Письмо в ЦК РКП председателя комиссии по борьбе с басмачеством A Letter from the Chairman of the Commission for the Struggle with the Basmachi to the RKP Central Committee

Translation

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<<Stamp:  Bureau of the Secretariat CC RKP(B), 12 August 1922, Incoming No. 10427/s>>

To the CC RKP

On the struggle with the Basmachi

The Basmachi are the biggest reproof to our work in Turkestan and, perhaps, even in the East.

In fact, this explains how the Basmachi in the course of 4 years not only have not been liquidated but, on the contrary, have grown, have expanded into other areas, and have seized all Samarkand oblast, and parts of Syr-Daryn and Turkmen oblast for themselves.  This is explained by the fact that all our work that has been conducted in the years since the revolution has completely contradicted the way of life, the daily conditions, and the traditions, that have arisen here among the native population over the centuries.

The failure to consider this situation and to use it is our overall malady.  It has led us to difficult complications not only in Turkestan, but in a number of bordering countries where we have taken on the role of leader.

In order to more clearly highlight our mistakes, blunders, and at times outrages here, in Turkestan, especially in Fergana, it is necessary to dwell briefly on the character of our work in other neighboring countries.

Khiva.

Take, for example, our work in Khiva.

After the October coup, when we, taken with revolutionary enthusiasm, quite easily resolved the entire “Eastern question” and burned with the hope of immediately extending a helping hand to the oppressed laboring masses of the Eastern countries we, not being in condition to further endure the suffering of our brothers-in-arms, moved on Khiva to liberate the freedom-loving Uzbeks and Turkmen from the despotism of the Khan.

Here we encountered the Turkmen leader, Dzhunaid-Khan, who had been premier at the Khan’s court.

Personally commanding a large Turkmen detachment on the best mounts, he doggedly and stubbornly led attacks against

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against our units, retreating at critical moments into the end[less] steppe, unreachable by our detachments.

Thereafter, we seized the capital of the Khiva state, the city of Khiva, arrested the Khiva [Khan] himself, but could not destroy Dzhunaid-Khan.  Completely fortuitously, in the struggle with Dzhunaid-Khan, we attracted other Turkmen leaders, enemies of Dzhunaid-Khan, Guliam-Ali and Koshmamed.

As a result, we established a dual struggle and Dzhunaid-Khan, with the aid of Guliam-Ali and Koshmamed, together with our Red Army, was destroyed as a combat formation.  But after these first successes we, in Khiva, are displaying total ignorance and inability to consider the overall circumstance.

In Khiva two peoples live—the Yomuts and the Uzbeks—who since olden days have been at odds mainly over water usage.  Territorially, the Uzbeks occupy the upper, head section of the irrigation network; they have the ability to grab the lion’s share of the water flow and the Yomuts, located below, must use what is left.  

This inequality in water distribution served as the source of continuous misunderstandings, quarrels, and often armed clashes.  This enmity carried over into the newly organized government—the Soviet Nazirov.

In the Soviet Nazirov which the Turkmen entered, including Guliam-Ali and Koshmamed, intrigues were begun against the latter with accusations against them of treason and, allegedly, of planning a coup etc.

Unfortunately, being at that time in Khiva, the plenipotentiary representatives of the Federation, comrades Shakirov and Malyshev, contributed to this intrigue, and as a result it was decided to liquidate Guliam-Ali and Koshmamed with their entire detachment; Dzhunaid-Khan rendered us tremendous service in the matter of the liquidation.

In order to liquidate them with all their…

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they were told in secret that a rapid advance was being prepared on Bukhara and it was suggested they come to Khiva with all their cavalrymen.

Suspecting nothing, Koshmamed and Gulim-Ali appeared in Khiva with their cavalrymen and stayed in the places assigned to them.  That very night, Koshmamed was unexpectedly attacked by our Red Army men who arrested him and surrounded his cavalrymen.  Within a few hours after his arrest, Koshmamed and his closest confederates were hacked to death.  Guliam-Ali fled.  A punitive brigade was organized and went after him; on the way it wiped a number of villages from the face of the earth.

When the Yomut population saw all this, it threw everything and everyone on horses, or camels, bulls, or on foot, and with wives and children headed towards the Turkmen oblast and crossed the waterless steppe for a thousand versts, littering their trail with the corpses of fallen people and animals up to the Caspian Sea and took refuge there, in Persia.

These incidents show clearly how politically illiterate we were and unable to take into account the social forces and their relation among themselves.

As a result of all this we have:  1) The general destruction of the Yomuts; 2) The Basmachi, in the person of Dzhunaid-Khan, to the present; 3) The general indignation among the entire Turkmen population.  And, undoubtedly, until we mend the relations between the Uzbeks and the Turkmen, Khiva will not know peace.

Bukhara.

Now, if we turn to Bukhara, here we presently have absolutely no understanding of the condition in which we have to work.  We occupied almost all Bukhara with our Red Army two years ago, and after two years of our administration there has been created the auspicious situation which gives birth to Enver-Pasha, a situation in which the entire population of Bukhara rises up against Soviet power.    

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As far as we have been able to ascertain, here too we have incited the population against ourselves by our incompetent policy.  As an example we can point to a highly characteristic fact:  In elucidating the essence of the revolution in Bukhara, orators propagandize that our revolution is distinguished from others by the fact that it is directed not only against the emir, but also against God and the prophet, i.e. against the basic…of the philosophy and morality of the people by which the latter live, and this was preached in Bukhara which is called “holy,” where, as nowhere else, religion is firmly entrenched and all aspects of life rest completely on religious foundations because the population of Bukhara is the most religious and fanatical and, naturally, we incited the entire population against us by our antireligious speech-making.

Another factor serving as a cause of general dissatisfaction is the dictatorship of the organs of the Special Department and the excesses of the military command and individual Red Army units.

An evaluation of the Special Department that has been established over the local population and is led exclusively by an outside element alien to the basic masses and unfamiliar with conditions in Bukhara has, as a result, turned into administrative oppression.

The excesses of the military command against both the population and local government have led the Burkhara government to demand the withdrawal of Red Army units.

The Bukhara government itself was completely deprived of individual responsibility.

Our relation to Bukhara was defined by support of the so-called left group that eventually was supposed to eliminate at the “semi-bourgeois government” organized at the outset.

Thus, the Bukhara government was faced with internal erosion that deprived it of the possibility to undertake organizational work and to win

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for itself those liberated from the influence of the Emir of the provinces.

All this taken together as a whole created in Bukhara a very unstable situation and sowed confusion that ultimately resulted in an uprising of the population under the slogan, “struggle against Russian tutelage.” 

Even a wavering segment of the Bukhara revolutionaries, who had actively participated with us in the overthrow of the Emir, joined the uprising

Enver, during this situation, was promoted by the progress of events to military specialist for the organization of the struggle.

We, by the way, are reevaluating Enver’s role in the Bukhara incidents, the attributing to him of the chief initiative in the matter of the emergence of the Bukhara Basmachi on the soil of pan-Islamist ideas.

In fact, Enver is not playing the role that we impart to him—the actual leaders of the movement are the Bukharan youth who have left.

It cannot be otherwise.  The European name of Enver-Pasha is not well-known and through this figure alone a movement on the Central Asian steppes cannot be created, particularly among the ignorant masses in Bukhara.

Pan-Islamism, to which one tends to explain a number of movements in Bukhara, continues to remain in Central Asia more an invention of the Tsarist period which, in its time, attributed to it any sort of event in the life of the native population, rather than an actual factor of it.

The uprising in Bukhara must be explained by the Bukharans’ desperation to which they were reduced.

Presently, in connection with the concessions announced in Bukhara like, for example, the restoration of the Kazi Kelan [chief judge], the return of the waqfs, and a whole number of other measures, are achieving a definite break in the mood of the population, and now it itself directly participates in the liquidation of the Basmachi and, undoubtedly, the struggle with the Basmachi in Bukhara will reach a conclusion in just this way.  

Fergana.

The appearance and development of the Basmachi.

What we have done in Fergana.

Railway workers, who for a long time could not find a way to link up with the local population, brought Soviet power to Fergana.  Simultaneously with the appearance of Soviet power in Fergana, a group of Muslim intellectuals together with the ulams, called a congress of Muslim warriors and farmers.  At this congress, the government of an autonomous Turkestan was elected.  First, it proclaimed an amnesty for all robbers and thieves, encouraging them to join the ranks of a national army that was being organized in Fergana in support of the government.  In addition, they invited Irgash—a former thief and robber sentenced to heavy labor by the Tsarist government—who returned after the revolution, and he was named “kurbash” (i.e. translates as chief of security) of the city of Kokand. 

To liquidate this band, Soviet power sent a detachment of Dashnaks to Kokand led by comrade Perfilev who laid seige to the city.  The autonomous government issued a proclamation inviting, through special envoys, all Muslims to enter the ranks of the national army to defend religion, Islam, national freedom, and the government from “rapists” and “robbers,” and “godless Bolsheviks.”  And, indeed, the nearby villages responded and arrived in Kokand bearing ketmeni [mattocks], axes, hunting weapons etc.  The battle proceeded for three days.  During this time, the autonomous government disappeared and Irgash fled.  When Kokand was taken, there remained in the city the peaceful population and those villagers who had come to help them.  All of them were exterminated with the help of the Dashnaks.

The Dashnak party, as is well known, arose mainly out of the struggle with Turkish despotism, which subsequently became a struggle with the Turkish nation and then with Turkic peoples.

One of the prominent allied Dashnaks declared during questioning about the killings committed in Fergana that he

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had killed 75 Uzbeks and only 50% as personal revenge for the blood of his relatives killed by the Turks.

This was a fatal moment for Fergana.

The second factor lies in the conditions of economic hostility that existed between the Armenians and the local population.  The Armenian—the trader, the weigher, the factory inspector, the manager of a cotton-processing plant—the “bozz man” as the natives call them, competed with the local trader, exploited and got rich on the neck of the good-hearted farmer.  

The Dashnak revolutionary detachment took in this element and an infinite number of riff-raff, swindlers, gamblers etc., the criminal element that filled all the cities of Tashkent at that time.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Kokand suffered unheard of brutality, looting, and violence

The city was placed under the complete command of the detachment for ten days.  In the course of ten days residents were mercilessly shot, city property and goods were carted away in wagons and by the warehouse or simply burned.  Women and even underage girls were openly abducted before the eyes of their parents. 

The old city of Kokand and the marketplace were burned.

Seeing such brutal reprisals the population of Fergana, in fact, believed the “autonomists,” that the Bolsheviks are indeed looters and bandits, that they respect nothing, and go against religion, God, etc.

After the liquidation of autonomy, soviet construction was begun.

The soviets are called worker-peasant and Red Army, but among the local population there were no workers and Soviet power remained isolated from the local population.  The situation was saved by native workers who returned at that time having been mobilized for work behind the lines by the Tsarist government.

The mobilization of the local population for work behind the lines in 1916 incited a number of uprisings in Samarkand

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and Semireche oblasts.  In Fergana, they held back from any rebellion and the population very shrewdly bought their way out of the mobilization:  they imposed a special tax on themselves and with the money collected hired instead all manner of riff-raff, card sharps, pickpockets, all the idlers with which Fergana teemed.   

After a year at the front, these people returned home and, as honest workers, were recruited as local soviet deputies.

Under these conditions, Soviet power was established in Fergana.

Within this system our political work proceeded.  Our slogan, “Down with the old world; down with the bourgeoisie,” was realized more like for “the old world.”  We took over all the mosques, madrasas [middle schools], maktabs [primary schools], that we had closed.  Kazii [judges] and ulamas, were arrested.  The struggle with religious prejudices found expression in Margelan where the Muslism holy book, the “Quran,” was burned by representatives of Soviet power.  The cathedral mosque “Dzhama” in Andizhan was turned into a barracks for Muslim units who abandoned themselves to “batchebavstvo [bachi bazi].”    

Our units attacked the mosques and threw bombs at the praying ishans and ulamas.

At rallies, the speakers concluded their speeches with something like the following declaration:  “Long live Soviet power.”  In response, the Muslims gathered up handfuls of sand and threw them at the speakers repeating:  “Aga inga tash toprak!”  (translation:  “Sand and stones in your mouth”) and went home indignant.

As a result, all the spiritual leaders went over to the Basmachi.

We approach the local beys like European bourgeoisie.  They are arrested thrown in prison and then released after paying a certain amount.

The attempted assassination of comrade Lenin was also reflected in the repressions in Fergana in relation to the beys whom they arrested

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saying:  [“]You, bastards, tried to kill Lenin.  We have proclaimed red terror and will shoot you all.[”] etc.   

Concerning our economic work, as you well know, Fergana is a country of agricultural and handicraft production exclusively.  It was proclaimed a “kommuna,” there is a certain decree on this, and all the agricultural holdings were nationalized.  Handicraft production was also nationalized including small workshops; a large number of small craftsmen were tossed overboard as a result, and left without a crust of bread.  If you add to this that a large number of cotton-processing plants were also closed in the first phase of the revolution, then it becomes clear that in Fergana a truly difficult situation in all aspects—economic, political, and organizational—was created.

It must also be said that simultaneously with these measures a mobilization of horses for compulsory labor and a mobilization of people into the Red Army was carried out.  Parallel with this, we also carried out a grain monopoly and a food requisition and, as a result, the entire population, the Beys, and clergy, and peasantry, and craftsmen, to a man, the entire population, rose up against the Soviet regime, the Soviet order, and went over to the Basmachi and gave to this movement, initially a purely bandit one, an ideological content that turned it into a popular uprising.

The Soviet leaders did not take the change occurring in Fergana into consideration and continued to fight against banditism.

If you will familiarize yourself with the so-called Basmachi literature of the last four years, then it is obvious that all the leaders of Soviet power got stuck on one point, namely in defining the character of the movement, calling it all “banditism.”

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They explained the rise of banditism solely due to the economic destruction that befell Fergana and the most convincing argument for this premise is a reference to Marx.

This explanation was the most acceptable to all because the Basmachi, for whom they themselves are to blame, are explained simply:  they were historically inevitable and our conscience is clear.

This explanation was, of course, one-sided (Khiva, Bukhara) and did not resolve the problem in all its dimensions.  On the contrary, it obscured and complicated the struggle, placing in shadow the no less important political points.

Thus, in the course of 4 years, we could not correctly understand the very character of the movement, calling all of it banditism.

This incorrect definition led us to an incorrect approach to solving the problem.

The movement, under the slogan, [“]Defend religion, freedom, the nation, and the struggle with the Bolsheviks, ‘the godless,’ ‘the rapists,’ and ‘the robbers,’[”] continued to grow and to spread.

In Kokand uezd, Igrash—the former convict—popped up again, attracting to himself the mass of dissatisfied elements.

In Kamangan uezd, Aman Polvan appeared leading a large gang of robbers for several months until he was stoned to death for robbery by the population itself.

But along with them are springing up gangs from better quality strata led by highly influential people, judges (of the people’s court), ishans, or former volost governors, and wealthy herdsmen.

So, for example, in Margelan, after the burning of the “Quran,” a militia consisting of 40 cavalrymen under the command of Madaminbek, that still exists today, abandoned Soviet power.  In Andizhan, Akhundzhan cropped up, till then an absolutely peaceful resident.  Khodzhi-Mat-Ishan, known throughout Fergana as “holy” in the eyes of the population and with some murads

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(students of the apostles) also fled to Madaminbek  and has become Sheikhul-islamom (spiritual father) of all the Muslim detachments.

In a word, in all corners of Fergana gangs struggling against Soviet power are spontaneously appearing.

But the appearance of gangs proceeded along two lines.  On the one hand, gangs were organized by professional bandits.  On the other, they were representatives of the population, till then peaceful residents.

Unfortunately, these two features of the Fergana Basmachi were recognized by no one at the time which would have made it possible in the following years to deal with the actual problem.

Even the central representatives headed by comrade Eliava, who first tried to liquidate the Basmachi by political means, did not completely grasp this. 

As is well known, the first Turkestan Commission proposed to all Basmachi to come over to Soviet power announcing a guarantee of personal immunity, and then only the political Basmachi came over.  At that time, the robbers, the brigands refused.

There is no doubt that at the time of the transfer to us of all the political basmachi, we were very close to the final liquidation of the Basmachi in Fergana.  But, unfortunately, we continued to view the movement as a whole as a bandit [movement] that arose on the soil of economic destruction; to use the units that crossed over against the professional Basmachi did not occur to us, and since the latter were transferred to legal status only in order to dismantle them later, we waited for the right opportunity.

Disarmament occurred disgracefully and, as a result, all the cavalry left again for the Basmachi.

The armed struggle.

The struggle with the Basmachi began with their initial appearance.

Combat units were created for this in all cities,

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not mainly of Dashnaks and peasants from the local settlements, but of settlers from the old Tsarist government in Fergana during colonization and, according to their economic situation, enemies of the local population who, through their excesses strengthened the Basmachi more than liquidated them.

The activities of these units amounted to a systematic plundering of the villagers, raping of women, and shooting of peaceful inhabitants.

Every day their actions called into existence new Basmachi gangs.  So, for example, a 23 day extirpation of the inhabitants of Bazar-Kurgan provided the basis for the appearance of the gang of kurbash Batir-Bek; the shooting of the inhabitants of Suzak, the creation of the brigade of Nurull Maskhum, the burning of the Kokan village of Isarael etc.

It took a full two years for the local workers to grow up and begin to protest against these units of the “Dashnaktsutyun” party.  It required urgent petitions from the Turkestan government to the Turkestan front in order finally, at last, to liquidate these units.

In the course of time, the best units were transferred to Fergana, all detachments were unified under a single command, in the army a degree of discipline was established, and a more organized struggle and large-scale military operations were begun.

The Basmachi, who, in their turn, were unified under a single command, are accepting a number of brutal battles, but are unable to stand up in open battle for long, therefore they switched to another tactic of struggle.

All Fergana is one continuous fortress.  The oblasts’ valleys are covered all over by an almost uninterrupted chain of villages, thickly planted trees, and an infinite number of intersecting adobe fences that form narrow zig-zagging streets.    

Under these conditions, the Basmachi are absolutely uncatchable by our units who, by the way, are not even familiar with the local dialects.

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So, even with the Basmachi gangs nearby, constantly attacking the cities and [railway] stations, for months we were unable to discover, catch, and destroy them.

If, sometimes, we succeeded in catching up to this or that gang, then given better horses it always had the ability to break suddenly into smaller groups, head in different directions, and quickly disappear because in the conditions of Fergana you lose what is 200-300 steps ahead of you. 

Concerning the mountainous part of Fergana, it's all passes and valleys that have strategic heights; they were occupied by the Basmachi, secured, and turned into a series of fortresses and supply bases in case of retreat and repulse of our strikes.

Rugged terrain, steep ascents and approaches, and comfortable defense when ten people suffice to repel the attack of an entire brigade made these Basmachi nests completely unassailable for us.

The cavalrymen with the Basmachi are the very same villagers who simultaneously carry on their peaceful labors.

Getting hold of information on the movement of our units, they remain in their village (only the kurbash with a few cavalrymen leave), they hide their rifles a bit further away, and they encounter the unit as peaceful residents, they serve it, getting food, forage, and on their departure, depending on the size of the unit, they take it on the road into an ambush or fire at it from all sides, pursuing it at a distance of 20-30 versts, remaining within the unbroken [cover of] the plant nursery, out of sight.

During the struggle, the Basmachi studied and adapted to our maneuvers, and all our strikes are paralyzed by their widespread counter-intelligence and the assistance of the population because the Basmachi have implemented the most brutal terror among the population, punishing the inhabitants for any service rendered

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to us:  burning them alive, frying them in boiling oil, cutting off ears, noses, and killing their closest kin.

In these conditions, the military struggle with the Basmachi is made exceptionally difficult.

In 4 years, 14 commanders have been in Fergana and each one has come up with and applied different methods to liquidate the Basmachi.

During this time we have undertaken nearly 1000 operations against the Basmachi, and not a single one of them turned out to be valid or effective.

There was a time when we considered liquidating the Basmachi by “fire and sword,” mercilessly destroying the villages “contaminated by the Basmachi.”  As a result, all the surviving inhabitants became Basmachi expanding the latter’s base.

The general occupation of Fergana did not help either when about 30 thousand troops were transferred to the oblast, all the more-or-less large villages were occupied by Red Army garrisons.  The population remained hostile to our garrisons because there was not a single political worker able to understand the population and communicate with it.  But the Basmachi easily dealt with the scattered, small garrisons, and we had to pull our forces from the villages.

The so-called “combing” of Fergana also failed to yield results when from all sides, from the distant rear entire brigades moved toward each other along a broad front with the goal of clearing the oblast of bands.

On certain days these brigades converged on a targeted area and then again they scattered in different directions.  These operations continued for a fairly long time.  The Basmachi flowed right between them like water through fingers and always ended up in our rear. 

Finally, in the course of the last month, we conduct three operations against Kurshirmat, enlisting

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large forces.  During the first, we took 10 rifles from 200 killed (according to a report of brigade command) that is very typical because the 200 people, or course, were not all Basmachi.  The second operation ended with a pointless hike—Kurshirmat was not found.  In the third, we occupied Gorbua, Kurshirmat’s residence, after a fight, but the Basmachi were not there.

The failures are explained by the fact that the strikes were conducted by Red Army forces exclusively, and no militia units from the local population were enlisted; they usually serve as the “eyes and ears” of our Red Army units knowing not only each Basmach but his entire genealogy, too.

Punitive work.

The work of the punitive organs in Fergana created even more difficult complications.  All their work was based on the principle of general terror.  They employed the hostage system so broadly that in Fergana no place could be found to isolate the arrested representatives of the population.  The right to execute was granted indiscriminately without any norms.  A variety of extraordinary three-man and five-man panels, plenipotentiaries, alternated with one another, competing among themselves in brutality.  Their work was evaluated by the number of people shot.  Each Basmachi action against us resulted in the shooting of whole groups of hostages at a clip.       

The shooting of hostages did not, however, stop the Basmachi, on the contrary, it elicited from them unheard of atrocities.

Besides the military command, the punitive organs were no less refined in the means of struggle with the Basmachi.

It is worth noting, among their other methods, one that they arrived at the beginning of the fourth year of struggle when an account of all their past mistakes and blunders was passed at a congress of Chekists.  It typifies their deep

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misunderstanding of the situation.  The essence of the system amounted to accounting for and registering all the Basmachi and then arresting them at their homes during the winter in order to systematically expel them from Fergana.  Detailed instructions were drawn up, blanks were printed, and sent out to the localities.

In practice, the work involved interrogating the peaceful population in the villages with the support of specially designated units.

Knowing that the Basmachi would kill straight out for reporting their names, the population gave false and made-up names and absurd surnames.

Capturing Basmachi using these names led to the most improbable complications:  they captured those who could not possibly be Basmachi.

The protest of the local workers against the repressive outrages of the Cheka and Special Department elicited from the latter the accusation that the former were Basmachi sympathizers so that there was not a single Muslim worker in Fergana who had not been accused of this.  In the wake of this, the wholesale abandonment of Fergana by all the Muslim workers began.  Fergana became a vicious circle.  It was impossible to send any local workers there, even those heading Commissariats.  They insisted on leaving the party, but they refused to travel to Fergana.     

During 4 years of struggles, the apparatuses of the punitive organ were unbelievably stymied.  The basic cadre of employees consisted of local peasants for whom the Basmachi in Fergana served as the most reliable source of income. 

The Basmachi in Fergana detached and pushed the local population away from the government.  It was fertile soil for provocation in the eyes of the latter and thereby preserved the privileged position of the outside element in the sphere of agricultural and political life.

The information reported by these criminal employees shaped opinion even in Moscow.

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Besides defending their interests, of the migrant peasants, within the punitive organs all sorts of adventurers, Muslim thieves, an unhealthy element for the most part turned up, and everyone engaged in extortion.

If a central purge was needed to strengthen the ranks of our party, then to restore all our punitive work and policy an even more fundamental and merciless purge is required of the apparatus of all the extraordinary organs from the rotten and d[isso]lute element that we, notwithstanding, have employed up to now.   

The difficulty in regulating the work of the punitive organs, of the Special Department in particular, is that they are centralized and not connected with local government at all.

Peace proposals.

Despite all these abnormalities, the Basmachi, particularly its political wing, repeatedly tried to make peace with Soviet power.

Gradually life settled down to normal.  The Basmachi, mostly consisting of peasants and small craftsmen, became oppressed by the military situation and longed for peaceful labor.  They understood the pointlessness of further struggle and began to press their leaders towards reconciliation with the government.  The majority of kurbashy, former volost administrators, judges, wealthy herdsmen, and…themselves sober and peaceful people by nature, for a long time could not find a path to reconciliation with the Soviet government.   

Several kurbashy who had switched over to the side of Soviet power had done time with their cavalrymen in concentration camps.  They decided not to hand themselves over to the mercy of Soviet power without a guarantee that they would remain among the living.

Finally, the population took it upon itself to mediate, and on the day of the opening of the 5^th party congress in August 1921, all the Basmachi officially approached Soviet power with a proposal for peace negotiations, advancing a number of conditions concerning religious, economic, and political questions.  These conditions amounted to a strengthening of sharia, opening madrasas and maktebs, restoring

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the court of elders, the beys, returning wafq, of religious ideas, and strengthening the market, agriculture, and handicraft production, and accepting the Basmachi units into the Red Army.  The entire peaceful population took part in the negotiations, and there is no doubt whatsoever that these demands are also the demands of the population itself.

Nevertheless, we rejected all the conditions.  Meanwhile, the moment was exceptionally favorable for us.  Here we could once and for all come to an agreement with the population and achieve tremendous success in pacifying the oblast.  Capable and intelligent conduct of the peace negotiations definitely introduced significant demoralization into the Basmachi ranks.

This brief period was marked by two facts:  First of all one of the influential kurbashy, Baitusan, surrendered.  He was arrested and imprisoned with his cavalrymen despite the existing order regarding amnesty for those who surrendered; and second the group of kurbashy admitted to the side of Soviet power by the commander of the Fergana group, comrade Zinoviev, was treacherously abducted and shot.

These two facts once again alienated the entire population from us, and the Basmachi swelled up with new force.

Our concessions and the break in the mood of the masses.

Nevertheless, for us, these negotiations were not in vain.  In the following months, Turkestan TsIK, with the publication of a number of decrees, satisfied all demands of the population, creating a new line in our work under the heading of political concessions (the court of elders, return of waqf, opening madrases and maktebs, etc.)

These political concessions coincided with the carrying out of the new economic policy, giving the population the possibility to move on to normal economic conditions.

All this taken together created a definite break in the mood of the masses in favor of Soviet power.

Most of all the clergy, headed by Khodzhi Mat Ishan, who to this point had been the fanatical ideological leader of the Basmachi, abandoned the Basmachi.  The cross over

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of Khodzhi Mat Ishan, and a series of conferences of ulamas and ishans, and then a string of appeals and addresses sent out in the name of the Fergana Clergy made a deep impression on the entire peaceful population.

Simultaneously, the Turkestan TsIK published a decree on amnesty for the kurbashy and their cavalry who surrendered with a full guarantee of their personal security and inviolability of property.

Finally, the entire population began to apply definite pressure on the Basmachi, suggesting that they surrender to Soviet power.

On this soil arose a sharp split between the population and the Basmachi, of the representatives of the population [sic], the plunder of the villages and [in] other districts the destruction of the Basmachi gangs by the population itself.

Subsequently, the Basmachi were deprived of their bases, the population withheld support from the Basmachi necessitating the latter to turn to systematic plunder, and the representatives of the population began to turn to Soviet power with the persistent request to protect them from the Basmachi.

Mass petitions began to be received to introduce in this or that village a Red Army unit to act as a garrison, the villages would take the upkeep of the garrisons upon themselves.  But the command did not have the resources to satisfy their requests because combat units in Fergana were not numerous, and in those villages where garrisons still remained their fresh excesses drove the population to complain constantly about them.  

In any case, to keep garrisons in one or another village for a long time was not feasible.

In the majority of cases, military garrisons were transferred into other districts and the villages left to the whims of fate.  With the departure of the garrisons, the villages were immediately exposed to attack by the Basmachi, and all the influential representatives of the population were slaughtered by them.

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In the wake of the departure of the garrisons from the village, the population left with them, abandoning their property and crops, dooming everyone to an inevitable condition—famine.

Disappointed with our help, the population began to besiege the government with the request to supply them with weapons for self-protection.

Unfortunately, the military command refused to supply weapons fearing that they might fall into the hands of the Basmachi.

The population began to view all these misfortunes—the plundering and terror of the Basmachi, the universal devastation, and the hopelessness of their position—as punishment from above.

A religious mood suddenly enveloped all Fergana.  It began as a widespread pilgrimage movement.

Individuals, groups of Muslims, often entire villages began to liquidate their agricultural holdings, selling everything down to the last grain, and with their families—the childless divorced their wives beforehand—boarded trains and set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The situation of Fergana up to the beginning of this March.

The movement to Mecca was so serious that it began to threaten the entire economic structure of the oblast.

Given the situation, a special commission was established for the struggle with the Basmachi under the chairmanship of comrade Atabaev who arrived in Fergana on 15 February 1922.

The Commission found Fergana in the following condition:  The entire oblast was in the hands of the Basmachi and Soviet power only existed in the cities and along the rail lines.

The city of Kokand, the oblast center, where the staff of the Fergana group and a fairly considerable number of combat units were located, was only half ours.

At nightfall, the old city passed into the hands of the Basmachi, but the cries for help (voy-dot) did not elicit any response from the new city, which was only separated by a small stream, despite the fact that it contained a large concentration of forces. 

The commander (Baranov) characterized the Basmachi as

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extremely cowardly bandits and said that he sleeps completely calmly at home when they attack the old city knowing that the Basmachi would never dare cross the stream.

The head of the special department (Kanter), who had a Cheka unit at his disposal, openly admitted that to come to the aid of the cries of “voy-dot” was very dangerous because the Basmachi always set up an ambush.

Two miles from the city of Kokand, in Ovgan-Bag, the Basmachi’s forward emplacements kept constant watch, yet no one considered liquidating them.

What’s more, when the Basmachi attacked down the main streets of the city, not one unit left the barracks to destroy them, waiting instead for the Basmachi to come to them.

The city of Andizhan found itself in an even worse situation.  The members of the uezd revolutionary committee literally worked under Basmachi fire, and at six o’clock in the evenings they would all cross over into the new city exchanging fire with the Basmachi as they passed along the main street.

The city of Dzhalial-Abad awaited an attack from day to day.

The city of Osh was completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Familiarizing itself with conditions in the oblast, the Commission became firmly convinced that the fundamental shortcoming in the struggle with the Basmachi was the absence of any connection to the population.  A link to the population under the Fergana Basmachi, its participation in the struggle, is unquestionably of decisive importance. 

The attraction of the local indigenous population to the struggle was called for not only out of strategic considerations, but also from political motives, because the Basmachi arose on the soil of the struggle “with the Russians for the defense of religion and the nation,” with the attraction of the indigenous masses it lost its basic motives and it was a very serious factor in the pacification of the oblast.

Familiarizing itself with the individual districts, with the population, its mood, the commission was convinced that Fergana was suitable soil for the organization of a home guard.

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Committed to the organization of a home guard, the Commission took into consideration the strategic situation as well.  Fergana has two types of Basmachi:  Uzbeks in the valley; and Kirgiz in the mountains.  Only by securing the mountain passes behind them in advance, where the bands usually fled, could the liquidation proceed.  Besides that, the mountain district is the most remote from us, and suffered the least from our mistakes and blunders, and therefore was the most loyal to Soviet power.

The entire mountain region is populated by Kirgiz who are divided into two clans:  the “Otuz-uul;” and the “Ichkilik”.

Muetdin, head of the mountain Basmachi, is from the “Ichkilik” clan, but because these clans are always at odds among themselves, we decided to set him against the other clan, the “Otuz-uul”.

To do this, we made contact with the representatives of the latter in the person of comrades Kadyrbek Kamchibekov and Dzhamshidbek Karabekov, people of absolute authority who have sole influence over their clans and who, for 4 years, have taken an active part in the struggle against the Basmachi in the capacity of guides.

They were given 150 rifles for the home guard and attracted the very best elements of the population for this.

This unit occupied and fortified Gulch, the most remote mountain district in Osh uezd, we created a second unit in Yalpak-Tash district, a third in Kugart, a fourth in Bazar-Kurgan, etc., and unified them under the sole leadership of the Kirgiz staff for the home guard.

In these districts we created units of 1000 horsemen, enclosing Muetdin in a semi-circle.

Caught between our units, the Basmachi gangs were subjected to continuous strikes.  In the course of two months, in several battles, the Kirgiz units liquidated the kurbashy Nurull Makhsum with 60 cavalrymen, Batyrbek with 85 cavalrymen, Churak with 19 cavalrymen, Mulla Dovrash with 76 cavalrymen, Kuvat with 12 cavalrymen, etc.

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Overall, by the end of the second month the entire district where they were stationed was completely cleared of Basmachi.

Finally, these units, together with our Red Army detachments, were thrown against Muetdin, the most powerful Basmachi formation in Fergana.

The operation continued for a whole month in the course of which the Kirgiz units displayed astonishing determination; and in this struggle, in the snow-covered mountains, we emerged victorious only thanks to the knowledge of the terrain, the indefatigability of the cavalry, and the cohesion of the detachments with our Red Army units.  The Kirgiz traversed the snow-covered passes, trailing the enemy with the aid of yaks, descending steep cliffs on foot with the use of ropes.  There was not a single day when Muetdin did not feel them on his trail.

This fact alone forced Muetdin to surrender to our troops.

This was how organizational and operational work proceeded throughout all Fergana.

In the course of organizing, we attracted to the struggle the most determined working element (the middle peasants), influential people, judges, and, as heads of the units, spiritual leaders, and ordinary militiamen.

During the organization of the home guard the selection of militiamen is carried out through special commissions selected by the population itself at a gathering of the whole population under its mutual guarantee and responsibility.  Usually, in addition to the persons indicated by the population, large numbers of volunteers on their horses came to the meeting; they contested the right to be elected to the home guard.  

The units created by this method were extremely able fighters.  Thus, for example, the Andizhan unit of volunteer militia numbering one hundred men underwent an attack by the Basmachi just two hours after its organization, it engaged them for a whole hour in hand to hand combat and emerged from the battle the victors.

The Kakulabad home guard, consisting of 40 volunteers was at first strengthened by 90 men,

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then by 200.  In the course of five months it confiscated 149 rifles and 208 horses from the Basmachi, and forced 4 kurbashy to surrender with a cache of 205 rifles.  The Isfarin militia, 75 strong, withstood a 16 hour battle in their adobe fortress, expending their last bullet, as a neighboring home guard failed to arrive.  The Bunaidin home guard of 60 men, being surrounded by 780 men from the gangs of Islamkul and Karabai, repulsed them, holding them off for two days, while the Basmachi drove the peaceful residents to the home guard; they sympathized with us and immediately made for the fortress.  During the siege, the Basmachi redirected water from the fortress and tried several times to set it aflame, but at night, when the home guard had only 200 rounds left for the entire unit, it broke through the Basmachi chain and went to the city of Kokand.        

We succeeded in achieving this kind of determination through the personal leadership and participation of all members of the commission in the operations by transferring to the militia units and home guard all responsible party and soviet workers, disregarding the severe weakening of party and soviet organizations.  All of them not only participated in the operations, but simultaneously led political work among the local population.

In all the operations of our Red Army units, home guard units, and militia, they served in the capacities of counter-intelligence, as guides familiar with the terrain, in fulfilling combat tasks, and establishing a link with the population.

In a number of combat operations, our militiamen joined together with Red Army units, appreciating each other as allies, and understanding that together they present a single and powerful fist against the Basmachi.  Entrusted with a combat mission, individual Red Army units and their commanders petitioned to be assigned this or that home guard.

Thus, with the aid of militia detachments and the home guard, we successfully melded the Red Army with the local population, achieving the best relationship with it and vice versa; the supply situation of the units was improved

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during combat operations.

In the last operation against Muetdin, during the stops our units made the population met them with bread and salt, supplied them with all the necessities, and refused to take money saying that we should just liquidate the Basmachi as soon as possible.

The relationship of the population is explained by its confidence in our victory.

Thus, the participation of the militia and home guard in combat operations made it possible for the Red Army to strike the Basmachi gangs, by which we placed the population under the threat of persecution and terror [from the Basmachi].

On the other hand, by organizing the home guard we have guaranteed the population complete security from the Basmachi, increased its self-activity and, by recruiting it for the struggle have completely severed it from the Basmachi, and truly made it safe.

Now there is not a single volost in the entire oblast where the representatives would not come to us with the request to provide arms for the home guard.  The turn of the population in our direction is viewed by the Basmachi as treachery and, therefore, the representatives of the population are often slaughtered (as in Aim-kishlak, Andizhan uezd, this June).

As a result, the organization of the home guard gave the population the ability to apply pressure on the Basmachi not only morally, but by genuine force, injecting demoralization into the enemy ranks.

In sum, the actions against the Basmachi by the indigenous population itself in the form of militia and home guard detachments has itself dethroned and discredited the movement  in the eyes of the broad native masses as a religious-national struggle against the Russians, further alienating the healthy part of the population from the gangs, and increasingly exposing the nature of those remaining bandit elements, gradually placing the population in opposition to them for the final struggle against them.

The organization of the home guard and a reliable defense has, finally, created the possibility for the loyal part of the Basmachi to sever itself from the large gangs (Dzhanibek, Mulla Khodzha, Abdulla Bek, and others), to surrender to Soviet power, and to escape, under the protection of the home guard,

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the persecution and vengeance of the remaining kurbashy.

At the present time, as a result of this campaign, there is not a single gang of which we could not be certain of their desire to switch over to the side of Soviet power.

With the aid of the home guard and the militia we have liquidated an infinite number of petty gangs who have terrorized the population and who were more harmful and malicious than the larger formations.

The stability of the situation which has been created has lifted the spirits of the population, and now it has frequently begun to cope with the Basmachi on its own.

As a result of our overall work over five months to 15 July we have:

1)  liquidated 58 large and medium-scale kurbashy with 1851 cavalry and seized 1256 rifles.

2)  liquidated all the Kirgiz mountain Basmchi in the person of Muetdin Bek and his 12 kurbashy and their brigades, and all of Osh uezd is thoroughly liberated from the Basmachi.

3)  Andizhan uezd has been cleared with the exception of Kokan-kishlak raion.

4)  Namangan uezd has been cleared in 23 of 29 volosts.

5)  The city of Kokand has finally been secured by us and the uezd cleared by 1/3, and Margelan uezd by half.

The overall totals indicate that in Fergana the Basmachi have been liquidated by 50%.

There is no doubt that if the initial work to recruit the population develops further, we will successfully liquidate the Basmachi by the end of the current year.

But, unfortunately, history is repeating itself.

In Fergana we are beginning to dismantle what we have accomplished in five months.

After creating a functional home guard in Fergana, after achieving certain results here, we are starting to speculate how much it corresponds to our principles and to doubt the trustworthiness

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of the units we have created by our own hands.

The Special Department whose activity, in view of its extra-territoriality, proceeds independently of local government, whose personnel is selected from elements outside, alien, and hostile to the local population (from peasants of the Russian settlements), that in the course of 4 years has conducted its work exclusively by indiscriminately accusing the entire population of being Basmachi and sticking to this, was incapable of grasping our new work  and making out the tasks of the moment, and at the same time when everyone including individual Red Army soldiers had become conscious of the necessity to fight above all for the trust of the local population and to trust them, the Special Department continues to repeat their old song that the local population is all Basmachi, that it is impossible to trust them, that the organization of the home guard is nothing more than a regular supply for Basmachi, and that all that’s needed is to apply strict military pressure and to toughen the policy of punishment etc.

The provocation coming from the personnel of the Special Department that this or that home guard is preparing to switch over to the side of the Basmachi or about their aggressive intentions toward peasant settlements, of the alleged sales by them of bullets, of mass desertions from the ranks of the militia, etc., alternates with one another and has created a mass of complications in the normal working of the militia.

The whole provocation is explained by the relationship that was laid out in the declaration of the head of the border point of the Special Department in Osh (see attachment p. 1) where he says that all the misfortunes are happening because “muzzies” rule Turkestan and therefore each honest person must fight “them”.

This, obviously, also shows that the group of Special Department personnel from Krainov, Gudzev, Sergeev, and others instigated the peasant home guard of the Mirzaka settlement to organize an attack on Atabaev, Burnashev, and others, with the intention of proclaiming them traitors (see attachment No. 2).

Finally, the more well-placed officials of the Special Department, Graudin and others, through their declaration to the oblast committee

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of the party, are engaging in provocations in all work in Fergana, directly accusing its leaders (Atabaev, Tyuryakukov, Dadabaev, Burnashev, and others) of betraying the revolution, of preparing an uprising against Soviet power with the armed militia and the home guard.

This provocation created great disorder on the Turkestan front, its negative relation to the militia and home guard organizations has put a brake on the supply of ammunition and other combat articles to the units.

Obviously, this also explains the declaration of the committee head, comrade Kamenev, on his visit to Turkestan, that he did not see where the Basmachi ends and the government begins.

With more tact, comrade Sklyansky declared to the People’s Commissar of Justice of the Turkestan Republic, comrade Ustabaev, that we in Turkestan, by organizing the militia and home guard are creating a national army, but since the center has still not set out on the path to organize a national army, then he is against the organization of the home guard.

It must be supposed that this provocation also misled the party CC, which changed its original relationship to Turkestan.

The latest CC directives amount to an intensification of the punitive policy, the arrest of the kurbashy, the resumption of the hostage-taking policy; they will undoubtedly lead to the disruption of all the work in Fergana.

An intensification of the punitive policy is a resumption of terror, the arrest of the kurbashy revokes the amnesty of Turkestan TsIK and also discredits it in the eyes of the native masses, the resumption of the hostage-taking system subjects the innocent population to persecution and also pushes it away from us once more.

Fergana is awash in blood.

Necessary measures.

Now we face the necessity to determine the future course of our party for the pacification of the territory and the poli[tical] liquidation of the movement.

The Turkestan party, the central representatives of CC RKP in the form of the Central-Asian Bureau, and TsIK of the Turkestan republic declared at the last CC-TsIK plenum all the work carried out up

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to now according to their directives correct, and passed a resolution on the next implementation of it.

As necessary measures, the political and economic situation dictates:

1) to consider fundamental to the course of the struggle the recruitment of the native population to the immediate struggle against the movement by means of the organization of the militia and home guard, employing it [sic] in the process for strengthening Soviet power itself, for linking it with the population, and for creating a firm soviet base among the broad laboring masses.

2)  to trust the overall political leadership in the struggle with the Basmachi to local party forces in the form of the CC KPT [Communist Party of Turkestan].

3)  to directly subordinate all punitive policy in Turkestan to the Central-Asian Bureau, to conduct an immediate and thorough purge of all the organs of the Special Department.

4) to bring the military organizations closer to the local situation and tasks, introducing into it one representative from the local central organs for permanent work.

5)  to create in the center a special commission from representatives of the front, the Central Asian Bureau, and CC KPT for coordinating, accounting, and implementing the political, administrative, military, and economic tasks of the struggle.

6)  to create similar oblast commissions from party organs and military organizations for the same purpose in the regions of the movement.

7)  to revoke the latest limitation of the CC RKP on such measures of struggle:  the arrest of kurbashy who have surrendered, on taking hostages from the population, and on local amnesty.

8)  for the economic revival of the regions of the Basmachi movement that have been plundered and destroyed in the course of 4 years and that are now exposed to complete impoverishment and famine:

a)   open the border with China for the free passage of grain, livestock, and the establishment of goods exchange with the oblast.

b)  release funds, in the form of special central assignations, for the purchase of working livestock in areas bordering the neighboring states in order to render immediate aid to the population.

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c)  release funds on the Federation’s credit for the collection and creation of a special seed fund for Fergana of 500,000 puds for the upcoming growing season.

d)  carry out, with all due haste, work for the restoration of irrigation in Fergana, and immediately

e) relax state assessment and obligation in the impoverished and plundered regions, permitting deviations from the general apportionment and compulsory norms by lowering rates and through the complete exemption from taxes in devastated localities.

In this way the struggle against the Basmachi, as a movement, will be brought to an end.

Chairman of the Commission for the Struggle with the Basmachi [signature]

Moscow

7 August 1922