The bukharan emirate and turkestan under russian rule in the revolutionary era: 1917-1924

particularly grave in most of Central Asia”.
316
In addition, the spread of Soviet 
influence and Soviet backed modernization in the country, in one respect, occurred 
through the Russian population in Uzbekistan. While these settlers served for Tsarist 
Russia in past, they now served for the interests for the Soviets as the best and the 
most natural collaborators for the Soviet Union. “Soviet domination, as the successor 
of Russian Imperialism only rose to power in Turkestan through the Russians.”
317
314
Northrop, Douglas Taylor, 
Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia
, (New 
York: Cornel University Press, 2004), 50-51. 
315
Ibid, 48. 
316
Allworth, Edward et al., 
Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule
, ed. Edward Allworth, (New 
York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 257. 
317
Hayit, Baymirza
, Islam and Turkestan under Russian Rule
, (Istanbul: Can Matbaa, 1987), 263. 

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120 
There were at least two million Russian inhabitants in the region.
318
Even, this fact 
was enforcing the Soviets and making them feel responsible to interfere and 
reorganize the region in accordance with its nationalities policy, otherwise these 
inhabitants would fall into danger, which would probably come from local 
population.
319
Also, the Russian population in the region was extremely essential for 
the Soviets to penetrate its language policy throughout the region. Penetration of 
Russian language into the whole region would be through these Russian settlers. 
These settlers had the responsibility to help Russian, the common language of 
communism, spread to the local peoples. 
The most dangerous and threatening issue for the Soviets was the 
maintenance of Young Bukharan formed government in new Uzbek state. It was 
well- known about their Pan-Turkist ideas and educational reforms in the era of 
People’s Republic. They were blamed for planning to spread Uzbek influence and 
found greater Uzbekistan. For these reasons, the national leadership of Bukhara was 
a crucial threat for the Soviet influence in newly created Uzbekistan. Therefore, 
Fayzallah Khodzhaev, president of the Council of People’s Commissars of 
Uzbekistan SSR, and the leader of nationalist wing, and also Akmal Ikramov, first 
secretary of Uzbekistan Communist Party, the leader of Bolshevik wing, were 
arrested and tried in Moscow for being a Trotskyite and a Rightist. Both Young 
Bukharan cadres and Bukharan Communist cadres having formed Uzbekistan 
Communist Party were not allowed to maintain their existence. They were executed 
on 13 March 1938. The other figures of nationalist cadres in Uzbekistan were 
318
Wheeler, Geoffrey, 
The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia
, (New York: Greenword Press, 
1964), 125. 
319
Ibid, 125. 

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121 
eliminated after the executions of the leaders.
320
 
Although Fayzallah Khodzhaev had 
been the prime minister of Bukhara Peoples’ Republic and then became the president 
of Uzbekistan SSR and also Akmal Ikramov was the first secretary of the Central 
Committee of the party in Uzbekistan from 1929 to 1937,in other words, both of two 
were cooperated as partners for long term; the clash between the Soviets and Young 
Bukharans controlled Uzbek SSR government regarding the Soviet’s pressure for the 
specialization of Uzbekistan in cotton production as it was enforced in the past
broke out.
The economic and social conflict had its origin in the raising of cotton, which the Soviet regime sought to 
emphasize, as the czarist government had done before it, Local personnel, who at the time of revolution, had seen the perils of 
economic of economic dependency based on monoculture stirred up the population against orders coming from the central 
government. Behind the cotton problem, sensed Soviet leaders, was fierce national resistance
.
321
The main problem was economic but it spilt over the social domain and thus 
caused the strengthening of national resistance backed by nationalist Young 
Bukharans who were now in power in the government of Uzbekistan. It was 
dangerous for the Soviets that the identity of new national republic, Uzbekistan, was 
built upon nationalist resistance arising from economic and agricultural reasons in 
the early years of the Socialist Republic. Therefore, the intervention was a necessity 
for the Soviets to prevent this emerging question. Even though Khodzhaev and 
Ikramov were politically rivals to each other, they were agreed on the cotton policy 
of the Soviets. Both Ikramov and Khodzhaev were put in target for using cotton 
crisis to strengthen nationalist resistance and this caused the purge of last Jadid 
cadres’ remnants in Turkistan by the Soviets. The leaders’ arrestment and execution 
excuses were very interesting. Fayzallah Khodzhaev was accused of burying his 
brother in accordance with Islamic rites as an excuse for his arrestment, and Akmal 
320
Allworth, Edward et al., 
Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule
,ed. Edward Allworth,(New 
York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 263. 
321
Allworth, Edward et al., 
Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule
,ed. Edward Allworth,(New 
York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 262-263. 

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122 
Ikramov was accused of being a nationalist in a newspaper article as an excuse for 
his arrest.
322
After the elimination of these last Jadid cadres, Uzbekistan SSR’s 
complete control passed to the Soviets. Thus, while impressing the identity of pan-
Turkist Jadidism maintain its influence in the region from the early 1900s, a new 
Uzbek identity, which was more compatible to the Soviet regime, was built. 
On the other perspective, the Soviet penetration in Central Asia and 
especially Uzbekistan was different from any other colonial power’s penetration in 
the world and even the Tsarist rule’s. The importance of the Soviets and their 
Sovietizing policies of the local regions carried a modernizing mission and 
modernization character. For example, although it was so difficult to draw exact 
boundaries in the culturally complex world, the Soviet Union dealt with each Soviet 
Socialist state for creating their national identities, constructing literary languages 
and alphabet, and establishing their political hierarchies. In Central Asia, the Soviet 
ethnographers collected folk tales and focused on local customs to make better 
analysis to distinct each nation’s identity. 
323
The Soviets were different from the 
Tsarist administrators who only dealt with tax collection and military security. The 
Soviets focused on the matters of local society or culture because they analyzed the 
world with different terms. The Soviets saw Central Asia as a primitive region and 
wanted to modernize it thus the Soviets planned to make Central Asian nations to 
move towards socialism.
324
The Soviets aimed a complete transformation in terms of 
economy, politics, culture and society for the region in order to recreate the men and 
322
Wheeler, Geoffrey, 
The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia
, (New York: Greenword Press, 
1964), 142. 
323
Northrop, Douglas Taylor, 
Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia
,(New 
York: Cornel University Press, 2004), 18-19. 
324
Northrop, Douglas Taylor, 
Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia
,(New York: 
Cornel University Press, 2004), 19. 

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123 
women of southern Central Asia as true modern Soviet citizens.
325
“Unlike its Tsarist 
predecessor, however, the USSR was also a distinctively modern and modernizing 
state. In both center and periphery, that is, it sought simultaneously to build a polity 
with a common ideal of citizenship and thus its insistent anti colonization also needs 
to be taken seriously, as more than more rhetoric. The unveiling campaign in some 
ways expressed this credo: it aimed to make Uzbeks into Soviet citizens rather than 
simply imperial subjects”.
326
 
To recreate a modern society in Uzbekistan, according 
to the unveiling campaign, the women had to take off their veils firstly.
327
The Soviet 
program in Central Asia was to modernize the women in order to create a modern 
nation and modern nations. 
325
Ibid, 19. 
326
Ibid, 23. 
327
Ibid, 23. 

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124