Purpose of the Musburo

The purpose of the Musburo was to organize the indigenous population around Communist principles. They created a network of organizations and conferences all over Turkestan, providing the indigenous peoples an institutional framework to wield governmental power. Basically, a Communist approved Kokand government. The Musburo had the right to communicate directly with Moscow and ran their own paper, the Ishtirokiyun.  The power of the Musburo was bolstered by Moscow’s announcement of proportional representation in July 1919. They said:

“in the interests of the policies of worker-peasant power in the East, the broad inclusion, proportional to the population, of the native Turkestani population in State activity is necessary, without the requirement of belonging to the party, as long their candidatures are put forward by Muslim worker organizations.”

Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 107

What this meant in principle, was that the larger, but political marginalized, portion of indigenous peoples would now have the voting power to overpower and outnumber any initiative put forward by the Russians Settlers. The Central Executive Committee of Turkestan (TurTsIK) refused to release the announcement, arguing that returning to proportional representation was taking a step back to the days of Kerensky and the Provisional Government and would be the undoing of the Bolshevik revolution.  Kobozev and the Musburo outmaneuvered the Central Executive Committee by organizing a public meeting in the old city of Tashkent and read the announcement, later publishing it in an issue of Ishtirokiyun. Thanks to their efforts, Muslim Communists earned a majority on the Central Executive Committee allowing them to contribute to solving the myriad of problems facing Turkestan. 

Understanding Kobozev’s Motives

Now one may wonder why Kobozev, who was a Russian and a Communist, was working so hard to cripple the power of other Russians in the region. And the answer, like most things involving Turkestan during the Russian Civil War, is that it’s complicated.

The first thing we have to consider is the dangerous environment Kobozev found himself in. When he arrived in Turkestan, the Tashkent Soviet, which was made up of former soldiers and Russian settlers, had just tried to invade Bukhara, failed, and were now antagonistic towards Moscow. The relationship with the indigenous peoples were at an all-time low following the destruction of the Kokand Autonomy, the failed Bukharan invasion, the region wide famine, and the rise of the Basmachi. Not to mention there were three emirs (Bukhara, Khiva, and Afghanistan, not to mention the ever present British) neighboring Turkestan who seemed more than willing to “liberate” their neighbors from Russian influence. And the Red Army was battling the White Army in Siberia, but by early 1919, there was no guarantee the Red Army would win. But it was known that the Russian Settlers were armed and more than willing to fight to achieve their goals. It is telling that even while Kobozev was trying to mending relations and build a government, the old dynamic of new Tashkent for Russians and old Tashkent for indigenous peoples remained.  

The second thing we have to consider is Bolshevik doctrine and ideology. In 1917, the Bolsheviks called out to their Muslim brethren, saying:

“All you, whose mosques and shrines have been destroyed, whose faith and customs have been violated by the Tsars and oppressors of Russia! Henceforward your beliefs and customs, your national and cultural institutions, are declared free and inviolable! Build your national life freely and without hindrance”

Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 91

At this point in time the Bolsheviks did not want to be an imperialistic power. They truly believed that Communism could set others free, but more importantly, communism wouldn’t survive unless it spread to all corners of the world, liberating everyone from capitalism. When their efforts stalled in the west, they turned east and Turkestan was the linchpin in their efforts to expand into east and south Asia. So, ideologically, they weren’t supposed to discriminate against different peoples, they knew that the only way to legitimize their ideology was to convert indigenous folks to communism, and they knew the only way to spread their ideology was if the locals spread it for them. This line of thinking clashed severely with the Tashkent Soviet and Russian Settlers, who had a narrower worldview that consisted of their rights within Turkestan.

Third, it makes sense to say that Kobozev needed to work with the indigenous peoples to keep the people. Ok, cool, but what does that actually look like on the ground? When Kobozev arrived, Tashkent was turn amongst the Russian settlers, the reformers like the Jadids and the Alash Orda, the Ulama, the Basmachi, the Bukharan and Khivan emirs, and the surviving merchant who once held great sway over Turkestan society. Kobozev had to find a way to weed out the troublemakers and find the indigenous peoples willing to work with him and the Bolsheviks. The only way to do that was to provide opportunities and see who took advantage and then use that person as a poster child of Bolshevik-Muslim cooperation which would hopefully translate to the people feeling heard and seeing impactful enough changes to push them away from signing up with the Basmachi. I think it’s safe to say at this point, Kobozev wasn’t concerned about creating pure Communists, but just finding allies who were willing to learn the Communist language.

This ties into our other two points, but the bottom line is that no ideology or system of government survives long without local support.  If you remember our season on the Irish War of Independence back in 2020, we talked about how the greatest thing the Irish did to break away from the British was create an alternative system of government that was slightly more efficient than the current British government. There is a lot of debate over the effectiveness of the Dail and the Dail Courts and all that, but the fact of the matter is that by 1920, more Irish people trusted the Dail Courts and services more than they did the British (while the IRA also hampered the effectiveness of their military forces). It was the combination of offering an alternative government and a stubborn guerilla force that eventually convinced the British to negotiate.  It’s the same principle here. Kobozev, and by extension the Bolsheviks, could not defeat either the strains of Tsarism and colonialism within Turkestan or the allure of the Basmachi and the other emirates, unless they could create a semi-efficient system of government that addressed the people’s fundamental needs and he could never do that without indigenous support. If he could supply the government, then the Red Army would supply the military force required to quash any remaining threat, once they finished with Kolchak in Siberia.  

Musburo in Action

Kobozev was a capable fellow, but he wasn’t a puppet master effortlessly organizing events, nor was he the first to understand that problems plaguing Turkestan could not be solved without indigenous intervention. The Kokand Autonomy was created to be a government for both indigenous actors and Russian Settlers. It was the Russians who rejected the olive branch and then burn down the entire olive tree. The difference was that Kobozev had the backing of the Bolsheviks and Red Army to enforce his vision, something the indigenous peoples of Central Asia were keen to take advantage of. Various indigenous peoples used the Musburo and other committees created by the Bolsheviks to push through their agendas or form alliances with the Bolsheviks in hopes of merging Turkic nationalism with Communism. And yet, despite all of this, they still met heavy opposition from each other, the Russian Settlers and Basmachi and it became clear that politics alone would not save Turkestan.  

The Diversity of the Indigenous Peoples of Turkestan

It is tempting to think of an indigenous population as a monolith but that’s far from the truth as the Bolsheviks were finding out. So far we’ve talked about the reformers of the region, the Jadids and Alash Orda, the ulama, the Basmachi, but there is this fourth category that rises along with the Musburo and they are the nationalist-communists.  

If we remember, the Alash Orda are in Siberia being screwed over by the White Movement and humiliated the Bolsheviks who were still pissed that the Alash Orda chose the Whites over them. Some have found refuge in Turkestan, but that’s hardly improved their situation because they, like their Jadid counterparts are mistrusted by the Bolsheviks because of their role in creating the Kokand Autonomy. Kobozev announced a general amnesty for all participants of the Kokand government, but, in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, it was a black mark the Jadids would carry for the rest of their lives.

Worse, their level of commitment to Communism was always questionable, especially since they seemed unable to let go of their nationalistic goals and beliefs. Despite this, many joined the Communist cause (if not party) and worked within the Musburo and the Central Executive Committee of Turkestan. They were able to use their newfound power to implement their new teaching methods, the reopening and expansion of theater, and punish their enemies, particularly the ulama.  

The ulama would never find common ground with the Bolsheviks simply because the Bolsheviks were anti-religion and the ulama hated everything that didn’t fit their exact definition of Islam. The Bolsheviks encouraged the Jadid’s vendetta against the ulama who either survived the best they could or filtered to the ranks of the Basmachi, the traditionalist, conservative, but also reactionary guerilla movement that was forming in the Ferghana Valley. We won’t dive too deeply into what the Basmachi would up to in this episode, but we will say that their forces were developing into a force that would make life difficult for the Red Army when it arrived.  That leaves the newest class of indigenous peoples: the nationalist-communists.

They were people who didn’t get involved in politics or cultural reforms through the Jadids or the Alash Orda. Instead, they were entered politics via the chaos of the time and thus they can be thought of as inspired by the deprivations of the civil war as opposed to the Jadid’s fundamental belief that something was wrong with the society and only modernizing reforms could save them. The difference in origin opened them up to learning the language of Communism plus the nationalist and self-determination language that was swirling around the world because of US President Wilson and the end of World War I. Thus making them nationalists who tried to use the language and concept of communism to justify their nation-building projects.  The rising star of this category of indigenous peoples was Turar Risqulov.  

MVP of the Musburo: Turar Risqulov

We’ve met Turar before in one of our earlier episodes. Born to a Kazakh family in Semirech’e, he studied as Russo-native schools and worked for a Russia lawyer before the Russian Revolution. Afterwards, he made his name by attacking the abuses of the Russian settlers and quickly became one of Kobozev’s strongest allies in the Musburo.  Turar was an incredibly intelligent man who believed that the people of Turkestan needed a strong Central Asian elite to pull the people out of their ignorance and give them the tools to contribute to the future of Central Asia. He seems to have been a quick study, learning the language and principles of Communism and brave enough to point out where the Bolsheviks failed to live up to their own ideals.  In 1920, he would write Lenin that:

“In Turkestan, there was no October Revolution. The Russians took power and that was the end of it, in the place of some governor sits a worker, and that’s all…the October Revolution in Turkestan should have been accomplished not only under the slogans of the overthrow of the existing bourgeois power, but also of the final destruction of all traces of the legacy of all possible colonialist efforts on the part of Turkist officialdom and kulaks”

Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 108-109

Turar pulled out the Bolshevik’s mentions of self-determination, equality, and anti-colonial rhetoric and used to shape his own ideology of anticolonialism. He wrote that:

“One of the most important conditions for the achievement of the goal [of  Communism] advanced by the Communist Party is the self-determination of oppressed…peoples….If Soviet Russia needs to show the working class of Western capitalist countries the correctness of its system, then it needs even more to show the oppressed East the proper restricting of the social life of Muslim society in Turkestan and elsewhere.”

Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 110-111

He would go even further stating that:

“the crude colonialism of Tsarism produced hate and distrust toward the ruling nation. If the proletariat of the ruling nation now scorns the proletariat of the oppressed nations, it will only produce more distrust” 

Adeeb Khalid, Making Uzbekistan, pg. 110-111

Turar was basically arguing that for Communism to thrive in former and current colonies, then it needed to focus on anti-colonialism, holding up Turkestan as an example of how Communism restored rights to indigenous actors and implemented policies that would address harms caused by colonialism while also building the capacity and infrastructure to have a thriving future. He believed building a series of republics honoring different nationalities but united in regional histories and cultures was the best way to achieve their shared goals.  Turar wasn’t the only person arguing this but he didn’t have the organizational ability to unite with other groups and Muslim intellects who were writing the same things. Within Tashkent, there were secret organizations, reformers, and ulama pursuing their own goals, either by engaging with the Musburo itself or working in concert with it. Tashkent also had a large population of Ottoman POWs who the Musburo put to work as teachers. So, there is this flux of indigenous work and theorizing and governing, but it’s not coordinated with the other Muslim republics or governments near the region. So it’s also sort of a lot of sound and fury with little to show for it in terms of building a widespread movement. And yet, Kobozev and later the Red Army would not be able to achieve any of their achievements without nationalist-communists like Turar.   

Famine and Ethnic Tensions

The Musburo may have expanded the political power of indigenous peoples and there were men like Risqulov crafting indigenous ideologies, but it was powerless to truly address the level of violence and starvation plaguing the region. By 1919, the Basmachi had completely cut Tashkent off from the Ferghana and violence and idiotic requisition efforts in the Steppe drove starving and desperate Kazakhs into Tashkent, which was already on the brink of starvation.

In November 1918, Turar formed the Central Commission for the Struggle and Hunger to assist the Kazakhs, but met hostility from his Russian committee members. Instead, the Tashkent soviets refused to share requisitions of their own grain and closed hospitals to all indigenous peoples. Various departments tried to implement different plans regarding harvest and food collection, but the efforts weren’t coordinates and caused more confusion than it helped.  The Executive Committee of Turkestan turned nasty and began blaming rural Central Asians and Russian peasants for failing to stand up to Dutov in the Steppe and refusing to share their “bounty” of food and supplies with Tashkent. The committee claimed that the indigenous peoples:

“thanks to their lack of political consciousness and age-old slave like dependence on bais and capitalists, are deluding themselves, dying from hunger and becoming scoundrels, victims of their own appetite”

Jeff Sahadeo, Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865-1923, pg. 213

Meanwhile, Russian peasants were forming gangs and robbing from their Central Asian neighbors further escalating ethnic tension.  The executive committee tried to control grain harvesting by introducing a grain monopoly, allowing their soviet agents to use violence to take grain, horses, and other goods from the peasantry. Of course the stolen goods were never circulated throughout the city and the Russian and indigenous soviets issued a joint stalemate protesting the monopoly. Despite all his efforts neither Kobozev, the Executive Committee, Musburo were able to restore order on their own.

Enter the Turkestan Commission

 While Kobozev and the Musburo worked together to counter the Russian Settler’s powers, address Turkestan’s seemingly endless problems, and developing a “Muslim National Communism” ideology, the Red Army was busy shattering Kolchak’s army in Siberia. They achieved a breakthrough in October 1919 and managed to establish communication between Moscow and Tashkent. Several units of the Red Army arrived in Tashkent along with a new governmental organization: the Turkestan Commission also known as the Turkkomissiia. This Commission consisted of plenipotentiaries supported by the Frunze’s Red Army and were meant to govern the region. It consisted of Shalva Eliava, Gleb Bokii, Filipp Goloshchekin, Valerian Kuibyshev, Janis Rufzutaks, and later Mikhail Frunze. The Musburo organized a 500 people welcome of the Commission, hoping they would support their efforts against the Russian Settlers. The Commission assured the people that they were not asking for a social revolution, just national independence. They agreed with Turar that colonialism was a major problem and reshuffled many Russian settlers from leadership positions. The Musburo promised to raise a 200,000-man army, requesting money and a command staff, but the Turkkomissiia did not trust the Musburo like Kobozev did, and their distrust would grow when Frunze arrived in early 1920. 

References

Making Uzbekistan: Nation, Empire, and Revolution in the Early USSR by Adeeb Khalid

Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865-1923 by Jeff Sahadeo

Central Asia: A History by Adeeb Khalid