Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Mohiuddin Ahmad, Saiyid Ahmad Sha-

hid: His Life and Mission (Lucknow: Academy of Islamic 

Research and Publications, 1975); Ghulam Mohammad 

Jaffar, “Teachings of Shah Wali Allah and the Movement 

of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid of Bareilly.” Hamdard Islamicus

16, no. 4 (1993): 69–80; Barbara D. Metcalf, Islamic 

Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton, 

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982).

Basmachi

Basmachi, a Turkic word translated as “bandit,” 

was a derogatory term used by Bolshevik and 

Soviet authorities to refer to almost all forms 

of violent indigenous Central Asia resistance to 

Russian power following the Russian Revolu-

tions of 1917. This resistance grew in response 

to the economic and social dislocation resulting 

from Russian campaigns of land confiscation 

and looting. The largest movement labeled Bas-

machi was led by Enver Pasha (d. 1922), one of a 

number of former Turkish military officers who 

fought in the region under the banner of pan-

Turkism (a nationalist movement among Turkic 

peoples). Although he commanded 15,000 to 

20,000 troops by spring 1922, he and the other 

Turkish officers were seen as outsiders, and they 

failed to gain a real following among the popu-

lation. The Soviets made effective use of their 

greater military force, and in 1923, the govern-

ment offered amnesty to those rebels who would 

give up the fight and surrender their weapons. 

Revolts continued, however, with one large 

Basmachi group holding out for seven months 

in 1924.

Numerous so-called Basmachi revolts con-

tinued into the 1930s with varying intensity in 

Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. These 

revolts were different from those of the 1920s, 

as they were unorganized, peasant-based move-

ments with less of a coherent ideology. Soviet 

collectivization of 

agricUltUre

, their campaign 

to root out “class enemies” in the countryside, as 

well as an escalated struggle against Islam caused 

the number of these uprisings to increase. Most 

of the fighting men came from the peasantry, and 

their leaders were village elders, tribal heads, and 

Sufi shaykhs. Basmachi revolts were firmly rooted 

in local communities, so that organizationally and 

objectively they could never coalesce into a mass 

uprising large enough to dislodge the Soviets. The 

revolts also remained immune to calls to join the 

larger national or pan-Turkic struggle. By the late 

1930s, through military force and political and