Now in the republics of Central Asia, they agreed to the point that Basmachis is the “national liberation movement” of the peoples of Central Asia. All within the framework of another black myth about Russia and the Russians - about the “occupation of Russia and the Russians” of Central Asia, the Caucasus, etc. The problem is that several nationalities lived in the territory of Turkestan. And only the Soviet government gave the majority of peoples their national republics (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, etc.). It happened in the 1920-e years, when the Soviet government already fully controlled the situation in the region. The majority of the population of the region at that time was completely indifferent to politics and illiterate, which excluded the “national liberation” movement. Nor did the Basmachi warlords, the feudal and religious elite, see the need for a “national struggle”. Local spiritual and secular feudal lords, who owned up to 85% of all the best lands on which the dekhkans bent their backs, simply wanted to preserve power and wealth, the former parasitic existence.
Basmachi (from the Turkic - “to attack, raid,” that is, gangsters-raiders) from ancient times acted on the territory of Central Asia (Turkestan). They were ordinary bandits, robbers, robbing settlements and trade caravans. During the First World War, the collapse of Russia and the Civil War, Basmachi got religious and political overtones. Turkey, and then England, sought to use the Basmachis against the Russians to sever Turkestan from Russia, and to occupy the region themselves. The struggle with the Soviet authorities under the slogans of the holy war provided the Basmachis with the support of a certain part of the faithful, Islamic leaders, clergy. Also, the feudal lords supported the Basmachi, in order to preserve the power, and therefore the possibility of further parasitizing the local population. Therefore, after part of Central Asia became part of Soviet Russia, the Soviet government, among other pressing problems, had to solve this.
Thus, the Basmachis never enjoyed the mass support of the people (who loves bandits ?!), and they were not particularly fond of politics and ideology, in fact they were bandits. Before the revolution, they were engaged in their historical craft - robbed fellow countrymen. And after the victory of the Soviet regime they continued their bloody craft. So, one of the kurbash (kurbash is a field commander of a sufficiently large detachment capable of operating relatively autonomously, of forming the Basmachi) Ibrahim-bek, Alat Nalvan Ilmirzayev, testified during the investigation in 1931: “I kept the gang at the expense of the population, of course, the population didn’t voluntarily it provided food, it was necessary to take and rob, at the expense of the loot, to maintain a gang. "
After the October Revolution 1917, the Basmachis fell under the control of the feudal lords and the reactionary Muslim clergy. The main enemy of the emirs and feudal lords was the Soviet government, which created a new world in which there was no place for social parasites. However, all attempts by the local anti-Soviet-minded reactionary political elite to give the Basmachis an ideological, political and national connotation to cause the “holy war” of the local population against the Reds, ended in complete failure.
The bulk of the population of Turkestan was indifferent to politics. Most of the population - peasants (dekhkans), were illiterate, did not read newspapers, they were interested only in their own economy, and the life of their village. All the time was spent on agricultural work, simple survival. Intellectuals were few. Revolution 1905 - 1907's. and the February Revolution 1917 years passed almost unnoticed by the residents of Turkestan. The only thing that excited the “gentiles” (as the Russian Empire called the indigenous population) was the 1916 decree on the mobilization of men for rear work in the frontline areas. This led to a serious uprising that engulfed a large region.
In the Basmachi, members of society who did not find themselves in ordinary life most often went. Banditry seemed an easy way to improve personal wealth. In addition, it was possible to make a “career” - to become a centurion, a field commander (Kurbash), and to receive as a reward not only a share from the loot, but also a territory for “feeding” the detachment, to become a complete master there. As a result, many have become basmachis for personal gain. Also, those who lost power during the establishment of the Soviet government went to the Basmachi - power, sources of income, that is, representatives of the feudal class and clergy. In the Basmachi fell and peasants, intoxicated by the speeches of local religious leaders. The Basmachi also forcibly took the male peasants into their units. They were called stick insects because they were armed with improvised tools - axes, sickles, knives, pitchforks, etc., or even simple sticks.
Politics in Basmachi mainly was introduced from the outside - through the representatives of the Turkish and British intelligence services. In the 1913 year, the Young Turkic dictatorship was established in the Ottoman Empire. All the threads of management were in the hands of the three most prominent figures of the Party "Unity and Progress" - Enver, Talaat and Jemal. For political purposes, they used the doctrines of Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism. From the beginning of the war, Turkish leaders hatched a clearly delusional and adventurous idea (taking into account the military, technological and economic weakness of the Ottoman Empire, in which the lengthy process of degradation approached the logical end - complete collapse and collapse) of all Turkic speaking peoples under the rule of Ottoman Turks. Turkish leaders claimed to belong to the region of the Caucasus and Turkestan. Turkish agents were active in the Caucasus and Central Asia. After the defeat of Turkey in the world war, the British agents replaced the British. Britain planned to tear off Turkestan from Russia in order to weaken the influence of Russians in Asia. Thus, the Turks and the British financed the Basmachis, gave them the modern weapon and provided experienced personnel officers and advisers for organizing uprisings and waging war with the Bolsheviks.
A peculiarity of the Basmachi, in contrast to the peasant rebels from Central Russia, was the active use of the "small war" methods. In particular, the Basmachi had well-placed intelligence and used specific combat tactics. The Basmachi had a wide network of agents that were among mullahs, tea-makers, merchants, stray craftsmen, beggars, etc. Thanks to such agents, the Basmachi well tracked the movement of the enemy and knew his strength. In battle, the Basmachi used elements of luring, false attacks, summing up the best shooters who were enthusiastic about the attack of the Reds and were in ambush. Basmachi were based in remote mountainous and desert areas and at favorable moments made equestrian raids in densely populated areas, killing Bolsheviks, commissars, Soviet workers and supporters of Soviet power. Locals intimidated by terror. Seen in cooperation with the Soviet government, farmers were usually cruelly tortured and killed. The Basmachi tried to avoid a collision with large parts of the regular Soviet troops, preferred to attack small detachments, fortifications, or Bolshevik-occupied settlements, suddenly, and then quickly leave. At the most dangerous moments of the gangs, they broke up into small groups and disappeared, and then joined in a safe place and organized a new raid. Since the Red Army and Soviet militia units could offer strong resistance, the Basmachi preferred to attack villages where there were no Soviet garrisons and poorly armed local self-defense detachments were holding the defenses (the “Red Flags” —the peasants defending Soviet power and their settlements). Therefore, the local population suffered the most from the raids of the Basmachi.
Commander-in-chief Sergey Kamenev in 1922 noted: “The characteristic features of Basmachs are cunning, great resourcefulness, boldness, extreme mobility and tirelessness, knowledge of local conditions and communication with the population, which is also a means of communication between the bands. These properties highlight the need for particularly careful selection of commanders at the head of volatile and destructive units and the appropriate leadership of them. Basmachi are cunning - it is necessary to outwit them; Basmachs are resourceful and bold, mobile and tireless - we need to be even more resourceful, bold and mobile, arrange ambushes, suddenly appear where we are not expected; Basmachs are familiar with local conditions - we need to study them just as well; Basmachs are based on the sympathy of the population - we need to win sympathy; This last is especially important and, as experience has shown, not only facilitates the struggle, but also significantly contributes to its success. ”
To be continued ...