History of Civilizations of Central Asia
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ests, the aim being to pump profits out of the region more efficiently. There was a special interest in this among the young Russian bourgeoisie, which was accumulating capital and demanded ‘the strengthening of the merchant class to the detriment of the political and cler- ical parties’ (which enjoyed as powerful an influence in the region as the ‘Catholic clergy in some European countries’) and called on the authorities to turn Tashkent, the centre of the region, into an ‘Asian Hamburg and Frankfurt, for which it has all the ingredients’. 8 At the apex of this system was the governor-general, who was appointed by the tsar and subordinate to the Russian minister of war as far as official business was concerned. He was the head of the administration and also commander of the troops of Turkistan military okrug and was considered under imperial law to be the ‘chief guardian of the inviolability of the rights of autocracy, the benefits of the state and the precise execution of the law’. The first governor-general, K. P. von Kaufman, who ruled the region for 14 years (1867–81), had unlimited powers. The tsar’s rescript empowered him to decide all political, frontier and commercial matters; to negotiate with neighbouring countries and sign treaties; to determine the degree of guilt of persons accused of crimes and, when necessary, to hand them over to a military court. He had the right to exile individuals from Turkistan for up to five years on political grounds. The Regulations of 1886 somewhat limited the rights of the governors general and the colonial administration in judicial matters, foreign policy and economic affairs, the corresponding powers being transferred to Russian ministries and departments. The executive body under the governor-general was his chancellery, whose powers in the military, political and administrative spheres remained in essence unlimited. The chan- cellery had a particularly important role in drafting Turkistan legislation, which was passed to the ministries and the Russian State Council for examination. It was actively engaged in the selection of personnel and the staffing of the region’s various state establishments with appropriately qualified officials. Senator F. Girs, Privy Councillor, who carried out an audit of Turkistan in 1882, reported that ‘the chancellery has grown into a main executive institution of an illegal and inappropriate level’. 9 8
. . . , 1865
. 9 Girs, 1888 , p. 10.
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Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Administration FIG. 1. Army division with Cossacks. G. and L. Gain expedition to Central Asia. 1914. (Photo: © mimdi.) The colonial administrations in the oblast’s were headed by military governors who were at the same time the commanders of army corps or divisions, depending on the num- ber of troops stationed in the oblast’. In oblast’s where there were Cossack units, the mil- itary governors were also mandated atamans (chiefs) ( Fig. 1
). Executive functions under these boards were carried out by oblast’ boards similar to guberniya (province) boards but with far greater powers. The main role in them was played by the economic sections, which had the following functions: agrarian organization of the settled and nomadic population, superintendence of waqf (religious charitable endowment) affairs, water consumption and taxation of the population, supervision of zemstvo ( local elective assembly) expenditure and the receipt of taxes and duties, examination and appraisal of various agreements, the issuing of licences, drawing up of commercial transactions and contracts, etc. 10 Examina-
tion of the structure and functions of the lowest-level bodies shows clearly and precisely the tendency towards comprehensive regulation and cavalier interference by the colonial authorities in all spheres of life of the indigenous population ( Fig. 2
). The head of the uezd administration was the uezd chief to whom the troops stationed in the uezd were also subordinated. He had his own administration to plan and coordinate 10 Abdurakhimova and Rustamova, 1999 , pp. 31–2. 129 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Administration FIG. 2. Indigenous servants of the Agency. 1889–90. Photo: © Ethnographic Collection at the Bern Historical Museum BHM. Photo: S. Rebsamen all local work. It was this level of the system which bore the basic burden of the numer- ous current duties in supervising the activities of the volost’ and village administrations, resolving water and land disputes and determining taxation levels. It may be said that the uezd administration, being closest of all to the indigenous people, embodied the logic and spirit of tsarism’s colonial policy. This is why its punitive and police functions were con- stantly expanded. ‘Concern’ about this on the part of the higher authorities was justified as follows: The main reason for the establishment of the boards was that the natives, being accustomed to the cruel punishments existing in Turkistan before annexation by Russia, are unable to imagine authority not invested with the right to punish the guilty directly, especially for dis- obedience to its orders. 11 This very frank admission by Kaufman is proof that, from the very beginning, reliance was placed not on the professionalism of Russian officials but on brute force and intim- idation of the population. Even then, however, there were people who understood the lamentable consequences of such a policy. One of them was chancellery head P. Kho- mutov, who warned Kaufman that ‘not all uezd chiefs will be equal to such wide trust in them and such a right, and it may easily happen that lack of control will give rise to abuse of this right’. 12 And that is what happened. 11 Tsirkulyar K. P. Kaufman ot 21 dekabrya 1876 g. ; Central State Archives of the Republic of Uzbekistan, coll. I–1, inv. 20, file 8884, fol. 8. 12 Central State Archives (TsGA) of the Republic of Uzbekistan, coll. I–1, inv. 20, file 8884, fols. 8–9. 130 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Administration The audit reports of Senators F. K. Girs (1882) and K. K. Palen (1908–9) said that ‘the
boards were working most unsatisfactorily’, 13 that ‘the boards’ affairs, especially financial affairs, are in great disorder’ and that ‘the wide powers and rights to punish the local and the Russian population of the region give plenty of scope to the local administra- tions to intensify corruption and abuses’. 14 Complaints from the local population, sent in to the governor-general in their thousands, indicated the considerable scale of extortion of goods and money, illegal contracts and the buying and selling of the posts of volost’ and village board (uprava) chiefs, q¯az¯ıs (Islamic judges) and beys (dignitaries). However, over a 50-year period of the colonial regime there were not even 10 examples of the higher-level administration taking serious measures to put an end to this social evil, which was generally typical of the whole colonial system from top to bottom. Instead of doing their difficult duty, which demanded knowledge, local language ability and practical skills, the corps of officials provided only a miserable and wretched substitute which caused popular dissatisfaction everywhere. The last link in the system of local government was the grass-roots administration elected every three years from among representatives of the indigenous population. Gov- ernment in the volost’ consisted of the volost’ board and the volost’, congress of elected delegates. Elections took place in two stages: each village meeting chose one candidate, then all the elected candidates gathered at the volost’ congress, which elected the volost’ board chiefs, tax-collectors, irrigation supervisors and people’s judges, the q¯az¯ıs and beys. The volost’ congress of delegates decided on taxation of the villagers in the volost’ deter- mined the emoluments of officials, monitored the condition of roads, bridges and produc- tion buildings, water consumption and water supply and brought all laws and instructions of the tsarist government to the people’s attention. The main task of the elected administration was to ensure the successful and timely collection of duties and taxes under the vigilant supervision and control of Russian offi- cials. The authorities maintained a patronizing and paternalistic attitude towards the lowest level of administration loyal to the tsarist regime, realizing its potential role in stimulating economic initiative and boosting the economic potential of the newly acquired colony, and also hoping to create a source of trained supporters of its own for the implementation of its plans. If one candidate or another did not suit the Russian authorities, he was rejected and replaced by another. Elections could be cancelled and new ones set. The tsarist adminis- tration made quite wide use of this right. The report by Girs on his audit of the volost’ and village boards provides the following data: ‘Of the 109 volost’ board chiefs in Syr Darya 13 Ibid., coll. I–1, inv. 27, file 1509, fol. 4. 14 Palen,
1910b , p. 151. 131 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Administration oblast ’, 38 were dismissed over a period of three years, which is 38 per cent or about 13 cases a year.’ 15 Similar data may be provided for other oblast’s of Turkistan. The time and effort spent by the elected administration on state service in the collection of taxes and duties and the preservation of public order was paid for by the people, not the tsar’s treasury. Moreover, it bore legal and material responsibility for losses and damage suffered by the treasury and the state in the event of any unforeseen circumstances. Documents show that the ‘elective basis’ was completely lost in the hierarchy of bureau- cratic distortion, abuse and fraud, and the regime at that level constantly experienced insta- bility, uncertainty and a lack of security. The cause of such tension was to a considerable degree the way in which the military administrative system was introduced at the local level. Falsification of the decisions of volost’, meetings, the bribing of voters and other abuses occurred on a massive scale and often had the silent assent, connivance and com- plicity of the Russian administration. It is known that at the beginning of the twentieth cen- tury huge sums of money were spent on bribes, reaching as much as 40–50,000 roubles. 16 It was no secret that some of this money finished up in the pockets of the people who observed the elections and confirmed the results. This kind of government ‘technology’, enslaving the people at whose expense all ‘expen- diture’ on election campaigns was refunded, provoked the resistance of the mass of the population and whole areas were sometimes engaged in extremely bitter resistance. Under constant social pressure, the people rejected the colonial system forced on them and were drawn ever more deeply and forcefully into political, economic and social conflict with the authorities, undermining them from within. Sometimes the conflicts took on a religious dimension, which was quite natural considering the tsarist government’s attitude towards the Muslim clergy. When Turkistan governor-generalship was formed, the overriding principle of Russian colonization was officially announced to be the peaceful coexistence of all confessions ( Fig. 3 ). Stemming from this, missionary work by the Russian Orthodox Church was banned and a policy of non-interference in Islamic affairs was proclaimed. Construction of Orthodox places of worship was permitted only in Russian population centres and on the territory of military units. Support was given to participants in the traditional Muslim hajj , the more so since this had been simplified by the construction of the Central Asian mainline railway. At the same time, for fear of the Muslim clergy’s political influence on the population, even in Kaufman’s time a merciless blow was struck at its economic basis – the right to 15 Girs, 1888 , p. 29.
16 Palen,
1910c , p. 96.
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Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Administration FIG. 3. Bukhara. Dastarkhan (lunch). 1889–90. Photo: © Ethnographic Collection at the Bern Historical Museum BHM. Photo: S. Rebsamen private ownership of land donated by the state and private individuals, dating back to the period of Arab rule. The religious charitable endowments, or waqfs, embracing primary, secondary and higher schools, books, money, mosques, maz¯ars (holy places), shops and caravanserais, as well as land transferred ‘for all eternity’ under shar¯ı ‘a ( Islamic law), were all made subject to revision by the tsarist administration. Land taxation commis- sions looked for surplus land, determined what was to be taxed and studied and analysed
documents and the legal rights of owners. Documents not bearing the seals of khans or emirs were declared invalid, the land was recorded as state property and then sold for a song to tsarist officers, officials and merchants or set aside for the construction of various state projects and the Russian quarters of towns. The establishment of a new waqf was possible only with the permission of the governor-general (Article 266 of the Regulations of 1866). Approval of waqf documents, organization of waqf management and supervision of waqf revenues was transferred to the oblast’ and uezd boards. They were also given the right to lease out waqf land and property. In 1873 General Abramov, the chief of Kattakurgan otdel of Zerafshan okrug, gave orders that the land belonging to the Tilla-kari, Shir Dor and Ulugh Beg madrasas should be leased out by the Russian administration instead of the mutawalliy¯at (mosque executive committees) as before. 17 From 17 July 1874 the tsarist administration’s leasing rights were extended to all waqf land. 17 Ilyasov, 1963 , p. 102. 133 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Administration In 1876 a commission was set up in Ferghana oblast’ to organize survey work. Waqf land was surveyed even when the waqf institutions issued declarations of landownership and presented the necessary documents. These were collected ‘for examination’ and often disappeared into the bowels of the colonial departments. According to K. K. Palen, of 7,955 waqf documents presented across Turkistan region for the determination of rights, only 792 were authenticated. 18 Thus only about 10 per cent of the total number of waqfs retained their rights and were able to claim any tax concessions. The remaining 90 per cent of waqf plots were liquidated, either by endowment of the people living there or by state sequestration. This is how tsarism’s strategic plan to redistribute property to the advantage of the new authorities was implemented. All lands with more or less clear signs of ownership, particularly mulk land (private dominion), were taken into state ownership and subjected to land tax, which enriched the tsar’s treasury. Later, with the adoption of the ‘Rules for the Introduction of Land Taxation Arrangements, 1903’, by implementation of a resettlement policy additional amendments were made to the land relations system which ignored the interests and requirements of the national economic complex of Turkistan itself and its indigenous population. Tsarism’s land policy in Central Asia, based on the right to state ownership of its terri- tory, was gradually transformed into confiscation from the population of so-called ‘sur- plus land’ and developed into large-scale expropriation of land for the resettlement of Russian peasants in connection with the implementation of agrarian reform introduced by Stolypin. 19 This process primarily affected the forest–steppe zone in the area of the western Siberian lowlands and the foothills of the Altai, Tarbagatai and the Dzungarian, Trans-Ili and Kyrgyz Alatau mountains, rich in lakes, rivers and good soils permitting the non-irrigated cultivation of crops. At the end of the nineteenth century alone, about 14 million
s (15.3 million ha) (1 desiatina = 1.09 ha) of fertile land, or 8.2 per cent of the whole land area of Steppe oblast’, was confiscated from Semipalatinsk, Akmolinsk, Turgay and Uralsk oblast’s for use by Cossacks, retired soldiers and resettled peasants. 20 Another 100,000 desiatinas of land were confiscated after the settlement in Semirechye oblast ’ of Taranchis (Uighurs) and Dungans (the Hui, Chinese-speaking Muslims) from 18 Palen,
1910a , p. 321. 19 P. Arkadyevich Stolypin (1862–1911), prime minister of Russia from 1906 to 1911. [Trans.] 20 Istoriya Kazakhstana i Tsentral ’noy Azii, 2001 , p. 361. 134 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Administration Kuldja region (1881–4). 21 As a result of Stolypin’s agrarian reforms, this process was fur- ther intensified and confiscation developed on a grand scale. Altogether around 40 million desiatina s were confiscated, about 20 per cent of the agricultural land. Consequently the area of land available for nomadic livestock herding decreased noticeably and households were deprived of their winter and summer pastures. 22 At the same time settlers from the guberniya s of central Russia benefited from a policy of preferential land grants. Thus if Kazakh or Kyrgyz nomads wished to take up cultivation, they had to enlist the support of their community and survey the appropriate reserves of land, while Russian settlers received at first 30 desiatinas of land per family member, then 15 desiatinas from 1882 and later on 10 desiatinas. Cossacks at first received 100 desiatinas of land and, in the words of N. A. Ivanov, turned into ‘lazy and dissolute serf landowners’; 23 later they received 20–25 desiatina s. Army officers received 200 desiatinas each. Taranchi settlers were allocated 10 desiatina s per whole family. In the irrigated zones of Ferghana and Samarkand oblast’s, despite the large number of dehq¯ans (peasants) who were landless or had little land, 91 Russian settlements were founded with altogether 4,663 homesteads. In Syr Darya oblast’ there were 209 settlements with 11,694 homesteads. 24 The authorities’ efforts to expand the zones of colonization and Russification were accompanied by coercion of the indigenous population, confiscation of their ancestral land, raising of land taxes and the kibitka (household tax on nomads) and increasing land rents, worsening in all vital aspects the life of the local communities. In spite of this the author- ities put forward even more ambitious plans, voiced in particular by a close associate of Stolypin’s in land reform, A. V. Krivoshein, who was chief superintendent of land organi- zation and agriculture in Russia (1908–15). In 1912 Krivoshein paid an official visit to Turkistan and compiled for Tsar Nicholas II a report, the appendix of which was published subsequently as a book. Krivoshein’s evaluation of the state of colonization and process of Russification in the region was very important. Criticizing the slow process of colonization he said: ‘Meanwhile, indigenous Turkistan is still a whole sea of natives. The Russian settlements and new “towns” are for now just small islands in that sea, just strong points for the further settlement of Russian 21 The Ili territory and the town of Kuldja (Gulja), centre of the Taranchi khanate, were occupied by Russia in June 1871 and returned to China under the treaty of St Petersburg of 1881. Kuldja is now called Yining, centre of Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. [Trans.] 22
’noy Azii, 2001 , p. 361. 23 Orazaev,
1995 , p. 12.
24 Central State Archives (TsGA) of the Republic of Uzbekistan, coll. I–18, inv. 2, file 118, fol. 114. 135 Contents
Copyrights ISBN 92-3-103985-7 Economic development people.’ 25 Considering the reasons why ‘Russian settlement of the region has been held back’ he emphasized: ‘The reasons are the density of the agricultural population in the belt of irrigated land and great infertility of unirrigated land’ and he proposed ‘letting the Download 8.99 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
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