Historical Tours of Central Asia.

“How can I forget this?
And my sunken,
I won’t hide,
Stomach from hunger at times,
It seemed to stick to my back.
The enemies grabbed us by the throat.
And yet
We stood proudly,
So that the country could stand proudly”

Dzhuban Muldagaliyev. “Listen, son.”

Travel to archaeological sites of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

June 25, 1916 - Russian Emperor Nicholas II issued a decree on the mobilization of the male “foreign” population of Turkestan and the Steppe Region aged 19 to 43 for frontline work. An amateurish, harsh in content and offensive in form decision became a kind of “trigger” for a large-scale uprising of the indigenous population in most of the territories of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
After the bloody events in Poland in 1863-1864, this was perhaps the largest uprising on the national outskirts of the Russian Empire, and it also happened in the context of the First World War. It marked a crisis in the system of imperial governance of Russia's Central Asian possessions, and in the entire Russian colonial policy. Moreover, the 1916 uprising can be considered one of the signs of the inevitability of the coming collapse of the Russian Empire.
It became an event, the consequences of which influenced the development of historical processes in Central Asia not only, say, during the Civil War, but also in much more distant historical periods. In fact, its consequences are still felt, if only because the discussion about the causes and nature of the uprising essentially continues.
And so far it cannot be said that it is limited to purely historical discussions. For quite a long time, but especially after the collapse of the USSR, the topic of the 1916 uprising in the appropriate coverage became part of the process of forming national self-awareness in the former Soviet Central Asian republics, historical "positioning" and legitimization of their national statehood.
Consequently, those old events, as well as any significant historical phenomena, albeit indirectly, continue to influence the situation in the Central Asian countries, first of all, on interethnic relations, and, accordingly, on the relations of these countries with Russia.

Labyrinths of interpretations preceding the uprising in Central Asia.

The discussion around the 1916 uprising began in the 1920s, when many witnesses and participants of the events were still alive. It developed, naturally, within the framework of the ruling communist ideology and Marxist-Leninist methodology, which, however, did not prevent several points of view on the causes and nature of those events from appearing.
If we remove a fairly large number of intermediate "versions", then the "polar" points of view can be simplified to the following two options. Conventionally speaking, the first option, formulated by I. Menitsky, was mainly supported by communist historians of Russian or, let's say, Russian-speaking origin.
Thus, Menitsky believed that in the events of 1916, "we have a performance of oppressed classes, both their native bourgeoisie, as well as all other exploiters without distinction of nationality and the Russian administration as the defender of these exploiters."
From this followed the logical conclusion: emphasizing the national moment is essentially incorrect and politically harmful. Supporters of the opposite point of view belonged mainly to the indigenous nationalities. Among them, first of all, one of the first Kazakh communists T. Ryskulov, later deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, Yu. Abdrakhmanov, B. Isakeyev and a number of others.
Turar Ryskulov, in particular, claimed that Russian rule in Turkestan was no different from the colonial oppression of any European state.
Based on this, he claimed:
- "The contradictions arising from the colonial oppression of tsarism served as the reason that forced the native working masses to rise up in rebellion, first of all, against Russian power. Moreover, the rebels in their attacks did not discriminate against either Russian tsarist officials or Russian peasants, nor Russian workers... the rebels attacked the native propertied element insofar as they were accomplices or accomplices of the Russians.
All this shows that the uprising was directed against the Russians in general." However, from the mid-1930s, a completely opposite tendency prevailed in Soviet historiography - a party-political directive was adopted to strengthen the "class approach"
In the official interpretation of the 1916 uprising. In light of the rapid formation of the "brotherhood of the peoples of the USSR" around the Russian people who "united" them, excessive attention to ethnic or religious aspects was interpreted as an unscientific and methodologically incorrect disregard for the class approach.
From here it was not far to accusations of "deviationism", or even "bourgeois nationalism" with all the ensuing consequences. One of the most energetic propagandists of strengthening the "class approach" was the same Ryskulov, who in his work "Kyrgyzstan", published in 1935 in Moscow, very timely came to the conclusion that the uprising of 1916, in addition to tsarism, "was primarily directed against the local exploiting classes".
Now Ryskulov claimed that "the rebels managed to attract to their side some of the poor Russian peasants, who, just like the working Kirghiz, were equally oppressed by Russian tsarism and the kulaks". And, supposedly, the sympathies of the advanced Russian workers and the local Russian peasant poor, in turn, were on the side of the rebels.
(This, however, did not save Ryskulov from being shot in 1938 on charges of "pan-Turkism."). Well, and then it was not far to interpreting the uprising in the sense that it was almost directed by Russian Bolsheviks in the spirit of proletarian internationalism.
And the leaders of the uprising, for example, Amangeldy Imanov, allegedly, almost from birth, were such "spontaneous" Bolsheviks, consistently moving towards understanding the loyalty, and therefore the omnipotence of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, and the boundless wisdom of the party of Lenin-Stalin.
In short, as in the feature film "Amangeldy Imanov", released in 1936. Later, Soviet historiography developed mainly in line with this concept, although historians from the national republics tried in every possible way, while remaining within the framework of the established approach, to emphasize the “national liberation” and “anti-colonialist” character of the 1916 uprising.
True, from time to time they received curbing “corrections” from colleagues “from the center”, and even from the relevant ideological authorities - so that they would not get too carried away. When the USSR collapsed, the “national liberation” and simply “national” emphasis in the historical research of Central Asian historians began to sound openly and loudly.
In this, by the way, they began to practically merge with Russian historians of the “national patriotic” trend, who consider the 1916 uprising almost exclusively as anti-Russian, nationalist, pan-Turkic, pan-Islamic, and also provoked by German, Turkish, Persian, Chinese and other special services. It seems, however, that a truly scientific historical study by its very nature should avoid one-sidedness and, especially, extremes.
If only because in the post-Soviet space the past, as nowhere else, probably> retains the ability to poison the present.

Contradictions of colonial policy in Central Asia.

Apparently, the most indisputable thesis is that the uprising of 1916 was prepared by the entire course of socio-economic and political development of Russian possessions in Central Asia. Despite the fact that the annexation of Kazakh lands and the conquest of Central Asia cost Russia far fewer victims and military efforts than, say, the conquest of the North Caucasus, the situation that developed here cannot be called prosperous or even simply stable.
Back in the late XVIIIth century, the Russian authorities encountered a Kazakh resistance movement led by Syrym Datov (1783 - 1797). In 1836-1938, the uprising led by Isatai Taimanov and Makhambet Utemisov was suppressed.
Then the Russian Empire had to fight the uprising of the last Kazakh khan Kenesary, suppressed in 1846.
The Kazalinsk uprising led by Zhankozhi Nurmukhamedov was crushed in 1857. Although the process of the Kyrgyz joining Russia began in 1855, the southern Kyrgyz tribes resisted the Russian troops until the end of the 70s. After the defeat of the Kokand Khanate (1878) and the annexation of Turkestan to Russia, there were uprisings:
Fergana (1885), Tashkent (1892), Andijan (1898) and a number of other, less noticeable "incidents" that testified to the fact that rebelling against the "white tsar" for the "natives" was, in general, a common thing. It should be recognized that in their colonial policy, the Russian authorities did not always act harshly and straightforwardly, trying to the best of their ability and capabilities to apply fairly flexible methods of governance.
This is evidenced at least by the lack of a unified system of governance of the Central Asian possessions. The main part of the territory of modern Kazakhstan was part of the Steppe Region with its center in Omsk, as well as the Astrakhan Governorate, the Orenburg Region, and the Bukeyev Horde.
The southern regions were included in the Turkestan Governorate-General, which covered the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan and a significant part of Uzbekistan. Part of today's Turkmenistan was part of the Transcaspian Region. On the territory of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan there were vassal, semi-sovereign Khiva Khanate and Bukhara Emirate, which had quite a lot of autonomy in the sphere of internal governance.
The latter circumstance, by the way, predetermined the non-extension of the imperial decree of June 25, 1916 to their population and, consequently, the weak impact of the uprising on these territories. In the first decades after the conquest, the authority of the Russian authorities was the highest among the "natives".
This was facilitated by the general stabilization of living conditions, expressed primarily in the restoration of order, a decrease in the level of violence, crime, etc., as well as a relative reduction in taxes. This authority was personified in the first Turkestan governor-generals, who enjoyed broad powers of authority, but were quite sensitive to revenge and specifics. For example, the first Governor-General of Turkestan K. Kaufman always demonstrated an exceptionally respectful attitude towards the local religion and culture, used the Koran in his speeches to the "subordinate" population, etc.
At the same time, the "natives" saw him as a strong ruler who dictated his will to the Bukhara emir, the Kokand and Khiva khans. Therefore, the Muslim population respectfully nicknamed him Yarym-pasha (half-king). The Russian authorities initially did not interfere in the religious life of the local population.
The administration, with some changes, retained the court of biys (under adatu) and kazis (under sharia) for the Muslim population. These positions were filled by the clergy, but no longer by appointment, but by representative elections. After the conquest, the clergy was completely exempt from poll taxes.
They, in turn, avoided openly conducting anti-Russian agitation, at least in peacetime. However, with the loss of many prerogatives by the governors-general, the authority of the Russian government began to decline. This was largely facilitated by the gradual change in the general nature of colonial policy.
As is known, formally the legislation of the Russian Empire knew almost no legal restrictions on the basis of nationality. Legal restrictions were based on confessional differences and the level of proficiency in the Russian language. With regard to Muslims, these restrictions were regulated by by-laws, although, of course, given the unconditional readiness of the "foreigners" to serve the autocracy and the idea of ​​​​Russian great-power statehood, they did not actually apply. However, for many Muslims, the "giaur power" was very undesirable in principle.
Since confessional differences basically coincided with national ones, all sorts of restrictions and oppressions received an ethnic focus and had a negative impact both on relations between the state and the "foreigners" and on relations between the peoples of the empire themselves.
Let us add to this such openly discriminatory, and even downright offensive measures, such as, for example, the obligation of "natives" to remove their headgear in front of Russian officials, introduced at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, or, say, the allocation of special seats for passengers in "native" clothing on Tashkent trams. Fortunately, such "normative" acts were soon repealed.
However, this did not greatly affect the quality of colonial policy, which was largely determined by the extremely low level of administrative personnel sent by the empire to Turkestan and other Central Asian possessions. Of course, among Russian scientists, officials, teachers, engineers, doctors, and military personnel there were many highly qualified specialists, and simply enthusiasts, who made a huge contribution to the development of Central Asia, to its introduction to European culture, science, and technology.
However, unfortunately, they did not determine the nature of relations with the local population and the general level of administrative activity. Hot Turkestan, unfavorable for bureaucracy in material terms and remote from cultural centers, was perceived in Russian society as a place of exile. Officials and officers who had misbehaved in their service were often sent there.
At the same time, Turkestan, which was experiencing a shortage of officials, was an attractive place for people who wanted to quickly climb the career ladder. Among them, one could meet both responsible officials and adventurers.Hence the arbitrariness, bribery, theft, financial manipulation. In addition, many of the former arrivals were distinguished by ignorance and bad manners.
And very few knew the local languages. The American traveler Schuyler said about the Russian administration that officials were completely uninterested in the life and culture of the conquered peoples:
- "I have not met a single Russian official or officer who knew the local language, was interested in the rich local culture. They act like conquerors, without proving their superiority in any way, except for the right of the strong."
Arbitrariness and corruption became even more widespread among the lower administration elected by the Muslim population. Muslim officials - judges, city elders (kurbashis), volost managers, pentecostals, village and aul elders, having invested large sums of money in bribing voters during elections, spent their entire term in office extorting bribes from their fellow tribesmen.
The native officials lent out the bribes they had received at high interest rates, amassing fabulous fortunes. Thus, K. Palen, who visited Turkestan in 1908-1909 with an audit, wrote in his memoirs that in one village in the Namangan district, the peasants owed the qadi 800,000 rubles in just one month.
Complaining to local courts was useless, and to Russian courts it was dangerous because of possible revenge from the same qadis, kurbashi, etc.
Attorney E. Samoilov, who worked as a member of the Semipalatinsk District Court for 8 years, noted:
- "The government acquired the character of an Asian despotism, and the people were corrupted by bribery, violence and injustice, which was the basis of governance. Our court was a cruel toy in the hands of the Kyrgyz leaders."
All this, to put it mildly, did not contribute to the establishment of harmony, neither interethnic, nor interfaith, nor social.
Over time, the public climate began to be increasingly influenced by friction between the colonial authorities and the
|lergy, the role of which in traditional society, in general, cannot be overestimated. Yes, the Russian authorities tried to act with all possible caution in religious matters, but at the same time they sought to limit its social and, most importantly, political role.
The experience of fighting, for example, with Shamil, did not give St. Petersburg any special grounds to rely on the loyalty of the Turkestan clergy. To begin with, the Russian authorities liquidated the spiritual administration in Turkestan and abolished the position of the supreme judge of the kazi-kalon, taking control of religious and administrative affairs into their own hands (military governors).
The clergy, who enjoyed greater rights, privileges, advantages under the khan's rule and influenced civil administration, were equalized in rights with the rest of the population. Under the pretext of an epidemic in Arabia, the tsarist authorities banned pilgrimages to Mecca until 1900, which brought considerable income to the clergy.
The clergy also did not like the opening of "Russian-native schools" by the authorities, which competed with the mektebs and madrassas, which provided religious education. The mullahs considered all these events as a deliberate undermining of the Islamic foundations of society, which could not but cause a corresponding reaction. Moreover, there were plenty of prerequisites for a surge of religious fanaticism in the region.
For many centuries, the largest cities of the region - "Sacred" Bukhara (Bukhara-i-Sharif), Samarkand, Kokand, Khiva - were the stronghold of Islam and the centers of Muslim book learning and mysticism. Numerous ishans (pirs), who had many followers (murids), enjoyed enormous influence. Dervish orders were also widespread.
Mosques, mazars and other sacred places were scattered in a dense network throughout the region. Numerous theological schools regularly replenished the ranks of the clergy. At the same time, there is no need to talk about the mass spread of Islamic fundamentalism in the territories of today's Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; almost all researchers recognize them as a zone of "superficial" Islam.
And it was precisely these territories that became the main centers of the uprising; it was there that it was most violent and long-lasting. Therefore, it would be wrong to consider interreligious and even interethnic contradictions, clothed in "anti-colonial", anti-Russian and anti-imperial form.
Apparently, much more complex and multifaceted processes were taking place. Having inspired a massive influx of Russian settlers to Central Asia, the tsarist government tried to solve two strategic problems:
1) to contribute to the solution, or rather, the "accumulation" of the agrarian crisis in Russia itself, by sending a significant part of the landless peasantry to the Central Asian lands;
2) to create a "core of Russian people" in the colonial possessions, which would allow the formation of a kind of "loyalist" base of imperial power there and strengthen control over this most important strategic region.
The first step in this direction was taken on November 21, 1868, when the "Provisional Code" was adopted, according to which all Kazakh lands became state property. Actually, from that time on, the influx of Russian settlers to Kazakhstan began.
The so-called Steppe Code of 1891 allowed the indigenous population to own only 40 acres of land (in equivalent) per capita, which was significantly less than what was required to maintain a nomadic way of life. It essentially opened the way to the direct confiscation of nomads' property.
The next step was the law of February 14, 1905 on the formation of resettlement plots on lands "excessive" for nomads. Numerous abuses and arbitrariness turned this law into a barely disguised confiscation of land. Finally, in December 1910, the government officially granted the Resettlement Administration the right to alienate nomad lands for resettlement plots.
Resettlement officials, using this right, took away from the "natives" not only pasture lands, but also wintering grounds with cultivated lands. Confiscations forced nomads to officially switch to a sedentary way of life and thus secure their ancestral lands for themselves. In reality, many of them were engaged in both agriculture and grazing.
It was hard to hide this from the officials of the Resettlement Administration, who confiscated land for grazing, declaring it "surplus". Complaints against the Resettlement Administration led to nothing. As E. Samoilov, who was already mentioned, testified, "in reality, all arable land, all meadows, often perennial crops, were taken away from the Kirghiz (in this case, the Kazakhs, who were called "Kirghiz" or "Kirghiz-Kaisaks" until 1925 - MK), they were resettled to stone cliffs and solonetz steppe.
The Kirghiz people systematically and year after year became poorer." Turkestan Governor General A. Kuropatkin wrote in his diary: "Officials arbitrarily calculated the land provision standards for the Kirghiz and began to cut the development of cattle breeding.
It was the unfair confiscation of land that led to the uprising." In the areas, including arable land, winter camps, plantings, irrigation systems .... They took away land not only suitable for the construction of settlements, but also for the petition drawn up in 1905 by the Kazakh poet and politician A. Baitursynov to the emperor on behalf of 14.5 thousand residents of the Karkaralinsk district of the Semipalatinsk region, it was said:
- "The government completely lost sight of the fact that the Kyrgyz steppes were not conquered, but voluntarily joined Russia ... Considering the land to be their property, acquired with the blood of their fathers, the Kyrgyz, when they became Russian citizens, did not think that the state would allow itself to encroach on private property, meanwhile ... all the Kyrgyz steppes are recognized as state property, as a result of which a migration movement was created in the Kyrgyz steppe, and the best plots of land went to the settlers, and the worst remained for Kirghiz ... "
In fairness, it should be said that in addition to Russian officials, the "native" administrative apparatus also took an active part in all these unseemly affairs. The redistribution of lands led to the breakdown of traditional forms of land use and the order of nomadism, without ensuring a full transition to a sedentary way of life.
The result was the degradation of the livestock economy of the indigenous population with subsequent impoverishment. The migration of peasants from the central provinces of Russia, which began at the end of the 19th century, further strengthened the axis during the years of Stolypin's reforms.
From 1896 to 1916, more than a million peasants from Russia settled in the Akmola and Semipalatinsk regions alone. In total, more than 3 million people moved to the Central Asian possessions, and by 1914, 40% of the population of the Kirghiz steppe and 6% of the population of Turkestan were already Russians, mostly farmers.
Long-term residence in a foreign national environment usually leads to the gradual integration of migrants into a new socio-economic and cultural environment. For the so-called “old-timers,” the problem of establishing peaceful forms of cohabitation with the indigenous peoples in the initial period was largely resolved, although an idyll certainly did not happen.
However, the degree of conflict in the relations of the indigenous population with the "new settlers", as the settlers of the first decade of the 20th century were called, was significantly higher. True, among the "old-timers" there was a significant group of settlers whose relations with the "natives" were especially acute.
These were the Cossacks, who were allocated more than half of the expropriated areas. Meanwhile, it was the Cossacks who were best suited to the form of Russian colonization that was practiced in the Central Asian possessions. According to researcher S. Lurye, unlike other regions of the Russian Empire, Russian colonization here had the character of closed Russian inclusions of fortresses.
- "The nature of the governance of the region - the "fortress" inevitably influenced the relations of the Russians with the local population. The need to strictly suppress any manifestations of discontent on the part of the conquered peoples led to the authorities vigilantly monitoring whether the local population showed due loyalty to the Russians, all Russians, including the lower social classes.
In previous times, in other outskirts, this was not very typical of Russian policy: settlers were, perhaps, protected from armed attacks, but otherwise the authorities did not interfere, allowing Russian farmers to cope with their difficulties on their own. But the “fortress” region also implied special discipline.
As a result, the Russians in Turkestan, firstly, had significantly less direct contact with the local population than in other outskirts; secondly, they were put in the position of masters, for the first time in the history of the Russian Empire. In addition, in the “fortress” regions, another extremely curious feature manifested itself: the Russians seemed to have completely lost their ability to assimilate the local population."
At the end of the 19th century, the Syr Darya military governor Grodekov believed that each new Russian settlement in Turkestan was equivalent to a battalion of Russian troops. In his opinion, arming the Russian population of the region was necessary in order to be ready for the time when "the religious and political consciousness of the conquered peoples matures to such an extent that the ideas of natural separatism from the few fanatics now penetrate into the masses of the people and create many serious difficulties for us: the enterprising Turkic peoples who had previously formed formidable military states here have a lot of combustible material for this."
And already in 1898, three thousand rifles were distributed in Semirechye: one thousand to the Cossacks, and two thousand to the Russian peasants. The confiscation of lands, the destruction of the previous socio-economic structure could not help but cause spontaneous resistance from the local population, expressed not only in the traditional cattle theft (barymte) and other robberies, but also in open armed uprisings.
In the Fergana, Samarkand, Syr Darya and Semirechye regions in 1904, 130 attacks were registered, in 1905 - 235, in 1914 - 295, in 1915 - 372 attacks. Incidentally, the same Grodekov even came up with a "radical" proposal to destroy the Tekin Turkmen in Ahal and Merv because of their raids.
Fortunately, it did not come to that, but, as a rule, the "pacifying" measures of the authorities against the natives" were very cruel. The First World War, which began in 1914, only exacerbated the situation. And it could hardly have been otherwise - the indigenous population had to bear new hardships: mandatory meat deliveries, mass requisition of livestock, a new military tax on kibitkas was introduced, zemstvo fees and the bai volost alym - a fee for the maintenance of volost managers, as well as road and other fees - were increased.
With the beginning of the war, taxes on the local population increased by 3 - 4, and in some cases - 15 times. The tyranny and violence of the tsarist officials increased immeasurably. The behavior of the lower administrative bodies and the Cossacks caused especially strong indignation.
Thus, the Kirghiz of the Irkeshtam aul community complained that “it is positively impossible for them to live in their aul: since the head of the Irkeshtam garrison, together with his Cossacks, rides around the aul, takes butter, hay and sheep from the Kirghiz, and in the event of refusal to give it, beats the Kirghiz, and does not order them to complain, citing martial law.”
The head of the Osh district, Melnikov, in a report to the military governor of the Fergana region, Ivanov, reporting on these complaints, added that “the Cossacks are disorganized and deal with the Kirghiz at their own discretion.” But the main thing is that the mass confiscation of lands continued, primarily in the north-eastern regions of the Syr Darya, in the south of the Semirechye and a number of other regions. In the Semirechye region alone, 1,800,000 dessiatines of the best pasture and arable lands were confiscated during the first three years of the war, and their former owners were forcibly evicted to desert and semi-desert areas that were either unsuitable or completely unsuitable for farming. By mid-1916, the total area of ​​land confiscated from the Kazakh population amounted to 45,000,000 activities of some external forces. It was generated, first of all, by complex and multifaceted processes of an internal nature.
This also fully applies to the fact that a significant part of the armed uprisings against the power of the "white tsar" was initially organized and led by the Muslim clergy, who really did propagate pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism. But, firstly, it could not have been otherwise, given the role that the clergy traditionally occupied in local communities, and, secondly, in addition to purely religious fanaticism, the clergy was largely stimulated by circumstances of an internal nature - the weakening of its position as a result of the policies of the Russian authorities.
The immediate reason for the start of the uprising turned out to be, in general, absurd rumors that absolutely the entire male population would be called up to dig trenches. The unrest began on July 4, 1916, with the police shooting at a demonstration in Khujand demanding the destruction of the lists of conscripts.
Already in July, according to official data, 25 demonstrations took place in the Samarkand region, 20 in the Syrdarya region, and 86 in Fergana. The movement took various forms: from mass riots, abandonment of farms, migrations deep into the steppes, into the mountains, flight abroad, destruction of conscription lists, attacks on administration officials to open mass armed uprisings, attacks on military units, and guerrilla actions.
Soon the uprising engulfed the Samarkand, Syrdarya, Fergana, Zakaspian, Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Semirechye, Turgai, and Ural regions with a population of more than 10 million. The actions of the rebels led to the cessation of telegraph communication between Verny, Tashkent and the center of Russia. On July 17, 1916, martial law was declared in the Turkestan Military District.
The uprising initially acquired distinct anti-Russian features. The rebels burned farms, killed families of settlers, Cossacks, and workers. In one of the telegrams to the Minister of War D. Shuvaev on August 16, 1916, Kuropatkin, characterizing the situation in Turkestan, reported:
- "In the Przhevalsky district alone, 6,024 families of Russian settlers suffered in terms of property, most of whom lost all movable property. 3,478 people were missing and killed, treacherously unexpected attacks on Russian villages were accompanied by brutal murders and mutilation of corpses, violence and abuse of women and children, barbaric treatment of those taken prisoner and the complete destruction of the well-being acquired through many years of hard work, with the loss of homes in many cases."
In a number of places, especially in the Fergana Valley, pogroms were led by dervishes-preachers calling for a "holy war". An eyewitness of the uprising A. Mamirov said (June 1946) that the rebels' slogans were:
- "Down with the white tsar and the Russians." "Do not be afraid! If you are killed, you will become shahids, that is, victims in the name of Islam, if you kill - then you will be gazy - heroes! Beat the Russians, let's make Muslimabad - the Muslim world! Let's kill the Russians and create a Muslim state."
One of the first to declare the beginning of the "holy war" against the "infidels" was Kasym-Khoja, the imam of the main mosque of the village of Zaamin. In this mosque, he was proclaimed "Zaamin bek". His first action was the murder of the bailiff Sobolev, after which he appointed "ministers" and declared a campaign against the stations of Obruchevo and Ursatyevskaya.
Along the way, Kasym-Khoja's army slaughtered all the Russians they encountered. However, the rebels exterminated local "collaborators" from among the hated "native" administrators with the same cruelty. In addition, Islamist "motives" were much less clearly expressed in the regions populated by Kazakhs and Kyrgyz.
And they became the main centers of the uprising. This was, first of all, the Semirechensk region, which was the area of ​​the most intensive agrarian colonization, as well as the Turgai region, where the armed struggle was most organized. There, under the leadership of Amangeldy Imanov and Alibi Dzhangildin, full-scale military operations unfolded, covering the entire central part of Kazakhstan, with the rebels laying siege to the center of the Turgai region.
Trying to calm the unrest, the Governor-General of the Steppe Region Sukhomlinov postponed the call-up of Kazakhs for rear work until September 15, 1916. However, this order did not defuse the situation. The appeals of the leaders of the Kazakh National Democratic Party "Alash" A. Bukeikhanov, A. Baitursunov not to resist the execution of the decree on the "requisition of foreigners" in order to protect the unarmed people from brutal repressions did not help either. They repeatedly tried to convince the administration not to rush with mobilization, to carry out preparatory measures, at the same time demanding that the authorities radically change the colonial policy, namely: to ensure freedom of conscience, "the correct formulation of the educational affairs", organize the education of Kazakh children in their native language with the creation of boarding schools and boarding houses for them.
Establish Kazakh newspapers, stop evictions from ancestral lands and "recognize the lands occupied by the Kazakhs as their property", revise the "Steppe Regulations" with the participation of deputies from the indigenous population and legislatively introduce Kazakh office work in courts and volost administrations, abolish the institution of peasant chiefs and village police officers, and allow representatives of the Kazakh people into the highest authorities.
At the same time, a number of radical representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia (T. Bokin, Niyazoskov, Zhunusov) resolutely called for armed resistance. The imperial government threw about 30,000 punitive troops armed with machine guns and artillery against the rebels.
Local Cossack and settlement militias played an auxiliary role. By the end of summer, the uprising was suppressed in Samarkand, Syr Darya, Fergana and a number of other regions, and in September - early October in Semirechye. When suppressing the uprising, the punitive forces showed any cruelty.
By order of the Turkestan Governor-General, military field courts were created in all punitive detachments and in all district towns, which passed death sentences, as they say, in shock order. Often, captured rebels were shot on the spot without any trial, or killed during escort.
Artillery, machine guns were widely used, entire villages were burned. The Cossacks and settlers took especially cruel revenge on the "natives" - there were cases when they completely destroyed the male population of the villages with cold weapons.
The fear of being subjected to revenge for participating in anti-Russian pogroms became one of the motivating factors of "Chon Urkun" - a mass exodus of Kazakhs and Kirghiz (a total of about 500,000) to China. In general, as in any colonial war, the sides were worth each other in terms of the brutality displayed.
Meanwhile, if in Semirechye the rebel movement was suppressed, then in the Turgai steppe it was gaining strength. A. Imanov and A. Dzhangildin managed to create from a horde of disorganized rebels a kind of regular army, divided into tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands. However, when Lieutenant General Lavretenyev's troops approached Turgai, Imanov was forced to lift the siege of Turgai and switch to guerrilla actions, often quite successful.
Only in the second half of November did the bulk of the rebels retreat deep into the desert (to the Batpakkara region), from where they carried out raids until mid-February 1917. As is known, the matter ended with the entry of Imanov's detachments into the Red Army and his execution by the Alash-Horde in 1918 (however, there are different versions about this). Until January 1917, resistance continued in the Transcaspian region.
The exact number of those killed is unknown - estimates range from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand "natives" and about 3,000 - 4,000 Russian settlers. Instead of the planned 480,000, it was possible to "requisition" only a little more than 100,000 "foreigners". As the State Duma deputy, Cadet Stepanov, pointed out, the uprising and its suppression created "a deep rift between the local population and the authorities, turning them into two hostile camps, and at the same time led to an intensive growth of national self-awareness of the peoples of the region."
For the majority of the so-called "aliens," conflicts caused primarily by socio-economic reasons objectively took the form of confrontation with a foreign-religious, foreign-language, and therefore even more hostile government. And, naturally, confrontation with all those who, in the eyes of the "natives," were its bearers, including Russian peasant settlers.
This confrontation simply could not take any other form. Naturally, none of the problems facing the region were solved. Quite the contrary - all the problems became extremely aggravated. Whether we are talking about contradictions over the land issue or interethnic relations.
These problems, in essence, were not solved even after the collapse of the Russian Empire - right up to the present time. But that is another story.

Authority:
Journal “Unity in Diversity” No. 4 (26), August 2011. Journalist Mikhail Kalishevsky (Moscow).