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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Tajikistan
Index
An indigenous resistance movement proved the last barrier to
assimilation of Central Asia into the Soviet Union. In the 1920s, more
than 20,000 people fought Soviet rule in Central Asia. The Russians
applied a derogatory term, Basmachi (which originally meant
brigand), to the groups. Although the resistance did not apply that term
to itself, it nonetheless entered common usage. The several Basmachi
groups had conflicting agendas and seldom coordinated their actions. After
arising in the Fergana Valley, the movement became a rallying ground for
opponents of Russian or Bolshevik rule from all parts of the region.
Peasant unrest already existed in the area because of wartime hardships
and the demands of the amir and the soviets. The Red Army's harsh
treatment of local inhabitants in 1921 drove more people into the
resistance camp. However, the Basmachi movement became more divided and
more conservative as it gained numerically. It achieved some unity under
the leadership of Enver Pasha, a Turkish adventurer with ambitions to lead
the new secular government of Turkey, but Enver was killed in battle in
early 1922.
Except for remote pockets of resistance, guerrilla fighting in
Tajikistan ended by 1925. The defeat of the Basmachis caused as many as
200,000 people, including noncombatants, to flee eastern Bukhoro in the
first half of the 1920s. A few thousand subsequently returned over the
next several years.
The communists used a combination of military force and conciliation to
defeat the Basmachis. The military approach ultimately favored the
communist side, which was much better armed. The Red Army forces included
Tatars and Central Asians, who enabled the invading force to appear at
least partly indigenous. Conciliatory measures (grants of food, tax
relief, the promise of land reform, the reversal of anti-Islamic policies
launched during the Civil War, and the promise of an end to agricultural
controls) prompted some Basmachis to reconcile themselves to the new
order.
Data as of March 1996
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