Ethnic and Class Conflicts in Turkestan

Despite the fact that the Russian mobilization of human and material sources during World War I impressed for its self-discipline, there was a considerable crisis in manipulating the civil industry. Russia concentrated its main workforce on the military munitions, therefore, the railway system paralysed, which meant a fail in military transportation. Administration needed to do something to compensate the labour shortage. The problem was solved, though not decisively; by the issuing of decree to conscribe a local “tuzemcy” for defence works. The local population of Central Asia started to rebel soon after the issuing of decree. There was an uncertainty in whether the decree was issued correctly or not; Russian officials were already conscious of the risk of rebel. The discontent over growing number of Russia settlers competing for the water and land resources and the policy of confiscation of grazing land by Resettlement Administration are amongst the long-term causes of a revolt. While trying to acquit the policy of colonization in the view of “benevolent influence” of sedentary Russian colonials over nomadic Kazakh-Kyrgyz lifestyle (Paul Nazaroff 1934), Tsarist colonial regime failed to recognize the discrepancy on interests of the nomads. Western scholars use to emphasise the political and social issues of the revolt (Brawer 1996), stressing the discontent of the nomads on massive land confiscation. Brawer highlights that western scholars account that the general opposition was due to the military call of people, who previously were exempt from it. However, the main misleading part of this statement is that there was no difference between the revolts of different parts of the resistance. Unlike western scholars, Soviet and Kaz...

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