Osh. Revolutionary Events of 1905-1907.

The revolutionary protests of workers, townspeople, and peasants in southern Kyrgyzstan in 1905-1907 were an integral part of the first popular revolution in Russia during the period of imperialism.
After the events of Bloody Sunday—January 9, 1905, in St. Petersburg, influenced by the revolutionary upsurge sweeping the country, the growing national liberation movement flowed into the overall stream of democratic forces. Together with their Russian brothers, the workers and peasants of Central Asia and other national regions rose up against tsarism.

The beginning of the strike movement among Turkestan workers, including the spring strikes of miners in Kyzyl-Kiya and Suluktu, was accompanied by unrest among the Kyrgyz and Uzbek peasantry in Eastern Fergana during the winter (due to famine) and spring of 1905. They flared up during the re-elections of ainal-volost administration, amid attempts by kulaks-colonizers and resettlement officials to seize communal Kyrgyz lands. Thus, the peasants protesting against the oppression and violence of the bai-manaps and tsarist authorities disrupted the elections of the grassroots Kyrgyz administration in the Bulak-Bashinsky volost of Osh district, in the Bagyshsky volost, and in several other volosts of Namangan district. In the Bazar-Kurgan volost of Andijan district, the peasants openly told the tsarist authorities that they wanted to see their own people in the administration of the volosts, not individuals "who emerged into the public eye due to chance and affluence."

When, under pressure from ordinary community members, on March 21, the fifty-member electors elected not a candidate of the Kyrgyz feudal-tribal elite and district authorities, but their own representative in the Turuk volost of Osh district, the Fergana military governor did not approve the election results. In other cases, such as in the village of Kurchin in the Kugart volost of Andijan district, the unrest among the peasants was suppressed by force. This was a peculiar form of struggle by the Kyrgyz working class for the democratization of grassroots governance.

The revolutionary whirlwind of the first popular revolution in Russia found a lively response both among the settlers and among the indigenous population of the Turkestan region: sedentary residents, nomads, and semi-nomads, who sympathized with the liberation movement of the peoples of Russia and supported it with their protests. This is confirmed by information from documentary materials, even those coming from the district and city authorities, who often sought to present the situation on the ground in reports to higher authorities as prosperous and calm. However, it is also true that due to the constantly undertaken "protective" measures by the tsarist administration in 1905, there were no open political rallies in Osh, unlike in Pishpek and other more industrially developed district cities of the Fergana region and the regional center—New Margilan, nor were there demonstrations or marches through the streets of the city "with anti-government speeches." The reason is quite clear: the absence in Osh of a compact mass of industrial workers and a social-democratic organization during this period. However, this does not mean that Osh remained unnoticed by the revolutionary social democracy of Fergana and Tashkent: on June 10, 1905, a non-commissioned officer of the 10th Turkestan Rifle Battalion, stationed in Osh, received by mail a proclamation published in Tashkent, composed on behalf of the Tashkent group of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party.

The Tashkent Bolsheviks called on the soldiers of Osh to "join their voices with the comrades of the sapper battalion."

If in 1905 there were no mass protests of the working people in Osh, the "watchful eye" of the authorities, closely monitoring public opinion, did not miss instances of free conversations about the news from "extreme" (left) newspapers among the city's residents, which had not been observed before. Consequently, anti-government revolutionary publications, including social-democratic press, reached the democratically minded part of the townspeople, who discussed the pressing events of the political life of the country, expressing their sympathy for the revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat.

In contrast to the progressive public of the city, the trade-industrial and bureaucratic elite of Osh supported the program of the Cadet "Union of October 17." Among the residents of the "old city," who, according to the authorities, had previously been allegedly passive towards political life, discussions began about the upcoming elections for a deputy to the State Duma. In the circles of the national bourgeoisie and Muslim clergy, the "petition campaign" found a response—an attempt to extract minor concessions from tsarism.

In the spring and summer of 1905, unrest among the Kyrgyz population increased in several places in Osh district, as well as in other areas of the Fergana region, in connection with the elections of grassroots administration. In the "disorder" during the elections in the village of Kashgar-Kishlak in Andijan district, removed with the help of military force, Kyrgyz nomads from the foothill aul of Massy (now the center of the Lenin district of Osh region) participated. The poor rejected the bai's candidate and nominated a popular candidate among the people, X. Avazov, who had previously been convicted for resisting the authorities. However, the district administration did not approve his election, appointing the volost's agreeable X. Khalimbaev, which caused sharp indignation among ordinary community members.

By order of the military governor, district officials took a number of protective measures, fearing mass protests from the Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tajik working population in the region. In response to the unrest observed among the Kyrgyz, caused, according to the grassroots authorities, by rumors of an "anti-government nature" reaching them, on April 27, 1905, a secret circular was sent to the Osh and other district officials, as well as to the police chiefs of the cities, regarding the need to strengthen surveillance over the indigenous population, and in case of the appearance of agitators—to take immediate measures for their arrest and expulsion.

In addition to the struggle for the democratization of grassroots administration, Kyrgyz peasants expressed dissatisfaction with tax oppression. It is not surprising that in May 1905, rumors even spread among the Osh Kyrgyz about a supposed "rebellion" against taxes among their compatriots in Semirechye.

Peasants from Osh and other districts of the Fergana region also protested against the seizure of communal lands for the colonization fund. Persistent rumors that the lands of Kyrgyz nomads would be seized for resettlement villages prompted the district authorities to consider it necessary to clarify the "rights" of the Kyrgyz in land use. These facts indicate that the administration was forced to listen to the public opinion of the working peasantry and respond with repressive measures.

The struggle of the working peasantry for land was one of the manifestations of the escalating social contradictions in the aul. The Kyrgyz population of Andijan district drove away land surveyors, not allowing them to carry out work on the seizure of their lands under the pretext of "surpluses" for the colonization fund. This occurred, for example, on June 20, 1905, near the village of Massy in the Izbaskent volost of this district (now the village of Lenin-Jol in the Lenin district of Osh region). The indignant peasant poor of Osh and other districts of the Fergana region repeatedly submitted complaints to the tsarist authorities, protesting against the seizure of communal lands and demanding their return.

In the summer and autumn of 1905, the revolutionary movement in the southern regions of Kyrgyzstan, as well as throughout the Turkestan region, continued to grow. It manifested itself in various forms of struggle by the working people against dual oppression and seriously alarmed the tsarist administration. The November (1905) strike of Turkestan telegraph workers forced the authorities of Osh and other districts to hire special horsemen for the transportation of official and military mail.

Under the influence of the agitation of Turkestan social democrats, strikes of miners and unrest among soldiers occurred in the Fergana cities in November-December 1905, including among the soldiers of the 9th company in Osh. Attempts were made to create military-revolutionary organizations in Turkestan garrisons. As the tsarist authorities in the region were forced to admit, rumors about the revolutionary events of the "fifth year" in Russia stirred the Kyrgyz nomads, and the spirit of freedom reached even the most remote, distant auls. This was reported, in particular, to the authorities by the commander of the Gulchin garrison on December 14, 1905.

With the suppression of the December armed uprising of Moscow workers—the peak of the bourgeois-democratic revolution—tsarism tightened its punitive policy everywhere. But even in the conditions of the decline of the revolutionary movement in 1906-1907 in Turkestan, including the southern Kyrgyz regions, scattered agrarian protests of the working peasantry continued. Alarmed by this, the bai-manap elite from Namangan and other districts of Kyrgyzstan gathered for their congress in Kettmen-Tube in the summer of 1906 to develop measures against the agitated landless bukharas. And the tsarist authorities of the Fergana and Samarkand regions repeatedly and with concern noted even the increase in attacks by peasant poor on their oppressors. Among them was an assassination attempt on a biya (judge) in the Mayli-Sai volost of Andijan district in November 1906, which the administration considered "for political motives." The population continued to refuse to pay tsarist taxes, leading to an increase in the amount of so-called arrears (especially in the Khojent district of Samarkand region), and sabotaged the execution of numerous state duties.

In 1906, active agitation and propaganda activities of social democrats among the urban poor of Osh and the democratically minded intelligentsia intensified. This was related, in particular, to the expulsion here of monitored revolutionaries—D. E. Churakov, V. V. Osobov, and other participants of the uncovered underground circle among the soldiers of the Margilan garrison, as well as with the trip of prominent Bolshevik agitator and propagandist V. V. Bykhovsky through the Fergana cities. In early 1906, drilling master Dmitry Yegorovich Churakov, a member of the RSDRP since 1902, was exiled from Baku to Osh for settlement under supervision for participating in the revolutionary movement of the Baku proletariat. But even in the new place, he did not cease his revolutionary activity, traveling from Osh to oil fields in Chimiion and other points in Fergana to establish contacts with advanced workers and local social democrats. By the end of the year, when repressions began against members of the social-democratic group and among the soldiers of the Osh exiled regiment, he ended up behind bars as an active member of this group, whose activities could not go unnoticed by the authorities.

The revolutionary ferment among the townspeople and rural residents from the indigenous population in Osh and other districts of Fergana did not give the tsarist authorities peace. This circumstance led to the emergence on January 11, 1906, of a new secret circular from the Fergana military governor to Osh and other district officials, as well as to the police chiefs of the cities, reaffirming the "necessity to closely monitor the mood during this anxious time" and, in case of the appearance of agitators among them with the aim of inciting the population against the government, to immediately report this to the governor, taking all possible measures to eliminate their influence on the population. Alarmed by large protests of workers and unrest among soldiers propagandized by social democrats, including in Osh, the military governor of the region, dissatisfied with the long-standing state of enhanced protection, achieved the introduction of a state of emergency in the region from September 17, granting him the powers of the commander-in-chief. The Fergana administration used troops, including those from the Osh garrison, to prevent and suppress popular unrest. Thus, when a general Maximovich arrived in Turkestan on a special mission from the tsar to demonstrate the power of the tsarist authorities, troops from Osh were also called to the review in Fergana. And when panic reports about an attack by Kyrgyz on the Ak-Bosogo postal station (on the way to Kashgar) were received in Osh, a military-hunting team was sent there from the city without waiting for confirmation.

Despite the defeat of the first Russian revolution, its political lessons and experience were not in vain for the working masses of the country, who preserved their loyalty to the revolutionary traditions of the "fifth year." According to the well-known definition of V. I. Lenin, the revolution of 1905-1907 served as a "dress rehearsal" for the February 1917 revolution and the victory of the Great October.

Although the popular protests in 1905-1907 in Turkestan and southern Kyrgyzstan were suppressed by the authorities, the reasons that caused them were not eliminated. The protests of the working people against their oppressors did not cease during the years of reaction and the new revolutionary upsurge. The harsh repressions against the social democrats of Osh in early 1907 dealt a significant blow to the development of the revolutionary movement in the city, although they could not silence the acute discontent of the working people with social and national oppression and prevent the emergence of new revolutionaries. The few surviving documents testify to manifestations of protest from representatives of the indigenous population against the tsarist authorities and the local exploitative elite. Thus, as early as 1908, by order of the Turkestan governor-general, three residents of Osh were exiled beyond the borders of the region for five years "as harmful and politically unreliable individuals."

In the autumn of 1909, great excitement reigned in the city due to the rebellion of prisoners in the Osh city prison on September 9, protesting against inhumane conditions of detention (in death cells designed for 60 people, the authorities kept 115 convicts), and the cruel treatment of the prison chief and guards. As a result of the clash with the prison guards, 10 people among the guards and guards were injured, and 10 prisoners were killed and 9 wounded. This spontaneous protest, without external support, was brutally suppressed by the authorities, and the subsequent military field court in Osh sentenced 11 prisoners to death and 19 to hard labor in Siberia for a period of 6 to 20 years. Among the convicted were residents of nearby Kyrgyz and Uzbek villages.

In 1910, unrest occurred among the townspeople of Osh in connection with the election of a mudarris—a teacher in one of the religious schools; and at the end of the year, for a "daring" insulting expression against the tsar, a resident of Osh, Rahmatulla Abdul Vagapov, was convicted. The working people of Kyrgyzstan expressed their hatred for the tsar-executioner in 1913 as well, refusing to hang portraits of Nicholas II, the "bloody" one, in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty.

These are the facts about the manifestations of the revolutionary movement among the working people of Osh and the district during the years of reaction and the new revolutionary upsurge, leading up to the First World War in 1914.