Tashkent Anti-Soviet Revolt of 1919

a counterrevolutionary armed outbreak that took place in Tashkent from Jan. 19th Jan. 21, 1919.

On Dec. 27, 1918, the underground White Guard Turkestan Military Organization, which had gathered together other anti-Soviet forces, formed the Provisional Committee, headed by a former ensign, K. P. Osipov, who had infiltrated the Bolshevik party and had become military commissar of the Turkestan ASSR. The Provisional Committee, which was closely associated with the Right Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and Dashnaks and with the leaders of the Basmachi, planned simultaneous anti-Soviet revolts in Tashkent and Skobelev (Fergana) and in Semirech’e Oblast. The revolts were timed to coincide with the general offensive of the British interventionists from the south, Kolchak’s troops from the north, and the Basmachi bands from the interior; the aim was to seize Turkestan. The instigators of the revolt included the British spies F. Bailey and Edwards; the American consul, R. C. Tredwell; and the French agents Capedeville and J. Castagnier.

On the night of January 19, according to a prepared plan, the rebels began the uprising together with some troops from the Tashkent garrison who had been deceived by Osipov. The uprising was begun earlier than the originally projected date, since the revolt’s leaders were threatened with exposure. On Osipov’s orders, the members of the government of the Turkestan Republic—the Turkestan commissars—and other soviet and party workers were shot. By the morning of January 19 the rebels had seized most of Tashkent, except for the House of Freedom, the fortress, and the Central Railroad Works. However, the members of the provisional revolutionary committee, including the Communists A. A. Kazakov and D. I. Manzhara and the commandant of the fortress, I. P. Belov, gathered their forces, consisting of workers’ detachments, soldiers from the garrison, Red cadets, and a detachment of Uzbek Communists from the old city. After intensive street fighting, by two o’clock on the morning of January 21 these forces rid the city of the rebels, who fled to the Fergana Basmachi.