102 ABASHIN, K. ABDULLAEV, R. ABDULLAEV, KOICHIEV
wake of this, Kurshirmat and Hol-Hodja, who also had thought of surrender, now
declared the creation of an Islamic state of Turkestan and vowed to continue the
struggle against the Bolsheviks. The rebels elected Kurshirmat as their head. At the
same time Mikhail Frunze and Valerian Kuibyshev, the most powerful members of
the Turkestan Commission, sidelined Ryskulov and his supporters on the Muslim
Bureau and rewrote many of the agreements with the
kurbashis. This caused a
number of former
kurbashis to quit the Red Army and rejoin the resistance move-
ment. Frunze ordered severe measures against all who opposed the Soviets. The
Reds should “cease all negotiations with the gang leaders. . . . All members of the
basmachi
gangs should be considered robbers and enemies of the people and must
be executed on the spot. And persons or groups found guilty of aiding the
basmachi
will be subject to the most severe punishment under the laws of war.”
16
Fighting flared up once again during the summer of 1920, although by now the
rebel forces were much weaker and numbered not more than 6,000 fighters in total.
Attacks on the
kurbashis gained new momentum during the fall. Newly reinforced
Red Army regulars, now backed by artillery and even aircraft, defeated the
kurbashis
in central and eastern Ferghana, which left practically the entire valley under the
Soviets’ control. Operations continued against separate large detachments late in
1921 and early in 1922, but these were purely local affairs.
In conclusion, let us ask about the loss of lives in this war and the “price” that
society paid during this period of transition. The Ferghana Valley suffered more
heavily than practically any other area of Central Asia. Obviously, nobody at the
time was tallying the exact number of victims. Various documents of the time of-
fer their versions of the totals; these figures cannot be substantiated, but we can
arrive at tentative numbers on the losses by comparing relatively reliable data on
the population of the Ferghana province in 1914 and again in 1926. The two extant
census figures for 1914 are 2,190,424 and 2,130,700, the difference between them
a modest 60,000.
17
If we assume an annual natural increase in population of 1.4
percent, then the population of the Ferghana province by 1926 should have been on
the order of 2,588,116 or 2,482,788. However, the actual census for 1926 reported
a total of only 2,037,484.
18
Over the intervening twelve-year-period, the missing
number somewhere between 550,632 and 445,304 people. This figure includes
all the unborn for the period, as well as those who died prematurely as a result of
starvation, disease, or in combat operations, as well as those who simply left the
area. Between 1916 and 1922 the birth rate almost certainly declined. So, if we
reduce the annual rate of increase from 1.4 percent to 1 percent, then the shortfall
falls to somewhere between 430,740 and 339,670 people. Thus, one may reasonably
conclude that between a third and a half million people perished in the war.
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