THE HISTORY OF CRUDE DIVISION: THE CREATION OF TURKESTAN WAS GENOCIDE FOR THE TAJIKS

(Continuation of "The History of Crude Division")

Any discussions suggesting that the party and state authorities of the Turkestan Republic, whether among the local population or among Russians and other nationalities, allegedly did not know about the existence of the ancient indigenous people of Central Asia — the Tajiks, are baseless and seem laughable. They could not have been unaware that the Tajiks are the oldest people among all the inhabitants of Central Asia, possessing a centuries-old culture, advanced agriculture, and urban development to which Central Asia owes its existence. It is sufficient to refer to the evidence of one researcher who wrote: "...the Tajiks are the creators of almost the entire irrigation system that sustains the great valley of Turkestan; however, their current situation is characterized by fragmentation and displacement, preventing them from creating their own independent political life."

The author fairly writes that "the consolidation of the Uzbeks accelerated the process of Turkification of the Iranian society" and, citing I. I. Zarubin, adds, "the Turkic-speaking and Iranian-speaking people, who before the Uzbek migration were called Sarts by the Uzbeks and Kazakhs and are still so called, never developed a distinct ethnic identity."

In the article by young ethnographer R. R. Rahimov, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the well-known historian of Central Asian peoples I. I. Zarubin, accurate data is provided on the number of Tajiks in various cities and regions before and after the territorial division. "According to I. I. Zarubin, the Uzbek people 'in the eyes of history' emerged from the merging of part of the Turkic tribes, mainly Kazakhs settled in Mavarannahr. Uzbeks, mixing with various Turkic groups who had previously arrived in the region at different stages and intermingled with the settled Turkic and Iranian tribes, underwent significant changes."

Analyzing the population of Central Asian cities, I. I. Zarubin found that in 1915, in the traditionally multiethnic Samarkand, the census results were: "59,901 Tajiks and 819 Uzbeks." In 1920, there were 44,578 Tajiks and 3,311 Uzbeks. "The decline in the number of Tajiks in 1920 compared to 1915 is explained by the fact that the famine of 1917-1918 in Samarkand claimed the lives of a significant number of Tajiks. At the same time, it can be assumed that the increase in the number of Uzbek-speaking people was due to the Tajik-speaking population and others."

Regarding the issue currently being discussed, it can be said that the creation of the Turkestan Republic and the forced assimilation of Tajiks, accompanied by gross violations of censuses, the promotion of Uzbeks to leadership positions, and the introduction of administration, education, media, and other institutions in Uzbek and Turkic languages, played a significant role.

R. R. Rahimov compares the ethnographic data collected by I. I. Zarubin with information from other sources, leading to the surprising conclusion that the number of Tajiks dramatically decreased during the few years of the Turkestan Republic's existence.

The conclusion of L. F. Kostenko, cited by R. R. Rahimov, states: "At the end of the last century, Tajiks constituted the majority of the population in Samarkand." N. I. Virsky shares this view. In the social table he published in 1876 regarding the Zarafshan district, it is stated that the population of Samarkand was 35,326 people. Of these, 33,622 were Tajiks. The rest of the city's population consisted of Persians, Indians, Bukharan Jews, and Uzbeks.

According to the 1897 census of the Russian Empire, the majority of the population of the cities of the Samarkand region were Tajiks (60.58% men, 66.58% women) and Uzbeks (13.59% men, 13.55% women). The data of the 1926 All-Union census were also falsified, and even the simplest rules were grossly violated. As a result, in the city of Samarkand in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, 10,716 Tajiks and 43,304 Uzbeks were registered.

The creation of the Turkestan Soviet Autonomous Republic and the subsequent national-territorial division were, in essence, genocide for the Tajiks. The very concept of a "Turkestan Republic" implied that in Central Asia, besides Turks, no other people existed. The country's leaders, the heads of its central institutions, and the Russians either forgot or deliberately ignored the advice of scholars and historians who repeatedly pointed out that the indigenous and ancient population of Central Asia were the Tajiks and that the creation of their national state was of great importance. Meanwhile, in the fierce competition between Pan-Turkists, who were striving to create an independent Turkestan separate from Russia, and the Russian party and Soviet workers, who were trying to keep this region within Russia, the fate of the Tajik people was forgotten.

T. Ryskulov, in his speech at the third provincial conference of the RCP(b) on "Autonomy and Strengthening of Turkestan," specifically noted: "Now the Turkic communists must correct the historical mistake, especially the mistake of the people of Turkestan. Representatives of the working Turks, true revolutionaries united under the communist banner, create a single communist union."

The united Pan-Turkists, centered around the provincial Muslim Bureau, were practically spreading the reactionary ideology of Pan-Turkism under the guise of revolutionary slogans. They were assisted in this by Tatar and Bashkir representatives working in Soviet and party bodies, as well as Ottoman Turks who held key positions in the national divisions of the Red Army. Once they realized that creating a national autonomy for the Turkic peoples of Central Asia outside Soviet rule was impossible, they concluded that they should create a national self-determination weapon from the Red Army forces, solely for Muslims — Turks.

In essence, the Soviet authorities in Turkestan did not implement the process of national self-determination for the peoples of Central Asia, which had begun within the framework of the Russian Empire, but rather distorted it. This power was not aligned with the interests of various peoples, especially the Tajiks.

All these efforts by the Turkic, especially Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Turkmen intellectuals, as well as a certain portion of Tajik intellectuals who joined them, can be seen as attempts, poisoned by the ideology of Pan-Turkism, to create a single Turkic nation, possibly based on the medieval spiritual and religious unity of Muslims — Pan-Islamism, or, as in Turkey, the representatives of this movement were the local bourgeoisie, the Jadids.

(To be continued)
Rahim Masov