|
Uzbekistan
The Jadidists and Basmachis
Russian influence was especially strong among certain young
intellectuals who were the sons of the rich merchant classes.
Educated in the local Muslim schools, in Russian universities,
or in Istanbul, these men, who came to be known as the Jadidists,
tried to learn from Russia and from modernizing movements in Istanbul
and among the Tatars, and to use this knowledge to regain their
country's independence. The Jadidists believed that their society,
and even their religion, must be reformed and modernized for this
goal to be achieved. In 1905 the unexpected victory of a new Asiatic
power in the Russo-Japanese War and the eruption of revolution
in Russia raised the hopes of reform factions that Russian rule
could be overturned, and a modernization program initiated, in
Central Asia. The democratic reforms that Russia promised in the
wake of the revolution gradually faded, however, as the tsarist
government restored authoritarian rule in the decade that followed
1905. Renewed tsarist repression and the reactionary politics
of the rulers of Bukhoro and Khiva forced the reformers underground
or into exile. Nevertheless, some of the future leaders of Soviet
Uzbekistan, including Abdur Rauf Fitrat and others, gained valuable
revolutionary experience and were able to expand their ideological
influence in this period.
In the summer of 1916, a number of settlements in eastern Uzbekistan
were the sites of violent demonstrations against a new Russian
decree canceling the Central Asians' immunity to conscription
for duty in World War I. Reprisals of increasing violence ensued,
and the struggle spread from Uzbekistan into Kyrgyz and Kazak
territory. There, Russian confiscation of grazing land already
had created animosity not present in the Uzbek population, which
was concerned mainly with preserving its rights.
The next opportunity for the Jadidists presented itself in 1917
with the outbreak of the February and October revolutions in Russia.
In February the revolutionary events in Russia's capital, Petrograd
(St. Petersburg), were quickly repeated in Tashkent, where the
tsarist administration of the governor general was overthrown.
In its place, a dual system was established, combining a provisional
government with direct Soviet power and completely excluding the
native Muslim population from power. Indigenous leaders, including
some of the Jadidists, attempted to set up an autonomous government
in the city of Quqon in the Fergana Valley, but this attempt was
quickly crushed. Following the suppression of autonomy in Quqon,
Jadidists and other loosely connected factions began what was
called the Basmachi revolt against Soviet rule, which by 1922
had survived the civil war and was asserting greater power over
most of Central Asia. For more than a decade, Basmachi guerrilla
fighters (that name was a derogatory Slavic term that the fighters
did not apply to themselves) fiercely resisted the establishment
of Soviet rule in parts of Central Asia.
However, the majority of Jadidists, including leaders such as
Fitrat and Faizulla Khojayev, cast their lot with the communists.
In 1920 Khojayev, who became first secretary of the Communist
Party of Uzbekistan, assisted communist forces in the capture
of Bukhoro and Khiva. After the amir of Bukhoro had joined the
Basmachi movement, Khojayev became president of the newly established
Soviet Bukhoran People's Republic. A People's Republic of Khorazm
also was set up in what had been Khiva.
The Basmachi revolt eventually was crushed as the civil war in
Russia ended and the communists drew away large portions of the
Central Asian population with promises of local political autonomy
and the potential economic autonomy of Soviet leader Vladimir
I. Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP--see Glossary). Under these
circumstances, large numbers of Central Asians joined the communist
party, many gaining high positions in the government of the Uzbek
Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR), the administrative unit
established in 1924 to include present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
The indigenous leaders cooperated closely with the communist government
in enforcing policies designed to alter the traditional society
of the region: the emancipation of women, the redistribution of
land, and mass literacy campaigns.
Data as of March 1996
|
