Basmachi Revolt

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The Basmachi Revolt (Russian: Восстание басмачей), or Basmachestvo (Басмачество), was an uprising against Russian Empire and Soviet Russia rule in Central Asia.

The movement started in 1916 during the First World War as an anti-tsarist and anti-russian revolt and it developed into a long-time civil war against the Soviets.

Soviet sources portray it as a movement of Islamic traditionalists, together with common thugs and rabble-rousers as well as Islamic radicals. The rebels who started the revolt were called Basmachi, or 'Bandits', a deliberately pejorative term which has much the same meaning as Dacoit in India. Other historians would argue that many ordinary peasants and nomads who opposed the cultural imperialism of Russia, and perhaps more importantly objected to Soviet harsh policies and requisitioning of food and livestock, were an important component of the rebel base, also taking into account that Soviet authorities continued the colonization politics of the tsarist regime.

The Basmachi had soon spread and multiplied across most of Turkestan. Much of Turkestan at the time was, ironically, not actually under the Soviet Russia against which the Basmachi were rebelling, but under other regimes, albeit regimes that were allied with Soviet Russia. The Red Army forces included Tatars and Central Asians, who enabled the invading force to appear at least partly indigenous.

By the early 1920s, the Basmachi Revolt had become so widespread that the Soviet government realized they risked losing their Turkestani territory. Infighting among the Basmachi meanwhile made them weaker compared to the Soviet political establishment (who, by comparison, had a common purpose and single vision, in addition to greater military power). Lenin's government made conciliations to national sentiment in order to quell the Turkestanis' objections to being politically a part of the Soviet Union ( conciliatory measures included grants of food, tax relief, the promise of land reform, the reversal of anti-Islamic policies launched during the Civil War and the promise of an end to agricultural controls ) and the revolt had largely died out by 1926, however, skirmishes and occasional fighting continued until 1932.

It has to be noticed that, unlike the anti-Bolshevik White Army, the Basmachi were not considered as allies by the Western Powers and did not receive any outside help. The Entente saw the Basmachi as potential enemies for the Pan-Turkist or Pan-Islamist ideologies of some of their leaders.

One of the Basmachi's commanders was Enver Pasha who retired to eastern Bukhara, joined the Basmachi leaders, and rose against his former supporters, the Soviets. There, he was killed in a failed last-ditch cavalry charge on August 4, 1922, near Baldzhuan in Turkestan (present-day Tajikistan).

The rebellion was a popular subject for Red Westerns, and featured as a central part of the plot of the films White Sun of the Desert (Белое Солнце Пустыни), The Seventh Bullet (Седьмая Пуля) and Telokhranitel (Телохранитель - The Bodyguard).

[edit] Sources & Further Reading

Х. Турсунов: Восстание 1916 Года в Средней Азии и Казахстане. Таshkent (1962)
Б.В. Лунин: Басмачество Tashkent (1984)
Яков Нальский: В горах Восточной Бухары. (Повесть по воспоминаниям сотрудников КГБ) Dushanbe (1984)
Alexander Marshall: "Turkfront: Frunze and the Development of Soviet Counter-insurgency in Central Asia" in Tom Everett-Heath (Ed.) "Central Asia. Aspects of Transition", RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2003; ISBN 0-7007-0956-8 (cloth) ISBN 0-7007-0957-6 (pbk.)
Fazal-ur-Rahim Khan Marwat: The Basmachi movement in Soviet Central Asia: A study in political development., Peshawar, Emjay Books International (1985)
Marco Buttino: "Ethnicité et politique dans la guerre civile: à propos du 'basmačestvo' au Fergana", Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique, Vol. 38, No. 1-2, (1997)
Marie Broxup: The Basmachi. Central Asian Survey, Vol. 2 (1983), No. 1, pp. 57-81.
Mustafa Chokay: "The Basmachi Movement in Turkestan", The Asiatic Review Vol.XXIV (1928)
Sir Olaf Caroe: Soviet Empire: The Turks of Central Asia and Stalinism 2nd ed., London, Macmillan (1967) ISBN 0-312-74795-0
Glenda Fraser: "Basmachi (parts I and II)", Central Asian Survey, Vol. 6 (1987), No. 1, pp. 1-73, and No.2, pp. 7-42.
Baymirza Hayit: Basmatschi. Nationaler Kampf Turkestans in den Jahren 1917 bis 1934. Köln, Dreisam-Verlag (1993)