Central Asian revolt of 1916

The Russian conquest of Central Asia during the second half of the 19th century imposed a colonial regime upon the peoples of Central Asia. Central Asia's inhabitants were taxed by Tsarist authorities and made up nearly 10% of the Russian Empire's population but none served in the 435-seat State Duma. By 1916, Turkestan and the Governor-Generalship of the Steppes had accumulated many social, land and inter-ethnic contradictions caused by the resettlement of Russian and Ukrainian settlers, which began in the second half of the 19th century, after the Emancipation reform of 1861 which abolished serfdom. A wave of resettlement was introduced by a number of lands and legislative reforms. On June 2, 1886, and March 25, 1891, several acts were adopted which were "Regulations on the management of the Turkestan Krai" and "Regulations on the management of Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Semirechye, Ural and Turgai regions" that allowed most of the lands of these regions to be transferred to the ownership of the Russian Empire. Each family from the local population were allowed to own a plot of land of 15 acres for a perpetual use. From 1906 to 1912, as a result of Stolypin reforms in Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia, up to 500,000 peasant households were transported from central regions of Russia, which divided about 17 tithes of developed lands. ==The revolt==

Institution of conscription Emperor Nicholas II adopted the "requisition of foreigners" at the age of 19 to 43 years inclusive, for rear work in the front-line areas of the First World War. The discontent of people fueled the unfair distribution of land, as well as the calls of Muslim leaders for a holy war against the 'infidel' Russian rule. The crowd was dispersed after the Russians opened fire. Settlers participated in the killings, as revenge for the abuses they suffered from the insurgents. In the eastern part of Russian Turkestan, tens of thousands of surviving Kyrgyz and Kazakhs fled toward China. In the Tien-Shan Mountains they died by the thousands in mountain passes over 3,000 meters high. The expulsion of Central Asians by Russian forces had its roots in Tsarist policy of ethnic homogenization. One account from 1919, three years after the start of the revolt, describes the aftermath of the uprising as follows: Deaths The Kyrgyz historian Shayyrkul Batyrbaeva puts the death toll at 40,000, based on population tallies but other contemporary estimates are significantly higher. Special importance is given to the event in Kyrgyz historiography because perhaps has many as 40% of the ethnic Kyrgyz population died during or in the aftermath of the revolt. In his 1954 book, The Revolt of 1916 in Russian Central Asia, Edward Dennis Sokol used government periodicals and the Krasnyi Arkhiv (The Red Archive) to estimate that approximately 270,000 Central Asians—Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Turkmen, and Uzbeks—perished at the hands of the Russian army or from diseases, famine. In addition to those killed outright, tens of thousands of men, women, and children died while trying to escape over treacherous mountain passes into China. 3,000 Russian settlers were killed during the first phase of the revolt. and 270,000; the latter figure amounting to 40% of the entire Kyrgyz population. The Kyrgyz division of Radio Free Europe claimed at least 150,000 were massacred by Tsarist troops. ==Legacy==

Some survivors have begun to label the events a "massacre" or "genocide." In August 2016, a public commission in Kyrgyzstan concluded that the 1916 mass crackdown constituted "genocide." In response the Russian State Duma chairman, Sergei Naryshkin, denied the events were a genocide, stating: "all nations suffered 100 years ago." ==See also==