The February bourgeois-democratic revolution brought no change in the conditions of the nationalities in Central Asia—the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Tajiks and Turkmenians.
In April 1917 the Provisional Government sent to Turkestan the so-called Turkestan Committee, headed by the Constitutional Democrat, Shchepkin, an ex-member of the State Duma. This Committee was to act as the supreme authority in the region.
After the coalition Provisional Government was formed, the composition of the Turkestan Committee was slightly changed, and the Mensheviks instead of the Constitutional Democrats predominated in it; but its policy remained the same.
In its counter-revolutionary dealings the Turkestan Committee relied not only on the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, former tsarist officials and Whiteguards, but also on the bourgeois-nationalist organisations, Shuro-Islamia and Uleme, which came into existence in March 1917.
Shuro-Islamia was the party of the Uzbek nationalist bourgeoisie, while Uleme was the party of the Mohammedan clergy, the semi-feudal landlords and the nationalist big bourgeoisie. These two organisations repeatedly expressed their loyalty to the Provisional Government.
The Turkestan Committee failed to solve any of the fundamental problems raised by the revolution. National oppression continued as before, merely assuming, as Stalin pointed out, a new, more insidious and, therefore, more dangerous form.
Nor was the agrarian problem solved; and the conditions of the industrial workers remained the same as they had been before the revolution. In September 1917 a working day of 12 hours prevailed in Turkestan, whereas in all other parts of the country the eight-hour day had already been won.
The difficulties in Turkestan were aggravated by the fact that almost to the end of 1917 no independent Bolshevik organisation existed there. The various groups of Bolsheviks in Tashkent, Samarkand, Perovsk, New Bukhara, and other towns, belonged to the united Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The Second Regional Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. which was held in Tashkent on June 21 to 27, was dominated by the Mensheviks and passed a resolution expressing confidence in the Provisional Government.
Not having a newspaper of their own, the Tashkent Bolsheviks were obliged to have their articles published in Rabocheye Dyelo, the organ of the R.S.D.L.P., which was controlled entirely by the Mensheviks, and very often the Mensheviks, on one pretext or another, refused to publish these articles.
Through the medium of the Orenburg Bolsheviks, Comrade Sverdlov conveyed to the Bolsheviks in Turkestan the categorical instruction to break off their “unlawful cohabitation” with the compromisers, but for a long time this instruction remained a dead letter.
Nevertheless, the influence of the Bolsheviks among the masses grew rapidly. A strong Party group was formed in Khokand, headed by E. P. Babushkin, who had been a Bolshevik since 1903 and was the Chairman of the Khokand Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
Extensive activities within the united Social-Democratic organisation were conducted by the Bolsheviks in Samarkand.
On the eve of the October Revolution there was a Bolshevik group in New Bukhara, led by Poltoratsky, who in 1918, met his death at the hands of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The Bolsheviks in Tashkent were led by A. Pershin, a worker employed in the Central Asia Railway Workshops, and N. Shumilov, a fitter in the same plant who, in 1918, became Chairman of the Tashkent Soviet.
In their activities the Bolsheviks in Turkestan relied on the organisation known as the Ittifaki, i.e., Leagues of Mohammedan Working People.
In March 1917 the first Mohammedan labour organisation was formed in Skobelev (now Ferghana). Later, similar organisations were formed in Tashkent, Samarkand, Khokand, Margelan, Katta-Kurgan, Khojent, and other towns. In most cases, these leagues were formed by workers and poor peasants who, in 1916 had been mobilised by the tsarist government for work behind the lines. On returning to Turkestan they formed themselves into an inaugural group of demobilised workers and issued a call for the formation of Labour Leagues. In this call they declared that their object was “to form a family of workers consisting of poor peasants and working people, of Tatars and Sarts, which would reinforce the working class in its struggle against capital and help to create a new society based on truly democratic principles.”[1]
Many of those demobilised workers and dehkans (peasants) had obtained a thorough revolutionary schooling in Russia and were connected with the Bolshevik Party and the Russian workers.
At first the Ittifaki were strongly influenced by the Mensheviks, but they gradually drifted away from them and drew nearer to the Bolsheviks. During the elections of the local government bodies and of the Constituent Assembly they put up joint tickets with the Bolsheviks and helped the latter to combat the compromisers in the Soviets. The struggle between the Mohammedan Labour Leagues and the Shuro-Islamia and Uleme—the bourgeois-nationalist organisations—daily became more intense. This was the most convincing proof that the “theory” advanced by the bourgeois nationalists that there was no class struggle in Turkestan and that all Mohammedans were equal was fallacious, and it revealed the hollowness of the slogan: “Mohammedans Unite!”
After the Kornilov mutiny was suppressed the revolutionary struggle of the working people of Turkestan entered a new phase. In September 1917 strikes frequently broke out among the cotton-workers, oil-press workers and soap makers who demanded higher wages and an eight-hour day. Strikes occurred in Tashkent, Samarkand, Namangan, Andijan, Katta-Kurgan and New Bukhara.
In the rural districts the agrarian movement developed into a struggle for land and irrigation water.
The revolutionary movement grew also in the army, particularly in the Tashkent garrison.
The most striking symptom of the growth of the revolutionary crisis, however, was what are known as the “September events” in Tashkent.
After the suppression of the Kornilov mutiny the Bolsheviks intensified their work under the slogan of “All power to the Soviets!”
The Regional Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the Tashkent Soviet were controlled by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. At a conference of regional democratic organisations held in Tashkent on September 11, 1917, a Bolshevik motion that the conference should proclaim itself a Revolutionary Committee and take over power was defeated. The Bolsheviks moved the same resolution at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Tashkent Soviet at which a large number of workers and soldiers were present.
The Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Tashkent Soviet, both Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, forthwith resigned and left the meeting as a protest against the Bolsheviks’ action. After their departure the Executive Committee of the Soviet, for the first time, adopted a Bolshevik resolution demanding the formation of a Revolutionary Committee and the holding of a demonstration of the working people of the city under the slogan: “All power to the Soviets!”
On hearing of this mass demonstration, called by the Bolsheviks, the Turkestan Committee of the Provisional Government immediately banned all meetings for a period of three days from September 12 to 15; but no orders could curb the mass movement. On September 12 the working people of Tashkent spontaneously poured into the streets. A meeting was held in the Alexander Park, where the crowd was continuously augmented by contingents of workers and soldiers who came marching from the factories and army barracks. The speeches delivered by the Bolsheviks were enthusiastically applauded, and many rank-and-file workers and soldiers too delivered rousing speeches. The meeting adopted a resolution, moved by the Bolsheviks, demanding that power should be transferred to the Tashkent Soviet and that a Provisional Revolutionary Committee should be formed. This Committee was forthwith elected. It consisted of 14 members, of whom five were Bolsheviks, five Socialist-Revolutionaries, two Mensheviks and two Anarchists.
Thus, notwithstanding the adoption of the resolution demanding that power be transferred to the Soviets, the Bolsheviks were in a minority on the Revolutionary Committee. In an article appraising the September events in Tashkent, Stalin stated that it was found possible to form a united revolutionary front in that city on the basis of the demand to transfer power to the Soviets. But he stressed the point that the subsequent course of events would be determined by the party that would head and direct this temporary united revolutionary front—the Bolsheviks or the “Left” Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The Tashkent Bolsheviks did not succeed in gaining the leadership of the Revolutionary Committee and in exposing the vacillations and half-heartedness of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. This determined the subsequent course of events.
Nevertheless, the “September events” in Tashkent proved beyond doubt that the masses had swung round to the Bolsheviks. One of the most important national regions of the country was on the threshold of armed insurrection. But these events did not, of course, signify that power had actually been transferred to the Soviets.
The election of the Revolutionary Committee caused the counter-revolutionaries in Tashkent considerable anxiety. At 5 p.m. on September 12, at a special joint conference of the Turkestan Committee and representatives of the Regional Soviet with General Cherkess, the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, a decision was taken immediately to arrest the Revolutionary Committee. General Cherkess ordered the cadets and a company of ensigns to surround “Liberty Hall” where the Revolutionary Committee and the Tashkent Soviet were simultaneously in session. The Tashkent Soviet had just elected a new Executive Committee, the majority of which consisted of “Left” Socialist-Revolutionaries. The members of the Revolutionary Committee were arrested and taken to prison. When the workers and soldiers who were present at the meeting of the Soviet heard of this they demanded an explanation and the immediate release of the members of the Committee.
General Cherkess appeared at the meeting, where his speech so incensed the audience that he was pelted with every kind of missile that came to hand and was compelled to flee from the hall. He spent the night hiding in a ditch. Next day he was arrested.
The men of the 1st and 2nd Siberian Reserve Regiments, on learning of the arrest of the members of the Revolutionary Committee, took to arms and threatened to wreck the prison and release the prisoners. The compromisers were so terrified that they yielded and released the Revolutionary Committee, which forthwith resumed work.
The leaders of the compromising Regional Soviet fled in panic to Skobelev in the hope of receiving assistance for an offensive against revolutionary Tashkent.
The Turkestan Committee appealed to the Provisional Government for assistance and began to make its own preparations to suppress the insurrection.
The Revolutionary Committee and the new Executive Committee of the Soviet took a series of measures to strengthen their power, but they took no resolute action to disarm and suppress the counter-revolutionary forces.
On September 16 the situation in the city changed. A telegram was received from Kerensky qualifying the conduct of the Tashkent Soviet as criminal and demanding its submission to the local representatives of the Provisional Government within 24 hours, openly threatening that if it failed to do so “the usurpers of power will be punished with all the severity of the law.”
Kerensky also stated in this telegram that a punitive expedition was being sent. This information, together with Kerensky’s peremptory “order,” encouraged the counter-revolutionaries, who until then had been lying low, but preparing to strike. The Whiteguards began to arm the “loyal” units. In anticipation of the arrival of the punitive expedition, the Turkestan Committee opened negotiations with the Executive Committee of the Tashkent Soviet. To gain time, the Chairman of the Turkestan Committee, the Menshevik Nalivkin, on September 18, signed an agreement with the Executive Committee of the Soviet guaranteeing “immunity to individuals and units who had participated in the recent events” and providing for the recall of the punitive expedition that was being sent to Tashkent.
The Turkestan Committee failed to carry out this agreement, however. The punitive expedition was not recalled, and as a protest against this the workers of Tashkent, on September 20, at 4 p.m. declared a general strike. All the factories in the city, the railway, the tram service and the electric power station came to a standstill. The city was plunged in darkness. In retaliation, the Turkestan Committee proclaimed martial law in the city.
The strike proved ineffective. The punitive expedition which arrived in Tashkent on September 24, headed by General Korovichenko, was welcomed with great pomp by the counter-revolutionaries; the workers in nearly all the factories in the city remained on strike.
On September 26, General Korovichenko, acting as the Commissar General of the Provisional Government, issued an order to court-martial the members of the Revolutionary Committee who had been elected on September 12, set up a committee to investigate the actions of the Revolutionary Committee and the Tashkent Soviet, and banned all meetings and assemblies. Cossacks surrounded “Liberty Hall,” searched the premises and confiscated the funds, books and papers of the Tashkent Soviet and Executive Committee.
Korovichenko promised to withdraw the martial law order if the general strike was called off. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were in favour of calling off the strike and intimated this to the Strike Committee on September 27. The strike was called off that day, but instead of ending, the struggle waged by the proletariat and dehkans became more intense.
In Tashkent and other towns in Turkestan the railwaymen organised armed combat groups which served as the nucleus of the Red Guard. A wave of strikes again swept Tashkent, Khokand and other towns—this time joined by the printers of Samarkand—for a 50 per cent increase in wages. A similar demand was advanced by the employees of the Zemlya i Volya, Pechatnik and Ideal printing plants.
The Tashkent employers refused to yield to the demands of the workers, and in this they were supported by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. A general meeting of the printers retaliated by passing a resolution expressing no confidence in the Socialist-Revolutionary leaders.
How strained the relations between the Bolsheviks and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries had become was revealed at the Second Extraordinary Regional Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies of Turkestan, convened on the initiative of the Bolsheviks on September 29. The agenda contained the items: the Tashkent events, the election of the Regional Soviet, and the preparations for the election of the Constituent Assembly.
Considerable tension prevailed at the time of the Congress. The punitive expedition was still in Tashkent. Chaikin, the Right Socialist-Revolutionary leader, did his utmost to prevent the Congress from meeting. At the Congress itself he behaved in the most provocative manner and openly entered into a bloc with the Uleme organisation. Nevertheless, he was obliged to admit that “the Tashkent representatives, headed by the members of the late Revolutionary Committee had won the support of a section of the delegates from other towns.”[2]
At the Congress there was a small but compact group of Bolsheviks. The bulk of delegates remembered the instructions they had received from their constituents and would not allow themselves to be misled by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The delegates from Kushka, for example, had been instructed by a general meeting of the garrison and workers of that town to insist on the following points:
“1) ‘All power to the Soviets!’ 2) Not a single soldier to be granted leave until the end of the war; if leave is granted however, the men must take their arms with them; 3) in view of the food crisis, to requisition all church treasures for the purpose of procuring food.”[3]
The Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, headed by Chaikin, demanded in their resolution condemnation of the action of the late Revolutionary Committee during the September events, adding that the members of this Committee should not be allowed to vote on this resolution. When the Congress rejected this demand they demonstratively left the meeting.
The Bolshevik Poltoratsky, speaking on behalf of the New Bukhara Soviet, condemned the attitude of the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries towards the members of the late Revolutionary Committee and of the Executive Committee, and their demand for a committee of investigation, “The assassins of the revolution cannot be its judges,” he said.
Other Bolshevik speakers fiercely attacked the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and denounced their treachery. A section of the delegates listened to the Bolsheviks’ arguments with the closest attention and expressed their approval.
During October the tension in the city reached a high pitch. The workers in all the factories and the units of the garrison passed resolutions protesting against the conduct of the punitive expedition and demanded that power be transferred to the Soviets.
On October 18 the Tashkent Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies called a conference of representatives of the Regimental Committees and trade unions in the city to discuss the political situation and to draw up instructions for the delegate to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. In a resolution protesting against the actions of General Korovichenko, the conference demanded from the Turkestan Committee: 1) The abolition of capital punishment and the release of the arrested members of the Tashkent Soviet; 2) the transfer of all the land to Land Committees; 3) public control of industry; 4) the conclusion of an armistice on all fronts; 5) the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on a definite date.
The delegates who spoke demanded that the Soviets should take power.
A lively debate ensued on the instructions to be given to the delegate to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviks urged that the instructions should demand the transfer of power to the Soviets, for unless this were done the Constituent Assembly would not be convened. Moreover, the local Soviets would have to retain power even after the Constituent Assembly had been convened. The Bolshevik resolution on this question was carried by 89 votes against four, with six abstentions.
Thus, the Tashkent Soviet was won by the Bolsheviks.
In these circumstances, a resolute armed struggle to transfer power to the Soviets became inevitable. The Provisional Government, having concentrated considerable forces in Tashkent, hoped to be able to drown the insurrection of the working people of Tashkent in blood and thus “demonstrate its strength” to the workers all over Russia. But the “Tashkent venture” proved to be as unfortunate for the counter-revolutionaries as were all their other attempts to crush the revolutionary action of the masses.
The Executive Committee of the Tashkent Soviet appealed for assistance to the Second Congress of Soviets, which was then assembling. The workers energetically armed themselves and the Red Guards grew in numbers.
Thus, the work of organising for the assault proceeded all over the country. In this period the Bolsheviks’ activities assumed exceptional intensity and dimensions. Summing up the work performed by the Bolshevik Party in 1917, Stalin wrote as follows:
“In order to understand the tactics the Bolsheviks pursued during the period of preparation for October we must get a clear idea of at least some of the particularly important features of those tactics. . . .
“What are these features?
“. . . the undivided leadership of one party, the Communist Party, as the principal factor in the preparation for October—such is the characteristic feature of the October Revolution, such is the first peculiar feature of the tactics of the Bolsheviks in the period of preparation for October.
“. . . isolation of the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary Parties as the main line in directing the preparations for October—such was the second peculiar feature of the tactics of the Bolsheviks.
“. . . the policy of transforming the Soviets into organs of state power, as the most important condition for isolating the compromising parties and for the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat—such is the third peculiar feature of the tactics of the Bolsheviks in the period of preparation for October.
“. . . ability to convince the masses of the correctness of the Party slogans on the basis of their own experience, by leading them up to the revolutionary positions, as the most important condition for winning the millions of working people to the side of the Party—such is the fourth peculiar feature of the tactics of the Bolsheviks in the period of preparation for October.”[4]
All four features of the Bolsheviks’ tactics in the period of preparation for the October Revolution were observed in every part of the vast country. Everywhere the Bolshevik Party organised the victory, surmounted difficulties, swept away obstacles, led millions of working people, and exercised undivided leadership of the historic struggle for the establishment of the Soviet regime.
The organising hand of the Bolshevik Party is also clearly visible in the manner the forces were distributed in the decisive regions of the country on the eve of October and during the October days. At the headquarters of the revolution, in Petrograd, was the great leader of the Party, V. I. Lenin and his closest associate, J. V. Stalin, who was at the head of the Party Centre which directed the armed insurrection. Working in Petrograd were the most outstanding leaders of the Bolshevik Party: J. M. Sverdlov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, M. I. Kalinin, V. M. Molotov, G. K. Orjonikidze, A. A. Andreyev and others. In Moscow, working under the direction of the Central Committee of the Party, the preparations for the historic battles were directed by those tried Bolsheviks, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, E. Yaroslavsky and M. F. Shkiryatov; in the Volga Region, by V. V. Kuibyshev, N. M. Shvernik and others; in the Ivanovo-Voznesensk District, by M. V. Frunze; in the North Caucasus, by S. M. Kirov; in the Urals, by A. A. Zhdanov; in the Ukraine, by K. E. Voroshilov, F. A. Sergeyev (Artyom) and G. I. Petrovsky; in Byelorussia, by A. F. Myasnikov and L. M. Kaganovich; in Transcaucasia, by S. Shaumyan and A. Djaparidze.
The Bolshevik Party was a compact, highly politically conscious and disciplined organisation, which confidently led the proletariat and the rest of the working people. It was the real vanguard of the only consistently revolutionary class, a vanguard of which the entire membership took part in the Party’s struggle, in the movement, and in the daily life of the masses. As Stalin wrote:
“A virile and powerful Party, standing at the head of the revolutionary masses who were storming and overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie—such was the state of our Party in that period.”[5]
[1] Materials of the Secretariat of the Head Editorial Board of The History of the Civil War, Fund of Vol. II of “H.C.W.”
[2] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Fund 1235, File No. 26, Catalogue No. 40, Series Dƒ8.
[3] Krasnaya Letopis Turkestana (The Red Annals of Turkestan), Tashkent, 1923, No. 1-2.
[4] J. Stalin, Problems of Leninism, 1945, Eng. ed., pp. 109-116.
[5] J. Stalin, On the October Revolution. Articles and Speeches, Party Publishers, Moscow, 1932, p. 67.
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