Turkestan Commissars

14 revolutionary figures of the Turkestan ASSR who perished during the Tashkent Anti-Soviet Revolt of 1919, which was directed against party and soviet officials and against the Communists of Tashkent and all of Turkestan.

The Bolshevik leaders of the republic did not know that K. P. Osipov, military commissar of the Turkestan Republic, was organizing the revolt. On the night of January 18, at Osipov’s invitation (ostensibly to a meeting) several Bolshevik officials went to the former barracks of the 2nd Siberian Rifle Reserve Regiment, where the insurgents were waiting; these officials were V. D. Votintsev, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Turkestan Republic; N. V. Shumilov, chairman of the Tashkent soviet; V. N. Finkel’shtein, deputy chairman of the Tashkent soviet; and I. P. Fomenko, chairman of the Turkestan Extraordinary Commission (Cheka). At Osipov’s command, they were summarily shot.

Ten more commissars were executed, savagely murdered, or killed in battle between January 18 and 21: V. D. Figel’skii, chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Turkestan Republic; A. N. Malkov (Malkof), administrative head of operations for the Council of People’s Commissars and people’s commissar of internal and foreign affairs of the Turkestan Republic; A. la. Pershin, member of the executive committee of the Tashkent soviet; M. S. Kachuriner, chairman of the Tashkent council of trade unions; E. P. Dubitskii, people’s commissar for railroad transport of the Turkestan Republic; A. V. Cherviakov, chairman of the extraordinary court martial of the republic; D. G. Shpil’kov, commander of the Novgorod Fighting Druzhina (combat detachment); M. N. Troitskii, editor of the newspapers Turkestanskii kommunist and Krasnoarmeets; S. P. Gordeev, member of the executive committee of the Tashkent soviet; and G. I. Lugin, assistant commander of the guard in Tashkent.

After the suppression of the revolt on Jan. 26, 1919, 13 of the commissars were buried in a common grave in the former Alexander Park, which is now a public garden near the Tashkent Railroad Administration building. A. V. Cherviakov was buried in Perovsk (now Kzyl-Orda). In 1962 a monument was erected in honor of the 14 Turkestan commissars in Privokzal’naia Square in Tashkent.