Bukharan People's Soviet Republic
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The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic (Russian: Бухарская Народная Советская Республика) was the name of Uzbekistan from 1920 to 1924. It was a short-lived Soviet state which governed the former Emirate of Bukhara during the period immediately following the Russian Revolution from 1920-1924. It eventually became part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR).
[edit] History
In 1868, the Russian Empire forced the Emirate of Bukhara to accept protectorate status. Over the next 40 years, the Russians slowly eroded at Bukhara’s territory, although never actually annexing the city of Bukhara itself. However, the emir could not shut out all outside influences, and gradually some of the disaffected youth of Bukhara gravitated to Pan-Turkism, inspired by the Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire, ideas taken from the Islamic Jadid reform movement, and the new Bolshevik-inspired communism. These various ideologies coalesced in the Young Bukharan Movement, led by Faizullah Khojaev. The young Bukharans faced extreme obstacles as the emirate was dominated by conservative Sunni Islamic clergy. The ensuing conflict would pit the secular Young Bukharans and their Bolshevik supporters against the conservative, pro-emir rebels named the Basmachi. This conflict would last more than a decade.
In March 1918 activists of the Young Bukharan Movement informed the Bolsheviks that the Bukharans were ready for the revolution and that the people were awaiting liberation. The Red Army marched to the gates of Bukhara and demanded that the emir surrender the city to the Young Bukharians. As Russian sources report, the emir responded by murdering the Bolshevik delegation, along with several hundred Russian inhabitants of Bukhara and the surrounding territories. The majority of Bukharans did not support an invasion and the ill-equipped and ill-disciplined Bolshevik army fled back to the Soviet stronghold at Tashkent.
However, the emir had won only a temporary respite. As the civil war in Russia wound down, Moscow sent reinforcements to Central Asia. On 2 September 1920, an army of well-disciplined and well equipped Red Army troops under the command of Bolshevik general Mikhail Frunze attacked the city. After four days of fighting, the emir’s citadel (Arc) was destroyed, the red flag was raised from the top of Kalan Minaret, and the Emir Alim Khan was forced to flee to his base at Dushanbe in Eastern Bukharan, and finally to Kabul, Afghanistan.
The Bukharan People's Republic was proclaimed on 8 October 1920 under Faizullah Khojaev. The overthrow of the Emir was the impetus for the Basmachi Revolt, a conservative anti-communist rebellion. In 1922, most of territory of republic was controlled by Basmachi, surrounding the city of Bukhara.
During the first few years of the Russian Revolution, Lenin relied on a policy of encouraging local revolutions under the aegis of the local bourgeoisie, and in the early years of Bolshevik rule the Communists sought the assistance of the Jadids, reformists, in pushing through radical social and educational reforms. Only two weeks after the proclamation of the People's Republic, Communist Party membership in Bukhara soared to 14,000 as many local inhabitants were eager to prove their loyalty to the new regime. As the Soviet Union stabilized, it could afford to purge itself of opportunists and potential nationalists. A series of purges stripped membership down to 1000 by 1922.
From 19 September to 27 November 1924, the republic was known as Bukharan Soviet Socialist Republic (Bukharan SSR; Russian: Бухарская Социалистическая Советская Республика). When new national boundaries were drawn up in 1924, the Bukharan SSR voted itself out of existence, and became part of the new Uzbek SSR. Today the territory of the defunct Bukhara SSR is lies mostly in Uzbekistan with parts in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Khojaev survived the purges and became the first President of the Uzbek SSR, but he was later purged in the 1930s together with virtually the entire intelligentsia of Central Asia.
[edit] Resources
- Allworth, Edward (1967). Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Becker, Seymour (1968). Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924. Cambridge: Harvard University.
- Chokaev, Mustafa. "The Basmaji Movement in Turkestan". The Asiatic Review 24 (78).
- Wheeler, Geoffrey (1964). The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia. London: Weidenfelf and Nicolson.
