A hundred years ago, in July 1916, a powerful popular uprising broke out in Turkestan. It was the height of the First World War, and the Turkestan uprising became the strongest anti-government uprising in the rear. The main reason for the uprising was the decree of Emperor Nicholas II on the compulsory recruitment of a male alien population to rear work in the front-line areas. In accordance with this decree, 480 thousand men aged 19-43 - representatives of the Muslim peoples of Turkestan were to be mobilized for the construction of defensive fortifications and other structures. This measure was explained by the fact that there were not enough men from the European part of Russia to dig trenches, and Turkestan was, in the opinion of tsarist officials, a real "storehouse" of workers. In addition, the opinion was spread among officials that the Turkestanis were more submissive. Perhaps, the example of Russia's allies in the Entente - Great Britain and France, who actively used the natives of African and Asian colonies both for auxiliary work and in combat units of the colonial troops - also played a role. Note that before that, as you know, the alien population of the Russian Empire was exempted from compulsory military service.
Although the Russian army had units staffed by Muslims, they were served exclusively by volunteers - mainly representatives of the North Caucasian peoples and “Transcaucasian Tatars,” as the Azerbaijanis were then called. Of the Central Asians, only the Turkmens served in the tsarist army, who were famous for their valor and military skills. Tsarist officials could not think of anything better than to appoint a call for compulsory work on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In addition, agricultural work was in full swing in the agricultural regions of Turkestan and the peasants did not want to get off the ground in order to go to the front line to dig trenches.
The Turkestan uprising, which covered the territory of Kazakhstan and Central Asia and led to numerous casualties, had several main reasons. First, the most important factor that made the uprising itself possible was the socio-cultural contradictions that existed between the Muslim population of Turkestan and Russia as a whole. Recall that it was 1916. Many regions of Central Asia were conquered only forty years ago. The indigenous population continued to lead a traditional way of life, was culturally under the full influence of the clergy and local feudal lords. Despite the fact that numerous Russian settlers rushed to Turkestan, primarily to the Kazakh steppes, and the tsarist government supported the colonists in every possible way, hoping with their help to create centers of loyalty among the restless natives, there was strict isolation between the indigenous population and the Russian colonists. The Russian-Cossack population lived in isolation, not mingling with local residents, and contacts were, as a rule, reduced to business communication. In the perception of Turkestanis, the settlers were strangers, invaders.
The second key factor that created the preconditions for the uprising was the erroneous and ill-considered policy of the tsarist authorities. There was no consistency in the organization of management of the Turkestan lands and a clear line in relation to the local population. The personnel aspect was also very important. On the ground, government policy was implemented by far from the best representatives of the military and civilian officials. Central Asia was considered a kind of place of exile, where either people who had penalties in the service, or adventurers hoping to get hold of, were sent. Rarely were there real patriots among managers who thought not about their own well-being, but about the interests of the state. Even more rare cadres were officials who were really interested in the way of life, the history of Turkestan, who knew at least one of the local languages.
At the height of the First World War, when unrest was already beginning among the Turkestan population, an openly provocative provision was adopted, according to which Turkestanis had to take off their headdress when meeting with a Russian military or civilian official. Naturally, this offended many local residents. From time to time, officials completely groundlessly attacked the religion, even managed to prohibit the performance of the sacred Muslim Hajj to Mecca.
The third factor, which also played an important role in the preparation of the uprising, was the subversive activities of the Turkish agents. By the time of the outbreak of the First World War, pan-Turkic ideas were widely spread in the Ottoman Empire. The "Turkic world" included all regions with a Turkic-speaking or culturally similar Muslim population. Most of these regions were at that time part of the Russian Empire - the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia, the Volga region, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The Ottoman Empire had previously claimed the role of the main patron and intercessor of Muslims living on the territory of the Russian Empire - Russia acted according to a similar scheme, taking care of the interests of the Christian population of Palestine and Syria, which were part of the Ottoman Empire.
The tsarist government was wary of the Muslim clergy, considering them to be a conduit of Ottoman influence. This was successfully used by the Turkish special services, which turned religious circles against the Russian government. The domination of Russia in Central Asia was presented as a temporary phenomenon, and the preachers called on local Muslims to create a Sharia state under the auspices of the Turkish sultan - the caliph for all the faithful. Turkish and German agents operated in the neighboring regions of East Turkestan (now the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China), which was formally part of China, but was practically not controlled by the central authorities of the country. From East Turkestan, propagandists penetrated into the territory of the Russian Empire, and weapons were transported.
In these difficult conditions, the tsarist government continued to pursue a short-sighted policy, which led to a deterioration in the economic situation of the already poor population of Turkestan. Anti-Russian ideas found fertile soil precisely when the Turkestanis felt the consequences of the tsarist policy on their bellies. Thus, taxes on residents of Turkestan increased three to five times. The sedentary Uzbek and Tajik population was forced to increase the cotton harvest. Meat, cattle, even warm sheepskin coats were taken from nomadic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. Tax collection was accompanied by numerous excesses. Finally, a very strong indignation of the Turkestanis also caused the redistribution of the best lands in favor of the Russian colonists. Therefore, the decision that 250 thousand Uzbeks and Tajiks and 230 thousand Kazakhs and Kirghiz will be called up for compulsory work in the front-line zone, that is, hundreds of thousands of families will be deprived of their breadwinners, was the last straw of patience for local residents.
At the same time, it is very silly to accuse the Turkestan population of draft evasion during such a difficult war time for the country. Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the overwhelming majority of representatives of the peoples of Turkestan did not identify with the Russian state, the war was alien to them, they did not know the history and geography of Russia and did not even have an idea where they were going to be sent to work. Do not forget that the tsarist authorities did absolutely nothing to explain to the local residents the meaning of the decree on mobilization. Moreover, local officials acted rudely and cruelly towards the local population. The social factor was also added - the rich Turkestanis were able to freely pay off the draft, so sending them to compulsory work shone only on the majority of the poor population of the region.
On July 4 (old style), the first mass protest against the mobilization took place in Khujand. But even in this case, the authorities did not find anything smarter than to simply disperse the demonstration without drawing any conclusions for themselves. As a result, only in July 1916 there were 86 performances in the Fergana region, 26 in the Syrdarya region and 20 in the Samarkand region. On July 17, 1916, the authorities were forced to introduce martial law in the Turkestan military district. However, it was already too late. The uprising swept over almost all of Turkestan.
With its short-sighted policy and inept actions, the tsarist government set up, first of all, the Russian and Cossack population living in the region. It was the Russians and the Cossacks who became the main victims of the raging national element. Since most of the men from among the Russians and Cossacks by this time were called up for military service and were at the front, the settlements were practically defenseless. The insurgents, fueled by extremist slogans by preachers and Turkish agents, acted with extreme cruelty. They launched a real terror against the peaceful Russian-speaking population, killing and raping women, children and the elderly. Young girls and women, as a rule, preferred to be taken prisoner - in order to turn them into slave-concubines in the auls. The atrocities committed by the rebels against the Russian and Cossack population were indescribable.
To the credit of the Russian settlers and Cossacks, it should be noted that they held out to the last. Both young and old stood up to defend the settlements. By the way, when the rebels faced real organized resistance, they retreated - even if a thousand attackers were opposed by several dozen Cossacks. At the same time, if you read the testimonies of contemporaries, you can learn that many Kazakhs and Kyrgyz hid their Russian neighbors at the risk of their lives. And, at the same time, without the intervention of the troops, the uprising would most likely have ended in the total destruction of the Christian population in Central Asia.
To pacify the insurgents of Turkestan, troops of 30 thousand soldiers and officers, armed with artillery and machine guns, were sent. On July 22, 1916, Infantry General Aleksey Nikolaevich Kuropatkin (1848-1925) was appointed Governor-General of Turkestan, a famous Russian military leader who, it must be admitted, was also a talented manager - in particular, he knew how to find a common language with the Turkestanis. This was due to the peculiarities of his biography - almost the entire long military career of General Kuropatkin was associated with service in Turkestan. By the end of the summer of 1916, Russian troops managed to suppress the uprising in almost all areas of the Samarkand, Syrdarya, Fergana and other regions. Only in the steppes of Turgai was a strong focus of the uprising preserved - here the Kazakhs revolted under the leadership of Abdulgafar Zhanbosynov and Amangeldy Imanov. In Turgai, the rebels even managed to create authorities, electing Abdulgafar Zhanbosynov as khan, and Amangeldy Imanov as sardarbek (commander of the troops).
The suppression of the uprising in Turkestan was extremely brutal. One can imagine the reaction of Russian soldiers and Cossacks who entered the devastated villages and saw the mutilated corpses of women, old people and children. The cruelty of Russian soldiers towards the local population was thus a response to the atrocities committed by the rebels. This is also recognized by modern Central Asian historians - those of them who have not slipped into the swamp of nationalist demagoguery. Thus, the Kyrgyz historian Shairgul Batyrbaeva writes: “Indeed, there was a harsh suppression of the uprising. But one cannot be silent about the reasons for this tragedy. When the punitive detachments sent to pacify the riot saw the heads of Russian women and children planted on a pitchfork, their reaction was appropriate. In total, 3-4 thousand civilians, mostly Russian women and children, were killed at the hands of the rebels. On August 16, 1916, Governor-General Aleksey Kuropatkin informed the Minister of War Dmitry Shuvaev about the deaths of 3478 Russian settlers. Human casualties were also great on the other side. Although tendentious Soviet historians talked about the deaths of 100-150 thousand Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks during the suppression of the uprising, researchers who are more balanced in their approach to the study of the issue say that about 4 thousand people died from the side of the rebels.
But the losses of the Turkestan population were really great - just not from the actions of the Russian troops. The harsh suppression of the uprising led to a new tragedy - the mass exodus of the Kyrgyz and Kazakhs to China - to the territory of East Turkestan. Tens of thousands of people fled to Xinjiang. The difficult road through the mountains claimed many lives, and in Xinjiang, as it turned out, no one was waiting for refugees. In order not to starve to death, many families were forced to sell their children to the Chinese.
The economy and demography of Turkestan suffered enormous damage - after all, according to various sources, from 40 thousand to 250 thousand people fled to China. The tsar's decree on mobilization was not fully implemented, because of which the uprising began - only about 100 thousand people were summoned to work, and not 480 thousand people, as originally planned. In addition, the uprising led to a further deepening of the rift between the Russian-speaking population of Turkestan and the local peoples. It was difficult for the Russians and Cossacks to forget the consequences of ethnic cleansing, and for the Turkestans, it was hard to suppress the uprising. Nevertheless, the new Governor-General Kuropatkin did everything possible to smooth over the consequences of the tragedy unfolding in Turkestan. He worked out the possibility of creating separate Russian and Kyrgyz districts, which would make it possible to resolve the land issue and avoid direct clashes. Kuropatkin understood that in order to normalize the situation in the region, it was necessary not only to severely punish the rebels who had unleashed the genocide of the Russian population, but also to prevent lynching and mass killings of Turkestanis by vengeful Russians and Cossacks. However, the outbreak of the February Revolution did not allow these plans to be realized. A new dramatic period began in the history of Kazakhstan and Central Asia.
