevent [us] from entering life, because both circumstance and history prohibit it. Second, to accept this language is to accept a useless, superfluous language. True, we love Persian for being an old literary language. It is a delicate, playful literary language. We benefit from “classical Persian literature.” In this regard, Persian is a good language. But there is a difference between “good” and “useful” and we need the “useful” more than the “good.”
Precisely for this reason, we do not need a separate language for the Tajiks of the cities and their environs, but rather, the most rapid and direct introduction of Uzbek [among them]” - Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 297-298
What made comments like this especially horrible and cutting was that many Jadids spoke and wrote in Persian. Many of them could have just as easily claimed a Tajik identity over a Turkic one, or, better yet, could have created a space for both identities. Instead, they chose to ignore and overwrite an existing identity and language in favor of their own. And so, we must ask why?
A popular argument is that a bunch of people who should have identified as Tajik betrayed their own people and supported the Turkic identity and that the existing Tajik identifying reformers were too weak and cowardly to fight for their own country. While I understand the emotions behind that argument, I think it underestimates the fluidity of language and identity, especially within the Tashkent and Bukhara Jadids, before the need for firm identifiers. Fitrat spoke and wrote in Persian. Not only did he speak and write Persian, but he would also return to Persian after he was removed from Fayzulla’s government and sent to Moscow on probation. Fayzulla spoke and work in Persian. Ayni wrote and spoke in Persian and would become a champion for the Tajik people. It’s true that during the 1920s Fitrat and others embraced the Turkic identity wholeheartedly, but to expect an equally dedicated group of scholars to also develop a strong Persianate identity at the same time and make the same kind of advancement is asking a lot.
Adeeb Khalid argues in his book Making Uzbekistan that the reason that the creation of Tajikistan was so helter-shelter is because Tajik identity wasn’t fully developed by the time the states were created. There wasn’t a strong coalition of Tajik activists to champion the Tajik cause because the Tajik identity was still being crafted. Khalid goes really far and say that the creation of the Tajik state necessitated the creation of a Tajik identity, which can be misread as the Tajiks didn’t exist until the Uzbeks and the Soviets made them, but I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. The Tajiks have always existed, but they didn’t have the tools or organization to form an identity until after the borders were already formed because the process of forming the borders forced everyone to jump to warp space when it came to defining identities. There were people like the Kazakhs who had been fighting for their identity against the Russian settlers for ages, there were the Uzbeks who coalesced around the Chagatai project, and then you had the peoples like the Tajiks, the Kyrgyz, and the Karakalpak people who always existed and always had their own stories and languages, but were now forced to create an identity that was strong enough to separate themselves from their larger neighbors.
The other aspect that needs to be considered is the financial and this is when Fayzulla’s desire for all major cities and sedentary lands becomes even more ruthless. Why would the Soviets support a state that couldn’t support itself? So not only did you need to create a culture that was distant and stood on its own and had a large cadre of champions who could explain themselves to the Russians, you also needed land or a resource that would contribute to the Soviet economy and would justify creating a new ruling entity to manage.
For the Uzbek Jadids, acknowledging that there was a large Persian speaking population that may identity as Tajik in major cities they wanted, especially in the Zarafshon Valley which bordered Samarkand and connections Dushanbe and Khujand, could jeopardize their claims. They were already having issues with the Kazakhs trying to take Tashkent from them because of a “majority Kazakh population.” They couldn’t lose their other cities and so they downplayed how many Tajiks were in Uzbek claimed lands and focused on the large Tajik population in rural Eastern Bukhara.
Eastern Bukhara was the only self-contained Persian speaking population. It was a mountainous, rural, poor area that was still controlled mostly by the Basmachi, and was almost impossible for any governmental entity to establish control over. The region didn’t have any major cities, which would later force the Soviets to transform Dushanbe into the economic and governmental center of Uzbekistan. Even though the leaders of Uzbekistan wanted to enforce a Turkic language only education, they acknowledged that that would be impossible in Eastern Bukhara because there were no Turkic speakers. Because it was so poor and there were no Turkic speakers and it was still struggling with the Basmachi, this was the perfect unwanted land to turn into a state for the Tajiks.
No one representing the Tajik people was involved in the delimitation process. When a subcommittee to discuss the Tajik people was established, it was fielded by two Uzbeks and neither objected to Fayzulla’s proposal to create the Tajik oblast in Eastern Bukhara and assimilate the Zarafshon Valley into Uzbekistan. This is how they justified the proposal:
“The allocation of autonomy to the oblast has especially great significance, for no other people in the world has undergone such prolonged and heavy oppression as the mountain Tajiks. Driven by their Turkic conquerors into high and inaccessible mountainous ravines, they were obliged to lead a half-hungry existence, to suffer from a shortage of land and to perpetually fight the sever mountainous landscape. Scattered into small and isolated groups, they were constantly subjugated to the despotic authority of petty khans of alien origin. Although belonging to one of the most cultured nationalities of Asia, with a centuries-old culture and rich illiterate, they themselves were exclusively ignorant. Literate men among them are a rarity or a lucky coincidence, while the women are almost universally illiterate.” - Adeeb Khalid making Uzbekistan, pg. 302
In October 1924, Tajikistan was elevated from an oblast to a republic and was handed the Pamir district. It was a small, rural, desperately poor republic without any cities, its capital a small village. It was ruled by a plenipotentiary until 1926, when the first congress of soviets was held in Dushanbe. Tajik was frequently referred to as a backwater place and became a dumping grown for those unwanted in Uzbekistan. I mean this with all the love in the world: it was basically a Central Asian Australia.
The Kazakh Perspective
While the Uzbek desire was to unify the sedentary lands of Turkestan under one government while retaining the cultural economic centers of Central Asia, the Kazakh desire was to unite all Kazakh majority locations while seeking redress from the harms inflicted by Tsarist Russia. The Kazakh people had been wrestling with the Russian settlers over control of the Steppe since the first settler and not a lot had changed with the revolution.
Unlike Turkestan, where the Jadids were brought into the governmental fold, the Alash Orda was excluded from government in 1922, with Alikhan Bukeikhanov arrested and sent to Moscow under armed guard. I guess the Bolsheviks never truly forgave Alikhan Bukeikhanov for supporting the White Army over the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. The Alash Orda returned to their initial passion: education and scholarship. Bukeikhanov would continue to have a strong influence on Kazakh thought and literature, receiving many visitors and officials even while under house arrest in Moscow. The Soviets increased anti-Alash Orda sentiments in the newspapers, revealing how they failed to support Communist principles in the past and the OGPU (precursor to the KGB) turned their focus from actually important issues to track and harass former Alash Orda members.
If the Bolsheviks were using Alash Orda as an excuse to get rid of Kazakhs they didn’t like or trust, the leaders of the Kazakh republic used the word “colonizer” to rid themselves of troublesome Europeans. One Kazakh Communist complained in 1923:
“Squabbles are arising between Russians and Kazakhs on the basis of settling personal accounts. Russians report on Kazakhs as nationalists, and Kazakhs report on Russians as colonialists.” - Maria Blackwood, Personal Experiences of Nationality and Power in Soviet Kazakhstan 1917-1953, Pg 175
As nationalist feelings increased amongst the Kazakh people, they used the term “colonizer” to defend their national interests. For example, during the dispute over the Siberian-Kazakh borders, the Kazakh government accused the Siberian Revolutionary Committee of being made up of colonialists. He claimed that they were sending settlers and colonizers into Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk regions to artificially inflate the European population so they could claim it for themselves.
When others claimed that the Kazakhs were too nationalistic, the chairmen of the Kazakh republic wrote:
“As to the so-called ‘nationalism’ within the Communist Party in Kazakhstan, I must say that this is an invention of the colonialists. There are no nationalists among the Kazakh Communists. If we posit that ‘nationalism’ is sometimes displayed among the indigenous Communists, this is primarily a result of the manifestation of kolonizsatorstvo on the part of Russian Communists. In the end we became Communists [sdelalis’ kommunistami][…] not in order to watch indifferently as the Kazakh nation dies. We are not interested in being such ‘Communists.’ No party, much less the Communist party, teaches its members to hate their nation. There is no Marxist literature that states that it is over the corpses of oppressed nations that the working class of civilized nations will achieve the kingdom of Communism.” - Maria Blackwood, Personal Experiences of Nationality and Power in Soviet Kazakhstan 1917-1953, Pg 176-177
This was the mindset of the Kazakhs as they entered negotiations over their borders with their Central Asian brethren. The Kazakh Commission that was supposed to work with the Uzbeks and others, was led by Sultanbek Qojanov. Sultanbek had been involved in the Alash Orda and establishing a Kazakh language. Initially he had favored a Central Asian Federation, like the one championed by Risqulov, but when that died, he committed himself to consolidating all Kazakhs into one political unit – including the Kazakhs in Turkestan. They argued that Tashkent, in particular, had a large Kazakh population and thus should be given to Kazakh in order to create a “continuous space where the Kazakh population or cultural-national groups related to it [i.e., those] of the Karakalpaks, Kyrgyz, Qurama [and] Qipchaqs form the absolute majority or plurality” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 274)
This claim ignored the Kyrgyz and Karakalpak desires for their own autonomous states. The fighting between the Kazakhs and Uzbeks reached the point where Stalin had to personally intercede. He gave the Syr Darya province to Kazakhstan but gave Tashkent to Uzbekistan. The Karakalpak and Kyrgyz people were given autonomous oblasts, but they remained within Kazakhstan’s control.
The Kyrgyz and Karakalpak Perspective
The Kyrgyz people never wanted to be an oblast. They wanted their own state. Their petition for autonomy was led by Jusup Abdrakmanov, Abdukerim Sydykov, and Ishenaly Arabayev. They argued that argued that scattered Kyrgyz communities were struggling as minorities within other national units, as a result leading many to slip back into tribal feuds and bourgeois influence. They were separate from the Kazakh and Karakalpak people and would never have their needs met except through a Kyrgyz government.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkestan proposed the creation of a Kyrgyz mountain oblast in 1922. This oblast would include the Chui, Talas, Issyk Kul and the Naryn provinces and the Kyrgyz-settled pockets within the Ferghana valley. The Kazakh’s strenuously resisted this proposal, but so did many Kyrgyz who wanted to remain within the Kazakh region. They were led by Rakhmankul Hudaikulov. While the bid for an independent state failed, the Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast was created on October 14th, 1924.
Abdrakmanov would continue his fight for an independent Kyrgyzstan, arguing that the Kyrgyz people would be able to development cultural and economically if they had their own government. He argued that national recognition would accelerate the spread of Communism in the region, since it would prove that the Soviets actually cared for the Kyrgyz people and their needs. He also believed that they had a higher chance of developing politically and economically if they were their own state then if they were an oblast within a bigger, non-Kyrgyz state. Abdrakmanov’s petitioning would pay off with the creation of Kyrgyzstan in 1926.
By November 8th, 1924, the following republics existed: The Turkmenistan Republic including control over Khiva and Ashgabat. Uzbekistan, which was considerably smaller than it would become, but still controlled Samarqand, Tashkent, Bukhara, and Kokand. Kazakhstan which included the Semirech’e and Syr Darya oblasts as well as the Karakalpak and Kyrgyz autonomous oblasts. Tajikistan went from being an oblast in Uzbekistan to becoming an independent state at the last minute.
Further changes were made in 1926. Uzbekistan gained control over the Karakalpak oblast (which now included lands originally belonging to Turkmenistan) and Kyrgyz was elevated to a union republic, solidifying today’s modern borders.
Now What?
The Soviets saw the creation of the Central Asian states as a chance to unite the more controlled and “developed” regions of Turkestan and the Steppe with the troublesome rural lands or lands formerly controlled by the emirs. They saw it as a merging of the “advanced” and “backward” regions and every time they implemented a new policy, they implemented it first in the “advanced” regions, which were more likely to be “open” to Communist thought and values, before expanding it into the “backward” regions. Which, to be fair to the Russians, is a common mindset found all over the world, even if it’s a bigoted and idiotic mindset.
In Uzbekistan, it allowed the Soviets to recreate governmental structures and minimize the power of various troublemakers. The Communist Party of Uzbekistan was composed of the Turkestan Communist Party (KPT), the Bukharan Communist Part (BKP), and the Communist Party of Khorezm, as well as the Young Communists (who we mentioned in the last episode). The Young Communists heavily disagreed with men like Fayzulla, Fitrat, and Ikromov because they weren’t Communist enough and many Soviets felt they could turn the Young Communists into a cadre of reliable and faithful Communists. They ensured that several Young Communists held leadership positions while marginalizing members of the old Communist parties. However, the Soviets weren’t strong enough yet to stop relying on the reformers turned Communists completely and thus Fayzulla became KPUz’s Prime Minister, his rival Akmal Ikromov became its first secretary, and Yo’ldosh Oxunboboyev held the ceremonial position of Head of the Central Executive Committee of the Uzbekistan state. His role may have been to manage both Ikromov and Xo’jayev, and if it was, he did a terrible job. They would continuously butt heads until their executions in 1937.
While the intellectuals were excited by the creation of Uzbekistan, there is little evidence that the local people even identified as Uzbek. The government sent out questionnaires to determine how people identified and what language they spoke, but the results were all over the place. This meant that a nationalist narrative (which was started by Fitrat and other Jadids) was needed.
The Soviets helped craft this narrative by providing mechanisms in which the locals could debate their own identity. They helped create the Committee for the Study of Uzbeks, the Uzbek Committee for Museums and the Preservation of Ancient Monuments and a Commissariat for Education. They continued integrating local actors into the party and state governing apparatus but did little to counter Russian influence.
In fact, Fayzulla claimed that the Russians were equal to Uzbeks in all respect in the republic, so instead of pushing Russians out of government, integration turned into targeting minorities who found themselves in a state called Uzbekistan and making sure they assimilated correctly. Of course, this would only increase Tajik, Kazakh, and Karakalpak nationalism both within Uzbekistan and in neighboring states.
In Kazakhstan, this meant further eroding the local governmental actor’s control. In 1925, Filip Goloshchekin, an ardent Stalinist, was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party in Kazakhstan and was appalled by what he saw. He believed the region was in need of a “Little October” to help it align with Communist principles. In 1927, he implemented a campaign of expropriation and collectivization that would communicate in the Kazakh Famine of the 1930s. The famine began in 1930, a year before the Holodomor in Ukraine and would kill a total of 1.5 million people in Kazakhstan, with 1.3 million being Kazakh. That means about 38% to 42% of all Kazakhs died during the famine.
In Tajikistan, this meant creating a governmental and economic center from scratch, while reclaiming the Tajik identity. When Tajikistan was created in 1924, the Tajik Communist Party was practically non-existent. The first Tajik Revolutionary Committee (Revkom) was led by Nusratulla Makhsum, one of the few Communists native to the region. However, he had spent most of his childhood in Kokand before joining the Bukharan Communist Party and only returned to Tajikistan because he had to. Many of his cabinet members were similarly banished to Tajikistan, including Fayzulla’s own rival, Abduqodir Muhiddinov. The same Mudiddinov whose brother tried to lead a coup against Fayzulla’s government in the Bukharan Soviet Republic. Many Europeans who went to Tajikistan went with a mission for Communism, but were quickly disappointed with what they saw and soon begged to be sent anywhere else.
The land of Tajikistan was pitiful. Only 7% were suitable for cultivation. The rest was impoverished, underdeveloped, and divided by the world’s highest and impenetrable mountain range which covered 90% of the land. Tajikistan was dependent on their fellow republics for infrastructure and economic development. The mountains were so impenetrable, the main road and railway linking the northern half and southern half had to cross into Uzbekistan. Tajikistan was further divided into the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous District which contained 3% of the population (mostly the Pamir Ismailis), but 45% of the land that wasn’t mountain.
Leadership within Tajik was very regional, since the land was broken up by a mountain range and inarable land. Dushanbe was the capital, but powerful clan networks from the Khujand region in the north held the real power. The population was subject to relocation either to the capital to help turn it from a village into a modern capital or into the areas where they needed more labor. The fact that power was held by clannish networks meant that losing one’s position or power not only threaten oneself and one’s immediate family, but an entire chain of people. This basically replicated the power structure of the ancient courts, where patronage and favors were the great currency of the land.
Given the mountainous terrain, Tajikistan was the best place for Basmachi leader, Ibrahim Bek, to lead the last of the Basmachi, something we’ve talk about more in our final episode of this season. Ibrahim Bek could never hope to overthrow the Bolshevik government or the Tajikistan government on his own, but he could make it impossible to govern an already formidable location and people.
As the Tajik identity and government took shape, members of that government realize that the division of the land had not been in Tajikistan’s favor. Shirinshoh Shohtemur, a member of the Tajik Revkom, brought Tajikistan’s complaints to the Soviets and argued that Samarkand should be given to Tajikistan because of its Persianate history. They argued that the Uzbeks were acting in pan-Islamic, pan-Turkic, and chauvinistic manner when denying Tajik claims.
Shohtemur was born in the Pamirs, came from an Ismaili family, had been orphaned as child and adopted by a Russian officer who took him to Tashkent to attend a Russian school. He worked with the Soviets in Turkestan before being assigned to the Pamirs in 1922 to help establish Soviet power. While he was neither Persian speaking nor Sunni, he had never been a Jadid either. His arguments were backed by Muhiddinov, who used the criticism to attack the Uzbek government, especially his rival Fayzulla Xo’jayev. While the Soviets would not grant any further land concessions to the Tajiks, their claims of Uzbek chauvinism worked in the favor of the OGPU, who were conducting an ongoing investigation into “Uzbekism and the rise of Chauvinism.”
While Makhsum and the others tried to create a government, Sadriddin Ayni took on the task of reclaiming Tajik literature and identity. Ayni was the first person to coin the name for the Tajik language and wrote several poems, stories, and novels to create a literary corpus. He is considered to be a major Tajik intellectual and writer even though he lived in Samarkand for most of his life and only moved to Dushanbe a few months before he died.
Ayni can be thought of as the Abdurauf Fitrat of the Tajiks. He worked long and hard to create a Tajik identity through literature and to merge the mountain Tajiks and the urban Tajiks into one identity. In the introduction to an anthology of Tajik literature, Ayni wrote:
“From the first events recorded by history today, a great nation called Tajik to Tazik has lived in the lands of Transoxiana and Turkestan. In the same manner, its language and literature have also developed. The development of the Tajik language has not been dependent on the ages or occupation of the throne. Thus, we see how highly Tajik literature developed in this land in the age of the Samanids, who were racially Persian speaking, it developed the same way in the times of Chinggisids, Temurids, Shaybanids, Astrakhanids, and Manghits, who were racially Mongol, Turk, and Uzbek. Thus, it is clear that the development of Tajik language and literature in these places did not take place simply because of the dominion of the Samanids or the immigration of the Iranians. Its real cause is the presence in these places of a large nation by the name of Tajik of the Aryan race” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 308)
For Ayni, Tajikistan did not conquer others, it survived through its culture, which was often adopted by it conquers. He wrote “great conqueror Temur, despite the fact that he was a Turk, wrote his autobiography in Tajik.” (Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 309) While the Tajik language was birthed out of Persianate influences, it existed out of Iran. Ayni highlighted Tajikistan’s Aryan roots, crafting an identity of being indigenous to the region and thus breaking away from a language identification only (which would have tied them to Iran and the idea of being the “other,” which was what the Chagataists were arguing).
Sadriddin Ayni
[Image Description: A black and white picture of a bald, elderly man with a short white beard. He is wearing a tubeteika and a grey button up shirt in the soviet style]
The creation of the new republics simplified ethnic diversity of the region (many identities were either turned into minorities or overwritten and suppressed), simplified the language, and centralized the government over large swarths of territories that had been unreceptive to Communism and central control for a long time. It also solidified the idea that homogenization was a key ingredient to nationalism. Diversity, many argue, makes a nation almost impossible to form. Unity in purpose and identity is the only way to ensure a nation survives. And so, people begin to identify themselves in opposition to each other, not in interrelation with each other and what could have been a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic federation or state turns into a handful of limitedly defined nation states.
While we can’t blame the Soviets for injecting an unknown strain of nationalism into Central Asia because it would rob the local people of their own autonomy, we also can’t blame the local actors solely for this development. This is a common path most nationalist movements take when trying to create their own nation. All Western European states had gone through this process leading up to WWI and would repeat the process after WWII. While Central Asia was remaking itself, their brethren in Eastern Europe were following a similar path during the interwar period, and we’re currently seeing this behavior in the United States today. It is easy to adopt a “us vs them” mentality during times of great turmoil and need, especially when the most popular model of governmental development is the idea of a nation state.
The next episode will be the final episode of this season. We’ll discuss the last days of the Basmachi and the arrests and executions of the Jadids and the Alash Orda.
References
Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR by Adeeb Khalid
“Personal Experiences of Nationality and Power in Soviet Kazakhstan 1917-1953” by Maria Blackwood
“The History of the Alash Movement in the Context of the “Empire of Positive Action”” by Khazretali Tursun, Nasuh Gumus, Kanat Bazarbayev, Gulzhamal Zhorayeva, Samat Kurmanalin
Central Asia: A New History by Adeeb Khalid
Soviet and National Kyrgyzstan: Local Agency and State-Building in Central Asia
1918-1940 by Zhanara Almazbekova
Despite Cultures: Early Soviet Rule in Tajikistan by Botakoz Kassymbekova
Speaking Soviet with an Accent: Culture and Power in Kyrgyzstan by Ali Igmen
