Uprising in Turkestan. 1916 — 2016
In anticipation of the inevitable surge in propaganda and demagogy in connection with the tragic events that took place on the territory of modern Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan 100 years ago, a small historical excursion will not be amiss. Moreover, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, calls for recognizing the victims of these events as victims of the "genocide" of the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz committed by the Russians are becoming louder and more official.
In the summer of 1916, the government of B.V. Sturmer went one step further, which could be interpreted as a movement towards the wishes of the liberal opposition. During the summer sessions of the 1915 summer session of the State Duma, the Cadets put forward a proposal to extend conscription to the Muslims of Transcaucasia and Turkestan. In his speech on August 19 (September 1) of 1915, Shingarev painted beautiful perspectives to which this project would lead. According to his calculations, such a measure would give an extra 500.000 man of stock. Shingarev argued: “These elements of the population up to the present, never serving military service, never even wanted to put up with this; they considered it insulting, offensive to them. We know such statements from the Kyrgyz side (that is, Kazakhs: until 1918, it was customary to call the nomads of modern Kazakhstan who received the ethnonym “Kazakhs” in Soviet times, which had a social rather than ethnic significance earlier. Kirghiz, that is, Black Kirghiz. - AO), from the Muslims of Transcaucasia; they wondered why they should not, could not serve conscription ”.
And here there is bewilderment - didn’t the chairman of the Duma commission on military and maritime affairs really knew that those who wished could have served conscription in the so-called Inner or Wild Division formed at the beginning of the war just to remove the most militant elements from these regions?
Meanwhile, in addition to the Caucasian native division, there were other regiments, which later formed the cavalry corps: Kabarda, 1 and 2, Dagestan, Tatar (the Tatars or the Transcaucasian Tatars, up to 1918, called the Turkic population of the Transcaucasus, who professed the Shiite branch of the Shiite department of the Shiite people, the Shiite people in the Caucasus, before the 1881, called the Shiite people in the Transcaucasian Tatars until 1892, the Turkic population of the Transcaucasus, who practiced the Shiite department of the Transit of Tithya until 1897. century for the name of this community appears the term "Azerbaijanis" (from the geographical name - Azerbaijan (option - Aderbeydzhan), originating from the Persian Atropaten), finally established as an ethnonym in Soviet times i), Chechen, Ingush, Ossetian, Crimean-Tatar and Turkmen. The latter, by the way, was the only one in Central Asia. Back in 19, MD Skobelev, a Turkmen police unit was created, which in 30 was transformed into the Turkmen Horse Division, in 2 in the Turkmen regiment. The conditions of service were the same with the Caucasian units — volunteers from 300 to 6 years were accepted, who were required to serve at least XNUMX years. Riders received a salary of XNUMX rubles per year and after XNUMX years of service, the rank of ensign of the police. It should be noted that a large number of people who wanted to serve was from the Turkmen, and there were always more volunteers than vacancies in the regiment, which was considered to be an excellent part. His horsemen brilliantly proved themselves in battles on the German front.
In 12 provinces of the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, even if they are considered to be territories with a mixed population: Baku, Dagestan, Elisavetpolsky, Akmola, Trans-Caspian, Samarkand, Semipalatinsk, Semirechensky, Syr-Darya, Turgaysky, Syrian, Syrian, Syrian, Syrian, Syrian, Syrian, Syrian, Syrian, Western Siberian not approximately 10.000.000 ”, as Shingarev said, and 7.730.000 men. If we proceed from the fact that the Christian, that is, the population that was already called up, was equal to the meager figure of 730.000, then this meant that it was proposed to invoke every 14. And this is without regard to age indicators! It must be noted that these were extraordinary indicators, especially for territories where a draft call did not function before the war. References to the European experience were inappropriate in this case too.
For the French, reduced military service in Africa was introduced in 1912. In Algeria, before the war, about 5 million lived and in West Africa - about 10 — 12 million people. In other words, the male population of these territories can be considered close to the figures of the above-mentioned Russian provinces. Nevertheless, Algeria gave the French army 177.800, while West and Equatorial Africa gave 181.512 people, that is, fewer the numbers proposed by Shingarev for Turkestan and the Caucasus at the same time. During the war, all the colonies of France, including, but not limited to, Indochina, Madagascar, Somalia and the Pacific Coast, Tunisia and Morocco gave 544.890 fighters and 221.608 workers. In England, the Anglo-Indian army was the only combat-ready force formed in the colonies. By the beginning of the war, it consisted of 9 divisions (120.000 people), later their number increased to 10. The so-called native units were set up very militantly and were eager to fight. They were sent to the front, replacing the British territorial divisions. In total, 770 000 people were mobilized for the war in India, more than 500 thousand were in the active army. According to the British colonial administration, it was not worth it to exceed this limit - this could cause unrest. There were major problems associated with the possibility of using units on the European front because of their inability to adapt to the conditions of the theater of operations, as, indeed, on the Asian front, because of the danger of a collision with co-religionists. Sikhs (Sikhs - from "Sikh", "student" that is, a follower of Sikhism - a special teaching, which is a mixture of Islam and traditional Hindu beliefs. Religious group, which is based on people of Indo-Aryan origin, whose hinterland is the region of Punjab. willingly went to serve in the Anglo-Indian army. In the modern Indian army, approximately 20% of commanders are Sikhs, despite the fact that there are only 2% in India and Gurkhas (Gurkhs or Gurkas are an ethnic group, The main part of modern Nepal, after submission of which to the East Indies campaign as a result of the 1814 — 1816 war, the British began to recruit Gurkha volunteers to serve in their own troops. Hinduist followers speak Nepali. They are distinguished by exceptionally high militancy, unshakable loyalty and endurance, Gurkha , of which until now part of the units of the British army are being formed, by their participation in numerous wars of Great Britain they deserved the reputation of ideal infantry), which the British sent to Mesopotamia , in Russia was not.
It is not surprising that such speeches by the best representatives of the public did not arouse in the government either trust or a desire to cooperate, and such a position of the government made the Duma members ruthless critics of any mistake of the authorities. It would not be superfluous to note that neither in Great Britain nor in France were the principles of the recruitment of the Armed Forces in the colonies violated during the entire war. Moreover, when universal military service was introduced in England, Scotland and Wales in January 1916, the old volunteer system was maintained for Ireland. The most interesting thing with all this is that the experience of the allies, in any case, has always inspired native Anglo-men and frankofil in words.
However, the talk of irresponsible politicians in the Duma does not relieve responsibility for the decisions taken and carried out by politicians with real power. Because absolute power is identical to absolute responsibility.
25 June (8 July) 1916 issued the Highest Commandment: “For work on defensive structures and military communications in the region of the active army, as well as for any other works required for state defense, to attract during the present war the below-mentioned male alien population Empire, aged 19 to 43 years inclusive. Labor service extended to the aliens of the Astrakhan province and all the provinces of Siberia (with the exception of "non-native non-residents"), the Syr-Darya, Fergana, Samara, Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Semirechenskaya, Ural, Turgai and Trans-Caspian regions, the Moslem Terra region, and the region of the region. with the exception of Ossetian Muslims who were serving military service, as well as Turks and Kurds who were not involved in it), Yezidis, Abkhaz Christians, Kalmyks, etc. The summoned ages and terms of conscription were determined by agreement by the Minister of War and the Minister of the Interior. On July 5 (18), the authorities of Turkestan received orders to proceed with the call. 8 (21) July, they gave the order to start mobilization in Turkestan. First of all, the first phase was to be called up - from 18 to 31 of the year. In a strange way, there were earlier rumors about the inevitability of conscription, which were very disturbing to the local population.
The organization of the call, to put it mildly, was not ideal, the time for its holding was unsuccessful. There was a harvest, and the departure of workers could put a significant part of peasant farms in a difficult position. By the end of August, 1916 in Turkestan was supposed to call 200.470 people, in the Steppe region - 200.000 people. In the implementation of absurd plans, in fact there was a lot of absurdity added by local authorities. As a result, an uprising broke out - a bloody massacre began, which threatened the existence of the Russian population - over half a million Russians lived in Turkestan, 9,1% of the inhabitants of the region. 17 (30) July was signed the Highest Decree on the transfer of the Turkestan military district to martial law. 8 (21) August Kuropatkin was appointed Governor General of Turkestan. The appointment was accompanied by the Highest Rescript and awarding the Order of St. Vladimir I degree. Kuropatkin was rightly considered a connoisseur of the region, and it was he who was instructed to bring him to tranquility. By order of the Minister of War, 14,5 battalions, 33 hundreds, 42 guns and 69 machine guns were sent here. It was the right decision. Even Rech, who was very sarcastic with regard to administrative appointments, considered the decision to send Kuropatkin to Tashkent as correct, noting: “It became clear that in the implementation of the call of foreigners to reckon with peculiar local and everyday features, and in the proper direction of this important matter is one of tasks of the new Turkestan governor-general ".
The situation in the region was very difficult - the massacre and pogroms were in full swing. In desperation, the Russian population was forced to start organizing self-defense. There were thousands of victims. Kuropatkin, who arrived in Turkestan, had to convince the residents that he, of course, would not allow not only violence, but also no abuses against both the Russian and the native population. Aimed at suppressing the uprising, or, more precisely, at calming down the region, the general associated its cause with management inefficiency. 31 July (13 August) 1916 he noted in his diary:
“It was ordered by the dispatch of July 5 to call on the population all the ages from 19 to 43 years and immediately send these workers to the fronts to dig trenches and other works. It was necessary to immediately collect 600 thousands of people, and trains could carry only 7 thousands of people. The population was ruined, because it was impossible to remove the cotton and there was no one to sow the cotton, no one to feed the cattle. There were no metrics, so they sent elders and various Russian “statisticians” to do a census for the population. The population in many localities was indignant, interrupted their native administration, interrupted the "statisticians", killed the county chief in Janzak, killed many Russians in Zaamin, captured and raped Russian women. "
The efforts of the new governor-general began to bear fruit quickly. One of the most important merits of Kuropatkin was the normalization of the announced draft. On August 21 (September 3), they issued an order No. 185, limiting the number of 220 thousand people called up for labor. In addition, a clear procedure and conditions for conscription were established, the number of those drafted in the governor-general reduced to 220 thousand people, the call was carried out not once, but for 3 − 4 a month. As a result, by the end of 1916 in Turkestan, 92.423 workers were mobilized to the needs of the front, and 9.500 people were still mobilized. was sent to work within the general government. During the uprising, about 9 was destroyed by thousands of households, about 4 were killed by thousands of Russians, the army lost 97 killed, 86 injured and 76 missing. By the beginning of February 1917, the number of conscripts increased slightly - 110 thousand were sent to work in the front line and about 10 thousand left in Turkestan.
In the Duma, the events that occurred in the governor-general, were sharply criticized. M.Yu. Jafarov, a representative of the Muslim faction, who sought the extension of conscription to Muslims, angrily branded government policy:
“Never has a heartless centralized bureaucratic mechanism scoffed at the national feelings of foreigners in Russia so much and disfigured their everyday and spiritual characteristics as they are at the moment. The well-known facts of the deeply regrettable events in Turkestan and the Steppe regions are a vivid illustration of the work of the bureaucratic mechanism in its unadorned form. The out-of-town call of foreigners aged from 19 to 43 years, like thunder, erupted over their heads; not realizing what they want to do with them, where and why they want to be taken away, having pulled them out of their usual living environment, they rushed in different directions, looking for explanations from various administrative persons and institutions, but no one could give them precise and definite explanations. There was a growing legend that trench work is a screen, that the true purpose of the call is to recruit into the army, in order to use them, unarmed, as a living veil in front of the trenches. Foreigners, brought up on the Tsar's letters and decrees, exempting them from military service for all time, which was confirmed in the administrative announcements at various kinds of collections for the needs of the war, came to confusion, which was recognized as a sedition. Sedatives, created by the imagination of the local administration (?! - A.O.), led the massacre. As a result, where working life was peacefully flowing, there are blood streams, tears of ashes and ruins ... Who, at such a serious moment, has the state gone through, complicated the inner life with these bloody events, aroused hatred and mistrust between nations, lit a fire in the rear? ”
The last question remained unanswered, even Shingarev who was present in the hall was silent. But Kerensky, who visited the city of Turkestan in the summer of 1916, identified himself with Jafarov and claimed that all the laws of the Russian Empire were violated. Not a word was said about what was happening in the region with the Russian population. Kerensky later called Sturmer’s order to call the Kazakhs "absurd." It is hard not to agree with this statement.
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