The Whirlwind of Revolutionary Events in Kyrgyzstan
The hastily assembled Soviet government clearly lacked people who were not just revolutionaries, but primarily capable of certain practical tasks. The power held on thanks to numerous promises, widespread confusion, and support from armed soldiers, sailors, workers, and internationalists. In Kyrgyzstan, however, the "new power," as usual, ended beyond the county centers and a few coal mines in the south. The revolutionary process here was only progressing with difficulty because Kyrgyzstan remained an appendage of Russia and, as part of a great power, was slowly but steadily being drawn into the whirlpool of revolutionary events, where the outcome of the struggle depended not on local forces, but on the strength and might of the revolutionary explosion at the epicenter, from which waves spread to the outskirts. If the revolution had failed in the center of the country, the outskirts would not have offered serious resistance to the counter-revolution. Let us provide a few examples taken from the "History of the Kyrgyz SSR."
After the October armed uprising, most of the Soviets in Kyrgyzstan remained in a position of non-recognition of the new power.
However, this was unimportant, as it did not lead them to play a greater role in the life of Turkestan society. The October coup intensified the chaos in the internal life of the vast region, where there was not a dual power, as in Petrograd and Moscow, but a multiplicity of powers, since almost every social organization claimed authority here. Among them were both the successors of the old power—the tsarist zemstvos and dumas, committees and commissariats of the Provisional Government—as well as trade unions, councils, parties, unions, and public formations that did not subordinate to each other and did not wish to submit to anyone. One after another, across the entire region, provinces, cities, counties, and volosts, numerous food, peasant, all-Kyrgyz, and other congresses took place, which alternately recognized and boycotted the central power in Petrograd, only to then, after some time, again polarize their position.
In Soviet historiography, this circumstance was deliberately overlooked and not analyzed, although it was regularly mentioned. There was a one-sided tendency to consider only the councils of deputies as the legitimate successor of power, as was the case in Petrograd and Moscow. The fact that in the struggle for power, Turkestan society, especially after the events of 1916, split along ethnonational lines into Europeans and Muslims, was completely ignored. For example, the first Soviet government of Turkestan was formed entirely of Europeans, of whom 8 were members of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and 7 were members of the Bolshevik party, which caused significant national discontent. This was an unprecedented and outrageous step by the new "people's government," considering that even under the tsarist regime and the Provisional Government, there were noticeable efforts on their part to expand the representation of indigenous peoples in the authorities and administration.
Even in the "counter-revolutionary Kokand government," which was baptized by the Bolsheviks and also claimed its legitimate right to full power in Turkestan, some ministerial portfolios were allocated to Europeans.
The Beginning of the Formation of "Red Terror"
