The Russian Empire at War: The Central Asian Revolt of 1916

When Europe went to war in 1914, its empires went to war with it. For Britain and France (and, to a lesser extent, Germany) this meant mobilising overseas territories and peoples for conflict. For Russia, it meant mobilising a vast imperial hinterland linked contiguously to its centre.

When Russia went to war, its military mobilisation impacted firstly the Russian and Slavic heartlands, bringing a range of responses from patriotism to protest. In 1916, however, Muslims of Turkestan in Russia’s Central Asian provinces were called up. At the same time as Britain and France’s empires were enabling them to fight on against foreign adversaries, Russia’s attempted mobilisation of Central Asian Muslims triggered an armed uprising and virtual civil war within its empire.

The Central Asian Revolt of 1916 strikes at the very heart of what it meant for Russia to be an empire. If the experience of Britain suggests Empire is something distant and overseas, the experience of Imperial Russia, as a contiguous land empire, suggests something rather different. During the Great War, when Russia’s Central Asian province of Turkestan rose up in revolt, the challenge of managing a land empire at war would be vividly illustrated.

This post provides an explanation and outline of my approach to teaching the question of the Central Asian Revolt of 1916. Resources can be found here.

 

In Context

In the context of the Great War, empire was of course extremely important. Teaching the topic in Britain makes this clear. In addition to the long-celebrated contribution of the ANZACs, the pivotal role colonised peoples, in particular Indians, played in Britain’s military campaigns between 1914 and 1918 has become increasingly recognised, thanks to the work of public historians such as David Olusoga and Santanu Das.

The results of attempting to mobilise Central Asians within Russia’s lang empire could hardly have been more different. In 1916, a full-scale revolt broke out in Turkestan, in protest at the order for mobilisation. It swiftly brought the full, and devastating, punitive imperial might of the Russian Empire down on the region.

Russia’s rule of Central Asia already bore many of the hallmarks of European imperialism, including a programme of colonial settlement, condescending cultural attitudes, and a concern with extracting raw materials, especially cotton. Yet Central Asian Muslims had traditionally been exempt from military service, affording them a kind of privileged position in the society of Imperial Russia.

In June and July 1916, this changed.

The mobilisation order of 1916 did not in fact call Central Asian Muslims to arms, but rather mobilised them to provide labour to support the Russian military. Nevertheless, it sparked outrage. The prospect of contributing to a war effort against the Islamic Ottoman Empire, meaning Muslims helping Orthodox Christian Russia fight other Muslims, was compounded by the poor timing of the order, which coincided with the annual cotton harvest.

Dissent, and then open revolt, spread rapidly from the settled population of Turkestan to nomadic groups. Historian Jonathan Smele dates this moment, in 1916, as the start of a rolling civil war in Russia (traditionally historians have dated the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921). The Russian army hastily deployed forces to quell the uprising, under the leadership of Colonel P.P. Ivanov.

Ivanov’s actions were astonishingly brutal. According to one eyewitness:

Ivanov gave the order to shoot, to set fires and to confiscate household goods and agricultural tools. The units entered the villages, burned goods and shot anyone they encountered. Women were raped and other bestial events took place.

 

A Russian traveller arriving in the region three years later was shocked to find such devastation that “It seemed incredible that it was possible in so short a time to wipe whole villages off the face of the earth”.

In this sense, at least, the experience of Russia’s land empire was not so different from that of other European empires at war. Although Britain’s ability to mobilise colonial troops alongside its white dominions enabled it to emerge victorious from both World Wars, it too faced huge rebellions in India following the Great War and then during World War Two that shook its imperial confidence and prompted savage reprisals.

Nevertheless, facing a rebellion within its own landmass meant Russia was plunged in 1916 into a form of internal conflict which pointed the way for a vicious Civil War which would drag on for years after war in most of the rest of Europe had ended.

In Central Asia today, the revolt and its bloody suppression has developed its own significance. A hundred years after the event, a public commission in Kyrgyzstan declared the event a genocide. The label was rejected by Russia, whose State Duma chairman Sergei Naryshin retorted "all nations suffered 100 years ago." The continued controversy, which echoes ongoing debates about the nature and legacy of the British Empire, demonstrates the revolt's relevance and potency to people and politics today.

The Central Asian Revolt might not be the first things our minds go to as teachers when we think about Russia’s Great War. But it has the power to tell us a great deal about the Russian Empire, its past, and its future. It should not be forgotten.

 

Key Considerations for Teaching

• Russia was a land empire, meaning its imperial policies were internalised and, in every sense, “closer to home”.
• The 1916 Central Asian Revolt provides further evidence to support the interpretation that Russia’s Great War mobilisation was far more divisive and disrupting than some accounts might suggest (see also this post on the start of the Great War in 1914).
• The Revolt likewise marks a new high water mark in the internal imperial oppression of non-Russian peoples in the Russian Empire and, arguably, the start of mass terror against civilian populations that would become commonplace during the Civil War years of 1918-1921.

 

Vocabulary and Substantive Concepts

Before tackling this lesson, students should have a grasp of the following terms and their meanings.

• Revolt/Rebellion
• Mobilisation
• War/Total War
• Muslim/Islamic
• Empire/Imperial
• Colony/Colonial
• Civil War
• Genocide

 

Lesson Outline and Resources

I give the reading linked here as independent work for my Year 12 class, as part of an enquiry asking “What made the early 20^th century Russia’s ‘Age of Revolution’?” The resource, built around an extended extract from Jonathan Smele’s excellent The “Russian” Civil Wars 1916-1926, is aimed at KS5 students but structured to support student comprehension without direct teaching.

 

Further Reading

Jonathan D. Smele, The “Russian” Civil Wars 1916-1926: Ten Years That Shook the World, Hurst (2015)