The Turkestan Commission of All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the National Question in the Turkestan ASSR (1920)

Abstract

The principles of the Bolsheviks’ national policy were the subject of constant inner-party discussion at the time of establishment of the Soviet regime; according to national specifics of different regions these principles were corrected and modified. The leaders of RCP(b) understood that the main challenge for class and international principle of the Soviet regime organization in national borderlands may come from ideology of nationalism in its regional variations. Declaring of the right of the nation to self-determination and the creation of the Autonomous Republics in RSFSR were caused by the strategies to draw the working class of the borderline regions on the side of the Soviet government and to break “interclass alliance” formed by nationalism. At the beginning of the 1920s RCP(b) faced with the attempts of the Communist Parties representatives in the Sоviet Turkic regions, particularly the chairperson of the Central Executive Committee of the Turkestan ASSR T. Ryskulov, to synthesize the ideals of communism with the ideology of pan-Turkism in order to solve the national question in the Autonomous Republics. The article considers the activity of the Turkestan Commission of All- Russian Central Executive Committee which became an example how the central bodies of the Party reacted to the ideas of “communist pan-Turkism”. The Turkestan Commission initiated the forming of ethno-territorial approach of the Bolsheviks to the question of national self-determination of people in the region.

DOI 10.14258/izvasu(2016)2-06