The Partition of Khorezm and the Positions of Turkestanis on Razmezhevanie

Abstract

Cold War historiography, in many instances, explained the delimitation of borders in Central Asia as a part of Moscow's divide and rule policy in Turkestan. However, the viability of this approach can be challenged by an examination of the archival documents of the time and the actual publications of the nationalities commissariat under Stalin. Among the Bolsheviks of Turkestan, Uzbeks were leading the drive towards the repartition of Turkestan, along with their Turkmen comrades who were trying to gain land from the former Khivan Khanate, at that time the People's Soviet Republic of Khorezm. The partition of Khorezm between three newly created administrative divisions, Uzbekistan, Turkmenia and Kirgizia, played a key role in the demarcation of borders in 1924. However, from the point of view of communists from the European parts of the former Tsarist Empire, as well as others from the region, delimitation was first a betrayal of internationalism; second it was an immature project both economically and theoretically; and third, it was believed that the liquidation of the traditional Muslim states of Turkestan, namely the Bukharan Emirate and the Khivan Khanate, would have a negative impact on the image of the Soviet revolution in the eyes of reformers in other Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Notes

Razmezhevanie can be understood as national-territorial delimitation or demarcation. In some cases the word peredel (re-doing, reorganisation or repartition) was also used for this concept.

The terms Middle (Srednyaya) Asia and Central (Tsentralnaya) Asia were used in different contexts within the early Bolshevik literature, sometimes interchangeably, but mostly the former referred to the former Tsarist Turkestan Governorship along with the Bukharan and Khivan realms, whereas the latter referred usually to a greater ‘centre’ of Asia, meaning the territories including the former Tsarist Steppe and Turkestan General Governorships, and even in some cases the southern tier of Siberia, Mongolia and Eastern Turkestan under Chinese control. However, the usages changed depending on the authors of the documents, articles and their target addressees. The motivation for the employment of both of these concepts by Soviet writers was to replace the historical name of the region, Turkestan, with another concept with less ethno-political connotations.

Important holdings of materials on the national-territorial delimitation of Middle Asian Republics are in the Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniya i izucheniya dokumentov noveishei istorii (RTsKhIDNI, Russian Center for Preservation and Study of Records of Modern History). This is to be found in the Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI, Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History) fond 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 29. Most of the material on the delimitation of the Central Asian region is found in fond 62 of RGASPI. The first two opisi of this fond are extremely important in order to understand the delimitation of Khorezm and are full of official documents. However, there are scattered documents such as the one discussed in this article, in different parts of the archives. These are to be found especially in the personal folders of some leading Bolsheviks of the time. Such documents are usually reports, letters, and espionage pieces prepared for the personal use of the addressee.

Georgii Vasil'evich Chicherin (1872–1936) was born in an aristocratic family and graduated from St Petersburg University. He served in the Foreign Service of the Tsar until 1904 when he joined the revolutionary movement and emigrated to Germany in the same year. In 1905, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party's Menshevik wing in Germany and worked with French and British socialists until 1917, when he was arrested in Britain just after the Bolshevik revolution. He was exchanged for the British Ambassador in Russia, Sir George Buchanan, in early 1918. On his way back to Moscow, he joined the ranks of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik). On his arrival, he was appointed as the deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and attended the last phase of the Brest–Litovsk peace talks. In May 1918 he was appointed the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR and served as the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR between 1923 and 1930. He showed sympathy for the orient but it is difficult to determine the degree of his personal influence on the shaping of Soviet foreign policy, given the almost limitless interference of the Politburo into the area of foreign relations.

The letter from Chicherin to the Politburo Central Committee RKP, dated 28 May 1924 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 17–17 obr.), together with six others by Chicherin to the Politburo and prominent Bolsheviks, including Stalin, were published by the author in 2002.

The author was unable to find any information on the political profile of this specific ‘Comrade German’, but Chicherin evaluated him as one of their ‘best Middle Asian’ party workers. He was most probably a Bolshevik of European Jewish origin in the party ranks of Turkestan ASSR.

Turar Ryskulov or Ryskuluuly (1884–1938) became the chairman of the Musbyuro (Muslim Bureau) of the Central Committee and Communist Party of the Turkestan ASSR. In the 3rd Congress of the Musbyuro in January 1920, he proposed to change the name of Turkestan ASSR to Turk Republic and the name of the Communist Party of Turkestan to the Turk[ish] Communist Party. His proposals included the creation of a Muslim Turk[ish] army and the deportation of non-Muslim armed forces from Turkestan, the writing of a constitution of the Turk Republic which would give it complete autonomy on the matter of foreign affairs, military, commercial and financial policies. All proposals were accepted by the congress and these decisions were brought to the 5th Congress of the Communist Party of Turkestan ASSR by Ryskulov. They were also all accepted by this congress with an overwhelming majority, despite Rudzutak's opposition. However the Central Committee of the RKP refused to recognise these decisions in a February meeting. Ryskulov travelled to Moscow with a delegation to lobby on his proposals but Lenin categorically denied all these in July 1920 and abolished the Central Committee of the Communist Party of TASSR, in which Ryskulov already had a majority support. Also note that TASSR was referred to as Turkrespublika, its fashionable Russian-Bolshevik abbreviation form, in most of the correspondence as well as publications. Here the official usage of Turkrespublika is the short from of Turkestanskaya ASSR, not the Turk Republic Ryskulov was proposing.

Mir Said Sultan Galiev (1894–1938) became the symbol of National Communism among the Muslim-Turks of the early Soviet Union. He was one of the organisers of communist power among the Muslim Turks of the former Tsarist Empire, a staunch advocate of the union of Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union under one administrative unit as well as salvation of eastern colonial nations until his purge by Stalin in 1923, who accused him of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism.

Faizulla Khozhaev was a member of the Young Bukharan committee that worked against the Emir with other Jadids. In December 1917 he went to Tashkent to ask for military aid from the Red commander Kolesov to overthrow the Bukharan Emir. When the Russian march against the Emir failed in March 1918, Faizulla Khozhaev retreated to Tashkent with Russian troops, and at the end of 1919 he went to Moscow. When the second attack of the Reds in late August and early September 1920 succeeded, Faizulla Khozhaev became the Prime Minister of the first People's Republic of Bukhara in October. He did not side with President Osman Khozhaev after December 1921 who declared a struggle against the Soviets. He went to Moscow in 1922 and became the Chairman of the People's Commissars of Uzbekistan after delimitation. He was executed in Moscow during the 1938 purges.

In his letter to Stalin, with copies to Politburo Members and the NKID Collegium (Narodnyi komissariat inostrannykh del, Peoples’ Commissariat of Foreign Affairs), dated 22 May 1924 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 16) Chicherin described Faizulla Khozhaev as a ‘very enthusiastic supporter of the event of national delimitation’. See also Letter from Chicherin to the Politburo, Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party with copies to the Politburo Members and the members of the NKID Collegium, dated 28 May 1924 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 17–17 obr) in which Khozhaev is described as ‘one of the initiators of the project’, and the letter from Chicherin to Stalin, with copies to Politburo Members and the members of NKID Collegium, dated 6 June 1924 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 19) where he refers to ‘one of the leading supporters of national delimitation, Faizulla Khozhaev …’.

The Turkestanskaya Chrezvychaynaya Komissiya was a special commission sent to Turkestan to supervise the local Bolsheviks in the spring of 1919, and in March 1919 it established the Musbyuro (Muslim Bureau) which opened the ranks of the Communist Party to native cadres in Turkestan.

Pipes argued that Lenin's attitude was to win over Turkestanis by establishing correct relations with the natives, rather than a direct implementation of a ‘divide and rule’ tactic at this stage (Pipes 1997, p. 183).

Zlatopolskii cited in Hayit (1995, p. 342). Frunze was Commander in Chief of the RSFSR's Turk[estanstanskii]front from 11 August 1919 onwards. Kuibyshev was the RSFRS's representative to Bukhara in 1920. He was also the chairman of the committee for Turkestan's repartition created by the Central Committee of the RKP in September 1924.

‘Iz deyatel'nosti Turkestanskogo kommissariata po natsional'nym delam’, Zhizn Natsional'nostei (hereafter ZhN), 20, 28, 1 June 1919, p. 4.

‘Kirgizskii narod i Sovetskaya Rossiya’, ZhN, 9, 17, 16 March 1919, p. 2.

With the introduction of the new schooling methods and reform programmes by the famous Crimean Tatar scholar İsmail Bey Gaspıralı in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, his new ideas were spread all over the Turkic speaking world by his popular newspaper Tercüman. Young intellectuals (mostly school teachers) joined Gaspıralı in his ambitious reform programme by opening up new-method schools all over Central Asia. They established philosophical circles, such as the Young Bukharans and the Young Khivans in Turkestan. Although the Bukharan Emir was a reactionary and banned their activities within the borders of his Emirate, the Khivan Khans were rather tolerant towards the reformers. In any case, these groups of young intellectuals saw an opportunity to undertake fundamental reform programmes after the October Revolution. Young Khivans were the leading ‘revolutionaries’ and occupied most of the administrative posts in the Khorezmian PSR until 1924. While some of them later joined the Bolshevik ranks, some remained in the nationalist-democratic opposition against the Russians and the Bolsheviks in Turkestan and were forced to flee the country after 1924.

See ‘V Turkestane’, ZhN, 3, 9, 138, 14–20 March 1922, p. 8. In the department of national minorities of Turkrespublika, there were Ukrainian, European Jew, Native Jew, Armenian, German, Irano-Azerbaijani, Polish and Latin bureaux.

However, according to Francine Hirsch, the policy was focused on a ‘… double assimilation—the assimilation of diverse peoples into nationality categories and the assimilation of nationally categorized groups into the Soviet state and society …’ rather than the probability of a united Turkestan (Hirsch 2000, p. 213).

‘V turkestane’, ZhN, 20, 118, 3 October 1921, p. 3.

‘Po avtonomnym respublikam i oblastyam RSFSR i po respublikam SSSR’, ZhN, Second Book, 1923, p. 138. As early as the seventeenth century local sources inform us about the existence of an ethnic hatred between the Uzbeks and the Turkmens of the Khivan Khanate (Khorezm) (Ebulgazi Bahadır Han 1659, pp. 109–10).

On the problems between the Uzbek and Turkmen portions of the Khivan population see Saray (1989, pp. 104–5). On the Khivan Khanate and the history of Russian expansionism in Central Asia see Ali Suavi (1873/1910/1977), Becker (1968) and Pierce (1960).

For Junayd Khan's biography see Andican (2005, pp. 70–71, 82, 200–14). This volume is also available in English (Andican 2007).

One of the best accounts of this period and the building of a Turkmen identity throughout the twentieth century is by Edgar (2004, pp. 34–40). Another good piece by Northrop (2004, pp. 46–55) is an excellent account of how national Uzbek identity was separated in the case of women's veils and anthropological and ethnographic differences.

‘Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v Khive’, ZhN, 9, 66, 21 March 1920, p. 1. See this article also for the Soviet preference to work with the Uzbeks in Khorezm against the Turkmens of Junayd Khan.

See K. (1922, p. 11) and Edgar (2004, pp. 41–42 and pp. 51–59) on the difficulties of delimitation. One of the most difficult tasks facing the Soviet ethnographers was to assess which tribe belongs to which ‘people’, Uzbek or Turkmen within the Khorezmian/Khivan realm.

The Turkestan Commission (Turkkomissiya), although operational by the spring of 1919, was only made official on 8 October 1919 as an organ of the Russian Communist Party and the All Russia Central Executive Committee. Its native members were A. Rakhimbaev, A. Turyakulov, K. Atabaev, T. Ryskulov and S. Khozhanov. This Commission practically operated as the government of Turkestan and worked independently from the Communist Party of Turkestan ASSR. Its operations were then brought to an end with the establishment of the Russian Communist Party Central Committee's Turkestan Bureau, and it was completely abolished in 1923 with a resolution of the Central Committee.

The need to export the regime to the neighbouring countries was a popular theme. See the books by Pozdnyshev (1922, pp. 1–25) and Borisov (1922) for accounts of the colonial nature of the Russian Empire and collaboration between the Russian and Muslim bourgeoisie.

See the speech by Broido at the Khorezmian Communist Party (RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, d. 83, ll. 47–49).

See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 133, ll. 1–2: ‘Intelligence Report Telegram from Khiva to Central Committee RKP, Molotov’. The full name of Velidî was Ahmet Zeki Velidî Togan, but in 1927 before the surname law, he did not use the surname Togan. So in bibliographical indexes, many Turkish authors have different names before and after the surname law. Conforming to this practice his publications are referred to in the reference section below under Velidî (1927) for his earlier work, and under Togan (1960, 1999) for his more recently published works.

See the text of an intelligence report from Khiva to Molotov in 2 December 1921, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 133, l. 3.

UzRMDA, f. 71, op. 1, d. 31, l. 32: ‘Resolutions of the all-Khorezmian Congress of Soviets, 29 September–2 October 1924’.

UzRPDA, f. 14, op. 1, d. 1229, pp. 20–21: ‘Khorezmian Communist Party Congress Records, 13 March 1924’.

UzRMDA, f. R-17, op. 1, d. 31, l. 15: ‘Resolution of the Khorezmian Communist Party Central Executive Committee, May 1924, 4th Session’.

RGASPI, f. 62, op. 1, d. 155, l. 156: ‘Resolution of Executive Committee of the Khorezmian Communist Party, 9 June 1924’.

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, ll. 13–14: ‘Letter from Chicherin to Stalin, 5 April 1924’.

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 15: ‘Letter from Chicherin to Politburo Central Committee of Russian Communist Party, 16 May 1924’.

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 18: ‘Letter from Chicherin to Zinov'ev, 28 May 1924’.

‘Report from German to Chicherin’, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 23.

‘Report from German to Chicherin’, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 23.

‘Report from German to Chicherin’, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 26.

‘Report from German to Chicherin’, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 26.

The Middle Asian Economic Union or Middle Asian Federation (sredazEKOSO) was established during the 1st Economic Conference of Middle Asia on 5–6 March 1923. Its aim was to unite the three Soviet states of Middle Asia economically, the Turkestan ASSR, the Bukharan PSR and the Khorezmian PSR. In fact it was an inheritor of the Turkestan Economic Union, established in March 1921, by a resolution of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. Its practical function was to regulate economic relations between the centre and three Turkestan states. The Central Committee of the Communist Party abolished it in October 1934.

At this point it should be noted that many of the ‘European communists’ regarded ‘the promotion of national-territorial autonomy as a betrayal of internationalism’ (Edgar 2004, p. 57).

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 22.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 22.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 24.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 25.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 28.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 23.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 25.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 26.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 23.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 26.

However it was a well-known fact that some sub-tribes of Yomud Turkmens and Uzbeks living around the city of Khiva had been fighting each other since 1912. This existing ethnic tension was one of the bases for the pro-delimitation group's argument. For a comprehensive account of the chronology of events and history of the People's Soviet Republic of Khorezm see Nepesov (1962).

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 26.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 24.

This corresponds exactly to today's Karakalpak Avtonom Republikasy in Uzbekistan covering an area of one third of modern Uzbekistan's land with its capital Nüküs.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 24.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 25.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 25.

This included the group of Rakhimbaev, Khozhaev and Mukhiddinov Report. See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 27.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 24.

Even for the nationalist, Pan-Turkist émigré leaders such as A. Zeki Velidî, the context of delimitation was not clear as late as 1927, although they admitted the new usages of the names of the newly created national states in Turkestan (see Velidî1927, p. 36).

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 27.

Report, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 86, d. 24, l. 28.

For one of the latest and best examples of such an approach see Zhuraev et al. (2000, pp. 282–302).