The enemies of the Russian people created a myth about the Soviet (Stalinist) terror, repressions against "innocent people." Among these "innocent victims" were the Basmachi - bandits who covered themselves with the idea of a "holy war" against the "infidels."
Now the republics of Central Asia have agreed to the point that Basmachism is a "national liberation movement" of the peoples of Central Asia. Everything is within the framework of yet another black myth about Russia and the Russians - about the "occupation by Russia and the Russians" of Central Asia, the Caucasus, etc. The problem is that several ethnic groups lived on the territory of Turkestan. And only the Soviet government gave most of the peoples their own national republics (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, etc.). This happened in the 1920s, when the Soviet government was already in complete control of the situation in the region. Most of the region's population at that time was completely indifferent to politics and illiterate, which excluded the "national liberation" movement. The field commanders of the Basmachs, the feudal and religious elite saw no need for a "national struggle" either. Local spiritual and secular feudal lords, who owned up to 85% of all the best lands, on which dehkans were bending their backs, simply wanted to preserve power and wealth, the former parasitic existence.
Basmachi (from the Turkic - "attack, swoop", that is, bandits-raiders) from ancient times operated on the territory of Central Asia (Turkestan). These were ordinary bandits, robbers, robbing settlements and trade caravans. During the First World War, the collapse of Russia and the Civil War, the Basmachi acquired a religious and political connotation. Turkey, and then England, sought to use the Basmachi against the Russians in order to tear Turkestan away from Russia and occupy this region themselves. The struggle against the Soviet regime under the slogan of a holy war provided the Basmachs with the support of some of the believers, Islamic leaders, and clergy. Also, the Basmachs were supported by the feudal lords in order to maintain power, which means the opportunity to continue to parasitize on the local population. Therefore, after part of Central Asia was part of Soviet Russia, the Soviet government, among other urgent problems, had to solve this one too.
Thus, the Basmachi never enjoyed mass support of the people (who loves bandits ?!), and they were not particularly fond of politics and ideology, in fact they were bandits. Before the revolution, they were engaged in their historical craft - robbing fellow countrymen. And after the victory of the Soviet regime, they continued their bloody craft. So, one of the kurbashi (kurbashi is a field commander of a large enough detachment capable of operating relatively autonomously, the Basmachi bandit formations) of Ibrahim-bek, Alat Nalvan Ilmirzaev, testified during the investigation in 1931: “I kept the gang at the expense of the population, of course, the population did not voluntarily provided food, had to be taken and robbed, at the expense of the loot to support the gang."
After the October Revolution of 1917, the Basmachi fell under the control of the feudal lords and the reactionary Muslim clergy. The main enemy of the emirs and feudal lords was the Soviet government, which created a new world in which there was no place for social parasites. However, all attempts by the local anti-Soviet reactionary political elite to give the Basmachi struggle an ideological, political and national flavor in order to provoke a "holy war" of the local population against the Reds ended in complete failure.
The bulk of the population of Turkestan was indifferent to politics. Most of the population - peasants (dehkans), were illiterate, they did not read newspapers, they were only interested in their own economy, and the life of their village. All the time was spent on agricultural work, simple survival. There were few intelligentsia. Revolution 1905 - 1907 and the February Revolution of 1917 passed almost imperceptibly for the inhabitants of Turkestan. The only thing that worried the "infidels" (this is how the indigenous population was called in the Russian Empire) was the 1916 decree on the mobilization of men for rear work in the front-line areas. This led to a major uprising that engulfed a large region.
Members of society who did not find themselves in ordinary life most often went to Basmachi. Banditry seemed to be an easy way to improve personal financial situation. In addition, it was possible to make a "career" - to become a centurion, a field commander (kurbash), and receive as a reward not only a share from the loot, but also the territory for "feeding" the detachment, to become a complete master there. As a result, many became Basmachs for personal gain. Also, those who, during the establishment of Soviet power, lost everything - power, sources of income, that is, representatives of the feudal class and the clergy - went to the Basmachi. Peasants, drugged by the speeches of local religious leaders, also fell into the Basmachi. The Basmachi also forcibly took male peasants into their detachments. They were called stick insects, since they were armed with improvised tools - axes, sickles, knives, pitchforks, etc., or even simple sticks.
Basmachi politics was mainly brought from outside - through representatives of the Turkish and British special services. In 1913, the Young Turkish dictatorship was established in the Ottoman Empire. All the threads of government were in the hands of three prominent figures of the Unity and Progress party - Enver, Talaat and Dzhemal. They used the doctrines of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism for political purposes. Since the beginning of the war, the Turkish leaders nurtured a clearly delusional and adventurous idea (taking into account the military, technological and economic weakness of the Ottoman Empire, in which a long process of degradation came to its logical end - complete collapse and collapse) of uniting all Turkic-speaking peoples under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. Turkish leaders laid claim to the regions of the Caucasus and Turkestan belonging to Russia. Turkish agents were active in the Caucasus and Central Asia. After Turkey's defeat in World War II, Turkish agents were replaced by British ones. Britain planned to sever Turkestan from Russia in order to weaken the influence of the Russians in Asia. Thus, the Turks and the British financed the Basmachi, provided them with modern weapons and provided experienced career officers and advisers to organize uprisings and wage war against the Bolsheviks.
A feature of the Basmachi, in contrast to the peasant rebels from Central Russia, was the active use of the methods of the "small war". In particular, the Basmachi had well-placed intelligence and used specific combat tactics. The Basmachi had a widely ramified network of agents who were among the mullahs, teahouse, merchants, wandering artisans, beggars, etc. Thanks to such agents, the Basmachi were well aware of the enemy's movements and knew his strength. In battle, the Basmachi used elements of luring, false attacks, bringing the Reds, who were carried away by the attack, under fire from the best riflemen who were sitting in ambush. The Basmachs were based in remote mountainous and desert areas and, at favorable times, made horse raids into densely populated areas, killing Bolsheviks, commissars,Soviet workers and supporters of Soviet power. Local residents were intimidated by terror. Farmers who were seen collaborating with the Soviet government were usually brutally tortured and killed. The Basmachi tried to avoid clashes with large units of regular Soviet troops, preferring to suddenly attack small detachments, fortifications or settlements occupied by the Bolsheviks, and then quickly leave. At the most dangerous moments, the bandit formations split into small groups and disappeared, and then united in a safe place and organized a new raid. Since the detachments of the Red Army and the Soviet militia could offer strong resistance, the Basmachi preferred to attack villages where there were no Soviet garrisons and the defense was held by poorly armed local self-defense units ("red sticks" - peasants who defended Soviet power and their settlements). Therefore, the local population suffered the most from the raids of the Basmachi.
Commander-in-chief Sergei Kamenev noted in 1922: “The characteristic features of the Basmachi are cunning, great resourcefulness, audacity, extreme mobility and tirelessness, knowledge of local conditions and communication with the population, which is at the same time a means of communication between gangs. These properties highlight the need for a particularly careful selection of commanders at the head of flying and fighter detachments and the appropriate leadership of them. Basmachi are cunning - you have to outsmart them; Basmachi are resourceful and daring, mobile and tireless - we need to be even more resourceful, daring and agile, set up ambushes, suddenly appear where we are not expected; Basmachi are well acquainted with local conditions - we need to study them just as well; Basmachi are based on the sympathy of the population - we need to win sympathy; this last is especially important and, as experience has shown, not only facilitates the struggle, but also significantly contributes to its success."
