| Central Asian Theater of the Russian Civil War | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Russian Civil War | |||||||||
 Map of Soviet Central Asia in 1922 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Soviet Russia  Soviet Bukhara  Soviet Khorezm |  Basmachi rebels  Turkestan Autonomy  Alash Autonomy  Khanate of Khiva  Emirate of Bukhara | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||||
The Central Asian Theatre was the front of the Russian Civil War taking place in the old imperial provinces of Turkestan, Khiva, Bukhara, and Transcaspia. [5]
In late 1917, a revolutionary wave spread across Russia, including Kazakhstan, leading to the establishment of Soviet power there. [6] However, this was met with opposition, and in June 1918, with the help of the Czechoslovak Legion, the Alash Army (the armed forces of the Alash Autonomy) took over Kazakhstan. [7] After Kolchak's coup, relations between the Alash and the Whites became uneasy, [8] and in March, negotiations between the Alash and the Bolsheviks began. The topic of discussion was about aligning with the Bolsheviks, and by December, they fully switched to the Soviet side. By early 1920, most of their leaders were executed. [3] [9]
After the initial shockwaves of the Russian revolution reached Central Asia, the local khans rebelled against their ruling governments. This was met by fierce resistance in both Khiva [4] and Bukhara. [3] These revolutions sparked a greater revolution resulting in the creations of other revolutionary governments such as the Alash Autonomy and Turkestan. [8]
The revolutions were driven by a mix of socialist ideals and a desire for self-rule. In Turkestan, Bolshevik promises of land redistribution gained traction among peasants, while Kazakh intellectuals in the Alash Orda sought greater autonomy for their people. However, these movements faced significant challenges, including ethnic divisions, resistance from local elites, and external pressures from the Russian Civil War and the advancing Red Army. [10]
The Basmachi rebellion formally began in 1916, sparked by Russian efforts to conscript Central Asian Muslims into military service during World War I. [9] The resistance escalated after the October Revolution of 1917, when Soviet forces tried to assert control over Turkestan. The movement consisted of various factions—some led by religious figures, others by tribal chieftains or former officials of the old regime—each resisting the Bolsheviks for different reasons.
The rebels saw initial success allying with Bukhara to prevent a pro Bolshevik coup d'etat. The movement spread rapidly across the Fergana Valley, Dushanbe, Khiva, and other regions, becoming a significant threat to Soviet control in Central Asia. While the movement lacked a cohesive structure and unified leadership, many see Ibrahim Bek and later on Enver Pasha as the leaders of the movement. [11]
One of the pivotal moments in the struggle was the successful siege of Dushanbe by Basmachi forces under the leadership of Enver Pasha, a former Ottoman officer who had joined the anti-Soviet struggle in Central Asia. Pasha rallied Basmachi fighters with the vision of creating a united Turkic-Islamic state, and his military leadership reinvigorated the insurgency. The Basmachi managed to capture Dushanbe in February of 1922, but their control was short-lived. [12]
By the July 1922, Soviet forces regrouped and launched a counteroffensive to retake the town. The successful pushback, dealt a significant blow to the Basmachi movement. Enver Pasha attempted to continue the fight but was eventually killed in a skirmish near Balkh in 1922, marking the beginning of the end for the Basmachis. [1]
The Malleson Mission was a British military intervention in Central Asia during the Russian Civil War, aimed at countering the spread of Bolshevism and protecting British interests in India. Led by Major General Wilfrid Malleson, [13] the mission began in 1918 with the deployment of British Indian Army troops to the city of Meshed in Persia (modern-day Iran). The primary objective was to support the anti-Bolshevik forces in the region, particularly in Transcaspia (now Turkmenistan), and to secure the northern frontiers of British India from potential Bolshevik influence. The British feared that Soviet control of Central Asia could lead to instability in nearby Afghanistan and India. [14]
Malleson coordinated with local anti-Bolshevik factions, including the Transcaspian Government, a provisional authority established by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries in the region. His forces provided logistical and military support, including supplies, weapons, and training, to help these groups resist the Bolshevik Red Army. One of the key engagements of the mission was the defense of Ashgabat (then known as Ashkhabad), where Malleson’s troops played a crucial role in stabilizing the front against Bolshevik advances. The victory at Dushak [15] secured the supply lines to the Caspian Sea.
However, the mission faced significant challenges, including internal divisions, logistical difficulties, and shifting political priorities in London. By 1919, with the conclusion of World War I and growing public and political pressure in Britain to reduce overseas military commitments, the British government decided to withdraw its support from the region. [16] The Malleson Mission ended in 1919, and shortly thereafter, the Bolsheviks consolidated their control over Transcaspia. Despite its short-lived success, the mission succeeded in curbing potential spread of communism to the Indian subcontinent.
By the 1921, the Soviet Union had achieved dominance over Central Asia. The Red Army systematically dismantled the Basmachi Movement and established control over key territories in Turkestan, Bukhara, and Khiva. The Soviet strategy combined military force with diplomatic efforts to co-opt local leaders and undermine resistance. The use of brutal tactics, including scorched-earth policies and mass reprisals against villages suspected of harboring rebels, helped to consolidate Soviet power in the region but also caused many deaths from the famines that followed. [17]
The final phase of Soviet consolidation came with the formal incorporation of Central Asian territories into the USSR. By 1924, the Soviet government had established the Central Asian Soviet Republics, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, effectively integrating them into the Soviet system. [18] This process involved the suppression of local autonomy, the imposition of Soviet policies. The successful conquest and incorporation of Central Asia marked a significant achievement for the Soviet regime, securing its old imperial lands borders and extending its influence across its vast southern frontier.
The Basmachi movement was an uprising against Imperial Russian and Soviet rule in Central Asia by rebel groups inspired by Islamic beliefs.
Zeki Velidi Togan, was a Turkish-Bashkir historian, Turkologist, and leader of the Bashkir revolutionary and liberation movement, doctor of philosophy (1935), professor, honorary doctor of the University of Manchester (1967).
Russian Turkestan was the western part of Turkestan within the Russian Empire’s Central Asian territories, and was administered as a Krai or Governor-Generalship. It comprised the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh Steppe, but not the protectorates of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva. It was populated by speakers of Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tajik.
The Transcaspian Oblast, or simply Transcaspia, was an oblast of the Russian Empire and early Soviet Russia to the east of the Caspian Sea during the second half of the 19th century until 1924.
Soviet Central Asia was the part of Central Asia administered by the Russian SFSR and then the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian republics declared independence. It is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan in the Russian Empire. Soviet Central Asia went through many territorial divisions before the current borders were created in the 1920s and 1930s.
Reginald Teague-Jones MBE was a British political and intelligence officer. He was active in the Caucasus and Central Asia during the Russian Civil War. For the last 66 years of his life he was known as Ronald Sinclair. Under that assumed name, he authored two published accounts of his travels and adventures in Asia and the Middle East.
Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War within the territory of the former Russian Empire sought the creation of independent nation states that were not aligned with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. Many pro-independence movements emerged after the dissolution of the Russian Empire and fought in the Russian Civil War.
The Alash Autonomy, also known as Alash Orda, was an unrecognized Kazakh proto-state located in Central Asia and was part of the Russian Republic, and then Soviet Russia. The Alash Autonomy was founded in 1917 by Kazakh elites, and disestablished after the Bolsheviks banned the ruling Alash party. The goal of the party was to obtain autonomy within Russia, and to form a national democratic state. The political entity bordered Russian territories to the north and west, the Turkestan Autonomy to the south, and China to the east.
The Bukhara operation (1920), was a military conflict fought between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Young Bukharans against the Emirate of Bukhara. The war lasted between 28 August and 2 September 1920, ending in the defeat of the Emirate of Bukhara, which was instead replaced by the RSFSR-controlled Bukharan People's Soviet Republic.
The Malleson mission or British intervention in Transcaspia was a military action by a small autonomous force of British Indian troops, led by General Wilfrid Malleson, operating against Bolshevik forces over large distances in Transcaspia between August 1918 and April 1919, in the context of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.
The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was a Soviet state that governed the former Emirate of Bukhara during the years immediately following the Russian Revolution. In 1924, its name was changed to the Bukharan Socialist Soviet Republic. After the redrawing of regional borders, its territory was assigned mostly to the Uzbek SSR and some to the Turkmen SSR.
The Bukharan Revolution refers to the events of 1917–1925, which led to the elimination of the Emirate of Bukhara in 1920, the formation of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic, the intervention of the Red Army, the mass armed resistance of the population and its suppression, the inclusion of the republic into the Soviet Union on 27 October 1924, as a separate union republic, the elimination of the newly established republic as a result of national delimitation and the formation of the Uzbek SSR, the Turkmen SSR and Tajik ASSR in 1924.
The Khivan Revolution refers to the events of 1917–1924, which led to the elimination of the Khanate of Khiva in 1920, the formation of the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic, the intervention of the Red Army, the mass armed resistance of the population and its suppression, the inclusion of the republic into the Soviet Union on 27 October 1924, as a separate union republic, the elimination of the newly established republic as a result of national delimitation and the formation of the Uzbek SSR, the Turkmen SSR in 1924.
Junaid Khan ; (b.1857/62–1938) was a Turkmen tribal leader who became the Chief of the Armed Forces and later the de facto and last ruler of the Khanate of Khiva.
Yakov Arkadievich Melkumov was a Soviet military commander of Armenian origin. He fought in the First World War and the Russian Civil War. He particularly distinguished himself during the Russian Civil War fighting against the Basmachi movement on the Turkestan Front. He is known for commanding the unit that killed the former Ottoman general who had commanded the Basmachi rebels, Enver Pasha, who was one of the main architects of the Armenian genocide.
Shir Muhammad-bek Gazi, also known as Mahmud-Bek also known under the nickname Korshirmat was a prominent figure of the Basmachi Movement in exile since 1923, the first head of the Turkestan Union during the Great Patriotic War with the support of the Abwehr to restore the insurrectionary movement in Turkestan.
The Turkestan Military Organization was an anti–Bolshevik military underground organization created in February 1918 in the Turkestan Territory of the Russian Empire, with its center in the city of Tashkent, a group of former officers of the Tsarist Army and a number of representatives of the Russian intelligentsia and officials of the former administration of the Territory with the aim of overthrowing Soviet Power in the province.
The Battles for Dushanbe (1921–1922) were a series of battles around the Capital city of Tajikistan from late 1921 until August 4, 1922
Enver Pasha's Rebellion refers to an armed uprising that was a part of the much larger Basmachi Revolt. It was conducted by the former Ottoman Minister of War, Enver Pasha.
The siege of Dushanbe took place in February 1922 during the Basmachi rebellion, an anti-Soviet uprising in Central Asia. The town of Dushanbe was captured by Basmachi forces under the command of Enver Pasha, a former Ottoman military leader who had aligned himself with the Basmachi rebels. The Soviet garrison was overwhelmed after a brief siege, and the Basmachi forces gained control of the town, marking a significant moment in the rebellion.
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