The Basmachi: Factors Behind the Rise and Fall of an Islamic Insurgency in Central Asia
The Basmachi: Factors Behind the Rise and Fall of an Islamic Insurgency in Central Asia
by Boris Kogan
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Abstract. This paper delivers a short overview of the Basmachi insurgency in Soviet Central Asia, a conflict which spanned a quarter of a century (1918-approximately 1943) and the territory of a half-dozen of today’s countries, foreshadowing many future Islamic insurgencies including those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Western China, Iraq and Chechnya. The “Basmachestvo” involved prolonged full-spectrum warfare fought by a fragmented insurgency with multiple centers of gravity against a multiethnic empire, whose ideology the insurgents perceived as a threat to their identity and way of life. The subject has been largely opaque to Western historians due to several reasons, including the remote and inaccessible theater of warfare (Soviet Central Asia having been denied to Western journalists and diplomats in the timeframe discussed,) the suppression of accounts failing to adhere to the official narrative by the Soviet Union and purges of those who participated on both sides of the insurgency and remained in the Soviet Union after the conflict’s conclusion. Thus, a conflict with a high degree of relevance to the present-day international situation has been forgotten or ignored. This paper attempts to begin to remedy this situation.
Download the Full Article: The Basmachi: Factors Behind the Rise and Fall of an Islamic Insurgency in Central Asia
SSG Boris Kogan is currently serving in the Washington Army National Guard while completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Washington, Seattle. He previously served on active duty as a Special Operations Team Alpha leader. He was awarded the Jim & Anna Hyonjoo Lint Scholarship by the Lint Center for National Security Studies in August 2010.
