Autonomous Soviet Republic within the Russian SFSR, which existed on the territory of the former Turkestan Governorate General of the Russian Empire in 1918–1924 and included the Transcaspian, Samarkand, Semirechyenskaya, Fergana regions, and the Syr-Darya territory.

 

Soviet power had been established in most of the territory of the former Turkestan Governorate General by the spring of 1918 (in the Semirechyensk region by mid-1918). On April 30, 1918, the Turkestan Soviet Federative Republic was proclaimed at the 5th Founding Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’ and Dekhkans’ Deputies (dekhkans is the term for Central Asian peasants) of the Turkestan Krai. It “recognized and coordinated its actions with the central government of the Russian Soviet Federation, being governed autonomously”. The highest authority in the Turkestan SFR was the Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, which elected the Central Executive Committee (TsIK) and the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK). Fedor Kolesov, Bolshevik, became the Chairman of the First Council of People’s Commissars of the Turkestan SFR.

 

The Turkestan SFSR was twice cut off from the Russian SFSR. In the summer of 1918, the Orenburg Cossacks under the command of Ataman Aleksander Dutov (Orenburg Front), Semirechyensk Cossacks (Semirechyensky Front), and the forces of the Transcaspian Provisional Government (Transcaspian Front, formed after the Askhabad revolt in July 1918) were standing between Soviet Turkestan and the main territory of the Red Army.

 

On January 22, 1919, the troops of the Eastern Front of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army occupied Orenburg, and the siege of the Turkestan SFR ended. However, the troops of the Ataman Aleksander Dutov again cut off the region from the Russian SFSR (Aktyubinsk front) in April 1919. In 1919, the forces of the Turkestan SFR were engaged in fierce fighting on the Semirechyensk front (until November 22, 1919) against the Separate Semirechyensk Army under the command of Boris Annenkov and on the Transcaspian front against the Turkestan Army of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR). An independent Turkestan Front (under the command of Mikhail Frunze) was allocated from the Eastern Front of the Red Army in August 1919 to provide assistance to the Turkestan SFR. On August 25, the troops of the Turkestan SFR were put under the authority of the Commander of the Turkestan Front. Communication with the Russian SFSR was restored on September 13, 1919.

 

In 1920, units of the Turkestan Front of the Red Army played a decisive role in overthrowing the monarchist regimes in Khiva (February 2) and Bukhara (September 2). Soviet troops defeated the Basmachi detachments of the Irgash, the People’s Peasant Army of Fergana, and others by the end of 1919–early 1920 (but the struggle against the Basmachi in the region continued until the early 1930s).

 

The 9th Congress of Soviets of Turkestan was held in September 1920 and approved the new Constitution of the republic, now called the Turkestan (Autonomous) Socialist Soviet Republic. On December 30, 1922, the Turkestan ASSR entered the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as part of the Russian SFSR. On October 27, 1924, the Turkestan ASSR was abolished, its territories became part of the Turkmen SSR, the Uzbek SSR, the Kirghiz ASSR, and the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast of the Russian SFSR.