Table of contents:
- Labor mobilization and discontent among Asians
- Mutiny of the Kirghiz and the right to liquidate the auls
- Terror of local Russians
- The empire's response and the brutality of the Russians
Video: Turkestan uprising: Why did the Russian pogroms begin, and how the government solved the situation
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
In the summer of 1916, a bloody popular uprising broke out in Turkestan. At the height of the First World War, this revolt became a very powerful anti-government attack in the rear. The official reason for the revolt was the imperial decree on the compulsory conscription of foreigners from the male population to rear work in the front-line areas.
In accordance with the decree of Nicholas II, about half a million Muslim men of military age were planned to be mobilized for the construction of defensive structures. This decision was explained by the lack of workers on the front from European Russia. The special position of the inhabitants of Turkestan, based on the release from military service, the initiative of the tribal Asian aristocracy, which decided to retain power in the region, provoked disobedience to the tsarist orders and a conflict that grew into a confrontation with many victims.
Labor mobilization and discontent among Asians
In June 1916, Nicholas II signed a decree on the mandatory involvement of foreign men of the Russian Empire in the construction of defensive structures in the areas of the army. Until that moment, only the Turkmens served in the tsarist army from the Central Asians. It so happened that the call for forced labor was appointed by the tsarist officials on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In addition, active agricultural work was going on in the agricultural regions of Turkestan, which threatened the peasants with a fruitful failure.
As a result, at a general meeting, the indigenous population of a number of districts of Turkestan decided to disobey the order. Some of those subject to conscription fled to Western China, enticing their fellow tribesmen. In the Syrdarya region, unrest resulted in anti-conscription campaigning among residents. In each region, disturbances were expressed in its own way and with different intensity. With the small number of Russians in the administration, police and troops, the protest wave grew. The usual crowd psychology also played a role.
Gradually, foreigners moved from passive protest to concrete actions. Some demanded that the authorities issue family lists, while others tried to destroy them altogether. The Russian administration was unable to suppress riots over a huge area. On July 17, 1916, the Turkestan Military District was transferred to martial law under the leadership of Governor-General Aleksey Kuropatkin, the commander of the Northern Front, a brilliant expert on the region and a veteran of Turkestan's entry into Russia. On the same days, a plan to strengthen the Russian garrisons was approved and additional infantry was formed.
Mutiny of the Kirghiz and the right to liquidate the auls
Gradually, the local population went beyond the boundaries of ordinary protests, expressing their discontent already in attacks specifically on Russians. In Semirechye, where many Russian settlers lived, hatred towards them was most pronounced. Government troops arrived in the region with sanctions for any action, up to the elimination of those who resisted. In response, the rebels destroyed the telegraph communication with Tashkent, began to block the military and even attack them.
Attacks on the civilian population have become more frequent: the first wave was the killing of settlers-topographers, the plundering of livestock by the Kyrgyz, pogroms at post offices, looting and arson in small settlements. The Kirghiz armed themselves with any available weapon: outdated match rifles, Berdan guns, homemade pikes and axes, impaled on long sticks. There were regular cases of attacks on Russian soldiers with the seizure of weapons and murders.
Terror of local Russians
Political shortsightedness and passive actions of the government, first of all, exposed the Russian population of the region to attack. The Russians became the main target of the raging elements. The situation was complicated by the fact that most of the men at that time were in military service or at the front, and the settlements remained practically defenseless. The insurgents, fueled by extremist slogans, acted extremely brutally. They staged a real terror of the peaceful Russian-speaking population, raping and torturing women, killing children and the elderly. Young women were taken prisoner, turning into aul slave-concubines.
A total of at least 1,300 Russian men and the same number of women were killed at the hands of the rebels, more than 600 people were injured, at least a thousand were considered missing, about 900 households were destroyed. Among those killed were the monks of the Sekul monastery, representatives of the rural intelligentsia. The welfare of the Russians in the region was seriously undermined; in the village of Ivanitskoe, the Dungans killed almost all Russian peasants. The most terrible legends circulated about the atrocities of the rebels of that period. Eyewitnesses claimed that children's corpses were simply thrown out on the roads after terrible torture. The adults were laid out in rows and crushed by horses.
The empire's response and the brutality of the Russians
To suppress the uprising in Turkestan, 30 thousand soldiers arrived, armed with machine guns and artillery. By the end of the summer, Russian troops had liquidated unrest in almost all hot regions. The actions of the Russian soldiers after contemplating the situation in the devastated villages were extremely cruel. Their position was the expected response to the atrocities of the rebels.
As the Kyrgyz historian Shairgul Batyrbaeva wrote, the suppression of the locals was extremely cruel, but it was fully explained by the reasons for such a tragedy. The detachments sent to pacify the riot reacted very violently to the heads of Russian women, old people and children, planted on a pitchfork. The Russians responded to the violence with violence. Self-protection squads were organized, and the enraged women staged a Kyrgyz pogrom in Przhevalsk. In Belovodskoye, where the Kyrgyz killed many residents, the women were taken prisoner, and the children were tortured, Russian peasants killed more than 500 arrested Kyrgyz. The Turkestan episodes of 1916 found their continuation in the subsequent periods of the revolutionary years, proving that an indistinct national policy in a large multinational state is fraught with bloody consequences.
As well as dire consequences can cause any flirtation with racism and Nazism. Because otherwise even children of a lower race can be used as incubators for blood and banally exterminated.
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