In 1868, the
Russian Empire forced the
Emirate of Bukhara to accept
protectorate status. Over the next 40 years, the Russians slowly eroded Bukhara's territory, although they never actually annexed the city of
Bukhara itself. However, the
emir could not shut out all outside influences, and gradually some of the disaffected youth of Bukhara gravitated to
Pan-Turkism, inspired by the
Young Turks in the
Ottoman Empire, ideas taken from the
Islamic Jadid reform movement, and the new
Bolshevik-inspired communism. These various ideologies coalesced in the
Young Bukharans (,
mladobukhartsy), led by
Fayzulla Xoʻjayev.
Young Bukharans The Young Bukharans faced extreme obstacles as the emirate was dominated by conservative
Sunni Islamic clergy. The ensuing conflict pitted the secular Young Bukharans and their Bolshevik supporters against the conservative pro-emir rebels, the
Basmachi, in a conflict that lasted more than a decade. In March 1918, the Young Bukharan activists informed the Bolsheviks that the Bukharan people were ready for the revolution and awaiting liberation from the emir. The Red Army marched to the gates of Bukhara and demanded that the emir surrender the city to the Young Bukharans. A Russian source reports that the emir responded by killing the Bolshevik delegation and incited the population to a
jihad against the Bolshevik "infidels". Thousands of Russians were killed in these religious riots in Bukhara and the surrounding areas; many Young Bukharans were arrested and executed; the main railway and communication links from Bukhara to
Chardjui and
Samarkand were destroyed. However, the emir had won only a temporary respite. By August 1920 the
Turkestan Bolsheviks advocated the liquidation of the Bukhara Emirate as a centre for counter-revolutionary forces. On 3 August 1920 the Bolsheviks and the Young Bukharans agreed to act together on the understanding that the Young Bukharans would join the Communist Party. On 16 August 1920 the 4th Congress of Bukharan Communist Party held in Bolshevik-controlled Chardjui decided to overthrow the emir. On 25 August 1920 the
Politburo of the
Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks confirmed orders for the Revolutionary Military Council of Turkestan concerning the "Bukhara question".
Bukharan People's Soviet Republic The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was proclaimed on 8 October 1920 under
Fayzulla Xoʻjayev. In Soviet terminology, the republic was a "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the
peasantry", a transition stage to a Soviet Socialist Republic. A new constitution was adopted in September 1921, which, contrary to the
Russian Constitution of 1918, allowed private ownership of land and productive assets and granted voting rights to non-proletarians (although relatives of the deposed emir, former emirate officials, and large landowners could not vote). Although the constitution adopted on September 25, 1921, based the sovereignty of the republic on soviets, it achieved a significant compromise with traditional
Islamic principles. According to Article 26 of the constitution, no law of the republic could contradict the fundamental principles of Islam. Moreover, unlike the
Soviet model, the constitution guaranteed the right to private property and the authority of citizens to dispose of their movable and immovable possessions. In local administration, the long-established
aksakal system, in which villagers elected their own representatives, was preserved. The overthrow of the emir was the impetus for the
Basmachi Revolt, a conservative anti-communist rebellion. In 1922, most of the territory of the republic (East Bukhara, roughly from Hisor to West Pamir) was controlled by Basmachi,'''' and it took the
Red Army until 1934 to fully suppress the revolt. At the end of 1921,
Enver Pasha assumed the leadership of the movement and unified the struggle against the Soviets with the aim of establishing a “Muslim state” across
Turkestan. However, he was killed in Baljuan in 1922. During the first few years of the Russian Revolution,
Lenin relied on a policy of encouraging local revolutions under the aegis of the local
bourgeoisie, and in the early years of Bolshevik rule the Communists sought the assistance of the Jadid reformists in pushing through radical social and educational reforms. Just two weeks after the proclamation of the People's Republic,
Communist Party membership in Bukhara soared to 14,000 as many local inhabitants were eager to prove their loyalty to the new regime. As the
Soviet Union stabilized, it could afford to purge itself of so-called opportunists and potential
nationalists. A series of expulsions stripped membership down to 1000 by 1922. Immediately after the revolution, the Revolutionary Committee (Revkom) promised the nationalization of land, water, and the means of production, as well as their redistribution to landless peasants. However, most of these promises could not be fully implemented due to internal resistance and a lack of resources. The most radical change in the cultural sphere was the recognition of
Uzbek as the state language. This policy aimed to shift the state from
Persian, the language of the elites, to the language of the broader population. In the field of education, Minister of Education
Abdurrauf Fitrat sought to modernize the system by sending many students to European universities, particularly in
Germany, and by introducing secular sciences into the curricula of madrasas. The above was reflected in the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic's flag, as designed upon its foundation, combining the Communist
Hammer and Sickle with the traditional
Crescent, which had appeared in the flag of the
Emirate of Bukhara as well as in those of the
Ottoman Empire and various other Islamic states. Conversely, the flags of the Soviet Republics among which the Bukharan territory was divided in 1924 featured the Hammer and Sickle alone, omitting the Crescent. From 1923 onward,
Moscow increased its pressure on local governance, and figures such as
Stalin and Pozdnyshev accused the Bukharan government of “bourgeois nationalism” and of neglecting class interests. As a result of these pressures, extensive purges were carried out within both the government and the
Communist Party. At the
Fifth Congress, convened on September 19, 1924, the state changed its name to the “
Socialist Republic.” Shortly thereafter, within the framework of the National Delimitation of
Central Asia, a decision was made to dissolve the republic and to divide its territory between the newly established
Uzbek SSR and
Tajik ASSR. With this decision, the centuries-old Bukharan state disappeared from the political map.
Bukharan Socialist Soviet Republic From 19 September 1924 to 27 October 1924, the Republic was known as the Bukharan Socialist Soviet Republic (Bukharan SSR). When
new national boundaries were drawn up in 1924, the Bukharan SSR voted itself out of existence and became part of the new Uzbek SSR. Today the territory of the defunct Bukhara SSR lies mostly in
Uzbekistan with parts in
Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan. Khojaev, despite his Jadid background, became the first President of the Uzbek SSR. He was later
purged and executed in the 1930s together with much of the
intelligentsia of
Central Asia. == Political leaders ==