Several reasons for emergence of the basmachi movement in Turkestan in 1918-1923

The following article is devoted to a complicated and continuous issue, connected with reasons for the emergence of the Basmachi movement on the territory of Turkestan after Soviet power was established. It considers methods that were used by the Bolshevist Government to combat this movement. On the ground of the new identified sources from the central archives of Russia, works of Soviet, Russian and foreign scholars, the author reveals that among the causes that determined the emergence and large scale of the Basmachi movement, strategic mistakes, made by the new government, take central stage. Amongst other mistakes there are bad Soviet Government policy in international relations, disregarding of peculiar local conditions including denominational nature, abusive treatment of customs and traditions of indigenous people. These errors were compounded by soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, flagrantly violating military discipline. Sometimes these violations turned into massive crimes. Consequently at the beginning of 1918 indigenous people of the region began armed resistance to the new government. By early 1919 ravaged and few in number Basmachi squads started to organize themselves into major units, moreover, the movement became massive. Methods used by the Soviet Government to combat the Basmachi in the first stage of the movement involved force. However, soon it became obvious that cruelty and ruthlessness towards civilian population that featured the Red Army at that period only aggravated the situation and contributed to the development of the Basmachi movement. There were extremely few indigenous representatives of the region in the rank of soldiers and commanders in particular and it seemed to be a serious problem. Beyond that in power there were no specialists who were aware of the specifics of the local ethnic religious and ethnodemographic conditions. With this in mind, numerous actions were taken to attract local representatives to central and local authorities as well as to the Red Army. Besides, the situation was eased by the abolition of surplus appropriation system, waiver of radical reforms in people's daily life and flagrant interference in the sphere of religious terms. Accordingly, the analysis of the addressed problem implies that emergence and widespread of the Basmachi movement in Turkestan in 1918-1923 along with several other reasons appeared to be the result of gross miscalculations and mistakes of the Soviet Government in their policy towards indigenous people of the region. At the same time force methods to combat the movement, accompanied by cruelty and lawlessness, led to its increase. Consequently, the Soviet power of Turkestan had to seek and implement the forms and methods to combat the Basmachi movement which led to decrease the tension degree and partly regain masses' credibility to the government.

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