Turkestan Military Organization

Foundation| February 1918
Dissolved| January 1919
Active regions|  Syrdarya, Fergana and Samarkand Oblasts of the Turkestan Territory of the Russian Empire
Ideology| Anti–Bolshevism
Battles and wars| Russian Civil War:
Osipov Revolt

The Turkestan Military Organization was an anti–Bolshevik military underground organization created in February 1918 in the Turkestan Territory of the Russian Empire, with its center in the city of Tashkent, a group of former officers of the Tsarist Army[1] and a number of representatives of the Russian intelligentsia and officials of the former administration of the Territory with the aim of overthrowing Soviet Power in the province.

By the beginning of August 1918, the organization was renamed the Turkestan Union for the Struggle Against Bolshevism.

## Goals and objectives of the organization

[edit]

The Turkestan Military Organization was preparing an uprising against Soviet power in the Turkestan Territory of the Russian Empire. The organization was actively assisted by agents of foreign special services, primarily British, from the border area,[2] and agents operating under the cover of foreign diplomatic missions accredited in Tashkent under the government of the Turkestan Soviet Federal Republic. Initially, a revolt against Soviet power in the region was planned for August 1918, but for a number of reasons the date of this protest later had to be postponed to the spring of 1919.

The Turkestan Military Organization consisted of many officers, led by Colonel Pyotr Kornilov (brother of the famous leader of the White Movement Lavr Kornilov), Colonel Ivan Zaitsev, Lieutenant General Luka Kondratovich,[3] former assistant to the Governor–General of Turkestan, General Yevgeny Dzhunkovsky, as well as Lastochkin, Gordeev, Pavlovsky, colonels – Rudnev, Tsvetkov, Butenin, Savitsky, Oraz–Khan–Serdar, Krylov, Lebedev, Aleksandrov, lieutenant colonels – Blavatsky, Kornilov, Ivanov, officers – Gaginsky, Stremkovsky, Feldberg and others.[4] Later, the Commissioner for Military Affairs of the Turkestan Republic Konstantin Osipov joined the ranks of the Turkestan Military Organization,[5] surrounded by such officers as Colonel Rudnev, Osipov's orderly Bott, Gaginsky, Savin, Butenin, Stremkovsky and others.[6]

Ultimately, all the anti–Bolshevik forces of the region rallied around the Turkestan Military Organization – Constitutional Democrats, Mensheviks, right–wing Socialist Revolutionaries and bourgeois nationalists, Basmachi, and Muslim clergy, former officials of the tsarist administration, Dashnaks, Bundists.

In August 1918, in Tashkent, on the basis of the Turkestan Military Organization, the Turkestan Union for the Fight Against Bolshevism was created, which, in addition to officers, included, according to Soviet historians, such civilians as Count Georgy Dorrer, mining industrialist Pavel Nazarov, officials Alexander Tishkovsky, Shkapsky, Ivanov, technician Popov, engineer Agapov, constitutional democrats Shendrikov, Shchepkin, Mensheviks Zakhvataev, Levin, Mauer, Pogrebov, Skvortsov, Khvostovsky, socialist revolutionaries Funtikov, Domogatsky, Koluzaev, Khodzhaev, Belkov, Chaikin and others. Members of this underground organization established contact with Ataman Dutov, General Denikin, Kazakh Alash Orda nationalists, Emir of Bukhara, leaders of the Ferghana and Turkmen Basmachi, Trans–Caspian White Guards, British consuls in Kashgar, Kuldzha, Mashhad. The leaders of the organization signed an agreement under which they pledged to transfer Turkestan to an English protectorate for a period of 55 years. In turn, the representative of the British special services in Central Asia, Wilfrid Malleson, promised the representatives of the Turkestan Military Organization assistance in the amount of 100 million rubles, 16 mountain guns, 40 machine guns, 25 thousand rifles and the corresponding amount of ammunition. Thus, according to the staff of the Turkestan Extraordinary Commission, shared by Soviet researchers of this historical period, representatives of the British special services not only helped the conspirators, they determined the goals and objectives of the organization and controlled its actions, which, however, is not confirmed by the known documents of foreign sources.

In October 1918, the special services of the Turkestan Republic – together with the Criminal Investigation Department of Tashkent – went on the trail of an underground anti–Bolshevik organization, after which a number of arrests were made among its leaders. The leaders of the underground who remained at large left the city, but some branches of the organization survived and continued to operate. An English officer on a diplomatic mission in Tashkent – Frederick Bailey – went into an illegal position. According to Soviet historians, it was the Turkestan Military Organization that played an important role in initiating the uprising under the leadership of Konstantin Osipov in January 1919.

At the last stage of its existence, representatives of the new Soviet nomenklatura – the Bolshevik–Leninist Agapov[7] and the technician Popov – actually entered the ranks of the Turkestan Military Organization.

After the defeat of the uprising, the officers who left Tashkent formed the Tashkent Officer Partisan Detachment (101 people), which since March fought together with other anti–Bolshevik formations against the Red Units in the Fergana Valley, and then near Bukhara. Then the remnants of the Tashkent Officer Partisan Detachment united with the units of the Turkestan Army.

## See also

[edit]

* Turkestan Army (Armed Forces of the South of Russia)

## References

[edit]

1. ^ The first significant clash of officers of the Russian Army in Turkestan with the Soviets took place in February 1918, when a detachment of Colonel Ivan Zaitsev returning from Iran on February 14, 1918, collided with the Bolsheviks at Rostovtsevo Station. Ironically, it was in these battles that the successes of the armed detachments of the Bolsheviks under the command of former warrant officer Konstantin Osipov contributed to his further career, soon after which he became military commissar of the Autonomous Turkestan Republic.
2. ^ After the seizure of power in Russia by the Bolsheviks (including in Turkestan), the British special services at the border observation point over the adjacent territory in Mashhad (Persia) created a coordination center headed by an experienced intelligence officer, General Wilfrid Malleson. In the preface to Frederick Bailey's book Mission to Tashkent, the English writer Peter Hopkirk, writing on the work of British intelligence in Central Asia, writes:

> "... At the same time, a small British military mission, led by General Wilfrid Malleson, was sent to Mashhad to an old British listening and observation post in northeastern Persia to deal with what was happening in the Trans–Caspian region in front of them, and also to try to persuade the local population, which also overthrew the Bolsheviks, to oppose any Turkish or German attempts to seize the railway...".

> — Peter Hopkirk, Foreword to Frederick Bailey's Mission to Tashkent, Page 6

From this center, Malleson coordinated the actions of agents sent to Turkestan. By the summer of 1918, according to the Extraordinary Commission of the Turkestan Republic, British officers Bailey and Blacker, Russian officer Dzhunkovsky and prominent civilian Tishkovsky, and others appeared in Tashkent with the assistance of Malleson. Roger Treadwell, the American consul in Tashkent, also carried out active work to activate the counter–revolutionary, anti–Soviet forces. Soviet historiographers in their works considered British agents to be the main inspirers and organizers of anti–Soviet revolts of Dutov, Colonel Zaitsev's White Cossacks near Samarkand, Emir of Bukhara in March 1918, White Guards and Socialist Revolutionaries in Ashgabat, the struggle of Kokand Autonomists and Basmachi. Although now this seems to be a somewhat exaggerated and generally erroneous opinion.

3. ^ "Kondratovich Luka Lukich. Biography" (in Russian). «Russian army in a Great war» project.
4. ^ Ravshan Nazarov, Philosophiae Doctor in Philosophy, Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Tashkent). "White Guard of Turkestan" – All–Russian Scientific–Practical Conference "Civil War in the East of Russia" (Perm, November 24–26, 2008)
5. ^ Later, it was he who led the anti–Soviet uprising in January 1919 in Tashkent.
6. ^ The leadership of the Turkestan Military Organization included generals Kondratovich, Lastochkin, Gordeev, Pavlovsky, colonels – Rudnev, Tsvetkov, Butenin, Savitsky, Oraz–Sardar, Zaitsev, Krylov, Lebedev, Aleksandrov, lieutenant colonels – Blavatsky, Kornilov, Ivanov, officers – Gaginsky, Stremkovsky, Feldberg and others. Of the non–military, an active role in the Turkestan Military Organization was played by the engineer–geologist Nazarov, the English agent Tishkovsky, the left–wing Socialist Revolutionary Ashur Khodzhaev and others.
7. ^ "House of Vasily Agapov – the Secret Apartment of the Bolshevik Party (1904)". kulturnoe-nasledie.ru. Retrieved 2021-11-24.

## Sources

[edit]

* David Golinkov. The Collapse of the Anti–Soviet Underground, Book 1, pp. 253–254
* "Civil War and Military Intervention in the Soviet Union", Volume 1, "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1983
* Alexander Iskander, Prince. "Heavenly Campaign", "Military–Historical Bulletin", No. 9, Page 8
* Andrey Ganin. "The Big Game of Major General Ivan Zaitsev". Almanac "White Guard". 2005, No. 8. pp. 193–207
* Sergey Volkov. "The Tragedy of the Russian Officers. Chapter 4. Officers in the White Movement". The Author's Site of Sergei Volkov "White Movement" on the Virtual Server of Dmitry Galkovsky