We continue publication of articles regarding Central Asia, written by British and American authors in the 20^th century.  Today, we offer for the consideration of our esteemed audience, the exposition of an article (The Pacific Affairs, 1942), written by William Marx Mandel (June 4, 1917 – November 24, 2016), an American Broadcast Journalist, Orientalist and Soviet Analyst. For the purposes of objectiveness, we must emphasize that William Mandel was a left-wing activist.  The exposition will come in 3 parts.

Geography

Central Asia stands as a realm historically dominated by the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, and Turkmen. These peoples inhabit a territory nearly half the size of the United States. The region shares its eastern boundary with Xinjiang, stretching over a thousand miles. To the west, it extends to Stalingrad and Astrakhan. The northern limits of Central Asia nearly reach the Trans-Siberian Railway, intersecting near the city of Petropavlovsk in the Kazakh SSR.

Yet the center of gravity for population, economy, and culture does not lie in the arid and virtually waterless north. It is situated in the wondrous and fertile soils of the far south of this boundless territory.

Tashkent, the eighth-largest city in the USSR, stands as one of the five cities once under Soviet control. Today, it emerges as the industrial and cultural capital of Central Asia. Furthermore, it serves as the administrative capital of the Uzbek SSR – the most populous and developed republic in the region. Here, in the southern realms of Central Asia, where the local indigenous population predominates, Tsarist Russia and the USSR faced one of their most formidable challenges – war.

The Arrival of Tsarism

Tsarism did not endeavor to conquer Central Asia until the 1860s of the bygone century (the 19th, to clarify). The social structure of the territories Russia overcame between 1860 and 1885 largely remained unchanged for about another half-century. The local system of land distribution and exploitation, the cornerstone of the economy, was not supplanted by the Soviet land management system until 1925.

The social fabric was quintessentially «Asian.» The foundation was laid by the land irrigation system and the dense population in the oases. Economic prosperity hinged on the control of irrigation canals.

The land management system was feudal. Crop yields depended significantly on the relationship between local feudal lords and the central monarchy. When the central government’s power was strong, agriculture flourished, and the canals timely delivered water to the fields.

However, when the beks, local leaders, began to feel strong enough to challenge the Tsar and his men, or even to overthrow their authority, agricultural productivity waned. This was especially true during prolonged periods of war, during which agriculture suffered greatly.

The Model of Colonial India

At the time of its conquest, the strongest emirates in the region were those of Khiva and Bukhara. Due to their might, the Russian Tsars developed a model of colonial policy akin to the British in India.

Tsarism did not obliterate these states as it did in Kokand, Khorezm, and Merv. Instead, the existing emirates were divided. The finest lands in Samarkand and the Fergana Valley were allocated to Russian settlers. The remaining parts of the emirates received certain privileges for their loyalty.

The emirs remained in power, transforming into faithful vassals of the Russian Tsars. In return, the latter adhered to their national policy, under which the emirs continued to enrich themselves at the expense of their subjects.

For instance, by 1920, the Emir of Bukhara possessed precious stones, real estate, and other wealth amounting to 175 million U.S. dollars. Yet, the total population in his domain was less than that of New York, and its economy was incomparably weaker.

The Wealth of the Powerful

The foundation of this wealth was the established economic system. The Emir, as well as his chief feudal bek, owned vast territories. Revenues from these lands flowed into their personal treasuries. Some lands were hereditary possessions of the beks, others belonged to mosques and madrasas. The dehkans retained only a quarter of the harvest.

The most ruthlessly exploited were the farmers on lands gifted by the emir to his favorites. Such gifts were made for limited periods. The temporary bek had no intention of developing the territory; his aim was to enrich himself through taxes and other levies, here and now.

In addition to unbearable rental conditions and crop sharing, peasants, including those who owned their land, paid feudal dues. Moreover, they were required to participate in various public works, including dredging canals, constructing and repairing roads and bridges, and laboring in urban defense construction.

The dehkans also bore the cost of maintaining the administrative apparatus, as the emir did not pay salaries to officials. Officials fattened themselves by levying various charges: for crossing bridges, using mills, owning carts, and draft animals. Primitive slavery was widespread, exploiting prisoners of war and the poorest dehkans. In remote regions, the most archaic forms of communal land ownership prevailed. In the cities lived craftsmen and traders, dominated by feudal orders. These orders were, accordingly, the basis of all forms of economic activity.

Corruption

Following their conquest, the peoples of the emirates of Khiva and Bukhara, as well as those residing in the most populous areas of Central Asia, were subsumed under the Turkestan Governor-Generalship. They were subjected to even more severe exploitation, both economically and administratively. The Tsarist taxes levied on the population of Russian Turkestan were significantly higher than those in the European part of Russia, by a substantial margin of 50-150%.

Tsarist tax collectors replaced the former, emirate ones. However, the everyday life of ordinary people remained unchanged. Russian officials, taking the place of the beks, sold lower positions to locals for bribes. Those who won the right to hold a position through cloaked auctions actively worked to recoup their investments at the expense of the dehkans.

In addition to dividing the territory of Central Asia into «national states» and Russian Turkestan, Tsarism subjected the peoples of the region to oppressions. This decisively undermined the local peoples’ potential for achieving independence.

Divide and Rule

Through the arbitrary establishment of administrative borders, the peoples found themselves divided. This scheme existed long before the colonization of Central Asia, but it was under the Tsarist regime that its worst aspects came to light.

Uzbeks, forming the majority in Khiva and Bukhara, were further divided. This was because the Samarkand, Fergana, and Syr Darya regions, where Kazakhs predominated, were administratively united into Turkestan.

Tajiks, inhabiting the mountainous country closest to India, were split between the Bukharan Emirate and the Fergana region of Turkestan. Kyrgyz were divided between the Fergana and Semirechye regions, although the latter was predominantly inhabited by Kazakhs.

Nearly all the Turkmen were incorporated into the Trans-Caspian region of Turkestan, where Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Karakalpaks also resided. In each of these regions, old and new, or artificially inflated problems in interethnic relations led to the creation of a complex web of issues. This significantly complicated any resistance to conquest.

Worse Than in America, The Colonial Strain in Central Asia

Into this ethnically rich region arrived Russian officials and Cossacks as the offensive and sustaining force. They were followed by streams of wealthy peasants seeking expansion opportunities and poor peasants hoping for a better life. The latter were driven here to alleviate some of the protest potential in the European part of Russia.

Another aim was to significantly dilute the local population. Following them were traders of manufactured goods, vodka industrialists, and raw material buyers. The core of this influx comprised people motivated by the desire to possess land. The Tsar granted them this, having first taken it from the locals.

In what is now Kazakhstan alone, 100 million acres were colonized. A similar process unfolded in other regions of Central Asia.

The nomads suffered most. The process of land colonization differed from the American one. It was far more painful than the colonization of the indigenous population of America. Livestock driven into the desert perished, followed by the demise of the nomads.

Between 1902 and 1905, the Kyrgyz lost 27% of their livestock. And between 1903 and 1913, between 7% to 10% of the Kyrgyz population perished (according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Volume 32, page 377).

TO BE CONTINUED