At the end of the 18th, Kolchak sent two detachments to the south, towards Central Asia: captains Ushakov and Vinogradov. They dispersed Soviet power in the Semipalatinsk region, moved to Semirechensk and stormed Sergiopol, where the Red troops settled. After this victory, the Semirechensk Cossacks rebelled again, their detachments began to return from China. From Verny (Alma-Ata), new red forces under the command of Petrenko came out against the Whites. He recaptured the mountainous Kopal, but the Lepsinsky district remained behind the whites, where they besieged 30 thousand peasants in the village of Cherkassky.

Among the red commanders of Central Asia there was a struggle for power. Tashkent emissary Shavrov was killed by supporters of the local partisan leader Kalashnikov. In Tashkent, on a 25 percent party mobilization, a detachment of a thousand people was recruited and sent to Semirechye, but the Whites soon again ousted the Bolsheviks from the Kopal district and took Cherkasskoe.

Riots in red Tashkent

In the capital of red Central Asia, Tashkent, two authorities were squabbling with each other. "Russian" - Tur-CEC with the Council of People's Commissars and "local" - the Muslim Bureau of the RCP (b). On the night of January 19, the military commissar of the republic, the former ensign Osipov, raised an uprising in the city. Its purpose is unknown: whether it was a rebellion in favor of the whites, or a new round of struggle in the red camp. The rebels shot the chairman of the Turkish Central Executive Committee Votintsev, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Figelsky and 12 other leading figures, but when they tried to take the Tashkent fortress, they were defeated and fled.

Basmachi movement - Madamin-bek.

More and more new ones appeared in Fergana Basmachi kurbashi. An ardent supporter of the ghazavat Kurshirmat was added to the head of the "Kokand autonomy" Irgash, and then he created the "Muslim people's army" Madamin-bek. It was perhaps the smartest and most talented basmach, who received former Russian officers and was promoted to colonel by Kolchak. In the Jalalabad region, an uprising of Russian peasants against the surplus appropriation was led by the clerk Monsters. He entered into an alliance with Madamin-bek. The entire Fergana Valley fell away from the Reds.

In remote Kushka, the elderly General Vostrosablin, with a detachment of 80 fighters, firmly defended the Russian border from the Asians, using the help of both whites and reds. In 1919, he fought off a 10,000-strong Basmachi horde in Kushka for a month.

Occupation of the Transcaspian region by Denikin

In the western part of Central Asia, the Transcaspian region, the incapable Socialist-Revolutionary government of the machinist Fyodor Funtikov, created at the beginning of the civil war, was overthrown by the workers (January 1919). Funtikov was arrested. He was interrogated in the case of the execution of 26 Baku commissars, but then he was released. (In 1926 he was shot by the Soviet government.) As well as from other regions of Russia, in the spring the withdrawal of foreign units began from here, and the British commander Malesson turned to Denikin, offering him to "take the Transcaspian region under his protection." Denikin sent the division of General Litvinov, which until 1920 successfully held back the Reds in this remote area.

Rebellion of Alash Horde

On April 19, Soviet power in the vast but sparsely populated Turgai region (Central Kazakhstan) was overthrown by adherents of the Kazakh National Muslim Party Alash Orda. The red leader Amangeldy Imanov was shot (May 18, 1919). Alash Orda created its own government and national militia detachments - small and almost incompetent. Under the tsar, the Kirghiz were not taken into the army, and they were not trained in military affairs. To defeat them, one regular battalion would probably be enough. But the Alash Horde communicated with Kolchak, and parts of Ataman Annenkov entered the steppes, occupying Ayaguz and Pavlodar.

The leaders of the party "Alash" - A. Baitursynov, A. Bukeikhanov and M. Dulatov

Basmachism is a military-political and religious anti-Soviet movement in Central Asia during the Civil War. It reached its climax in 1918-1919, when tens of thousands of local residents stood up under the banner of the Basmachi. Nevertheless, by the mid-1920s, the movement had almost completely died out. What is the reason?

dashing raiders

The word "basmach" comes from the Uzbek "basma" - an armed raid. The ideological basis of Basmachi was pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism.

The start of the movement is usually considered to be February 1918, when the Red Army finally defeated the self-proclaimed Turkestan autonomy, which covered the lands of present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The raiders were especially active in the Ferghana Valley and adjacent areas, in the Samarkand and Sardarya regions, in Khiva, Eastern Bukhara and the Krasnovodsk region. Basmachi detachments were divided into small (up to a hundred people) and large. The number of the latter could reach several thousand people or more.

Their tactics were typical of guerrilla warfare in mountainous and desert areas: the Basmachi tried to avoid clashes with numerous and well-armed enemy units. Emphasis was placed on organizing ambushes and dashing cavalry raids. As a rule, they organized base points in hard-to-reach places. Intelligence information was provided by local residents.

According to the laws of war

The Basmachi were a very serious and insidious opponent. Their methods of warfare differed from the combat tactics of the Whites, with whom the Bolsheviks successfully fought on the fronts of the Civil War. One of the most famous kurbashi (commanders) was Irgash. In the spring of 1918, he put together a detachment of 500 people, but suffered a series of defeats.

But already in next year he was able to create a group of 15 thousand people. Among other things, his fighters participated in the anti-Bolshevik uprising in Tashkent in 1919.

In addition to the Irgash, at least 40 Basmachi detachments operated in the Ferghana region. One of them numbering about 700 people was commanded by Madamin-bek. In November 1918, he made a major raid against Russian villages located in the Ferghana region.

In Moscow, realizing that the success of Soviet power in Central Asia directly depends on the fight against the Basmachi, they decide to send an additional contingent of the Red Army to the region. In February-March 1920, the Red Army went on the offensive against the Kurbashi units.

During the winter, the groups of Akbar-Ali, Makhkam-Khoja, Parpi and other commanders were defeated and surrendered, with a total number of more than five thousand people. The Irgashi detachments also suffered heavy losses. Some of them went to China and Afghanistan.

By 1923 Andijan, Kokand and other regions of Fergana were completely cleared of gangs. Many leaders of the Basmachi were captured and were handed over to the revolutionary military tribunal, which sentenced them to death.

During the first 10 months of 1922, in the Ferghana Valley alone, the Red Army destroyed about 120 Basmachi detachments with a total number of more than four thousand people. 320 commanders were killed, and 175 surrendered.

On the territory of Tajikistan, due to the complexity of the mountainous terrain, the armed struggle against the Basmachi continued until June 1925. By spring, about 400 robbers remained in the mountains. Over the next few months, the Red Army took control of Dushanbe, Faizabad and other areas.

Through negotiations

There were those among the Basmachi who voluntarily agreed to stop the fight. So, Madamin-bek, whose detachment was defeated in February 1920, agreed to include the surviving 1200 people in the Red Army. On this occasion, the commander of the Turkestan Front, Mikhail Frunze, organized a military parade in Fergana.

Those who went over to the side of the Soviet government began to be called "Red Basmachi". At the same time, a number of historians argue that their subordination to the command of the Red Army was only formal. The fact is that when it came to clashes with fellow tribesmen, the defectors did not want to fight.

End

Most of the Basmachi was eliminated by the end of 1926. The movement began to raise its head again after the start of forced collectivization in the late 1920s.

As historians note, the leaders of the Basmachi, many of whom took refuge in Afghanistan, received some support from Great Britain. London benefited from the weakening of Soviet power in Central Asia.

However, the support of the British and popular discontent did not help the Basmachi. By 1933, they were again defeated and finally driven out of the region. The last detachments abandoned armed confrontation with the Soviet authorities in 1942, when the USSR and Great Britain agreed to end the cross-border cold war.

IN THE STATES OF CENTRAL ASIA

Persecution of whites

When Frunze split Kolchak's armies, Southern Army General Belov went not to Siberia, but to Kazakhstan.

The Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, even during the offensive near Orel, sought to prevent the unification of the White troops North Caucasus and the Transcaspian region with the Southern army of Kolchak, with the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks. The meaning of the offensive M.V. Frunze is still like this: keep the Urals behind the Reds as a "fallback option" in case they leave Moscow.

Initially, Belov wanted to go to Tsaritsyn and join forces there with Dratsenko's troops - parts of Denikin's army. Frunze cut off this direction with a decisive blow from the north.

Then the White Army split. It consisted of two Cossack troops: Orenburg and Ural. The Ural Cossacks did not want to leave, and the Orenburg Cossacks and the city "Kadyuks" turned to the southeast. Belov retreats along the Tashkent railway. He wants then along the banks of the Drala to go to connect with his own near Krasnovodsk. With the army went the civilian population, up to 40 thousand refugees.

On August 18, 1919, the Reds create a special Turkestan Front under the command of Frunze. Mikhail Vasilyevich immediately begins the grandiose Aktobe operation.

From the region of Orenburg and Troitsk, Frunze delivers concentric blows in the direction of Aktyubinsk and Orsk. He is trying to surround Belov's army, moving the cavalry to intercept. This failed, but what Frunze knew how to do was to change plans in the course of an already ongoing operation. At least keep the whites out of the south!

On August 30, Orsk was taken. On September 2, the strike force of the Reds leaves south of Aktobe, cuts the road of the Whites to the south and enters Aktobe from the south.

Belov's army is not surrounded, but it cannot move on either. Most of the Orenburg Cossacks, up to 20 thousand people, surrender to the Reds and ask for permission to return home. What is characteristic: Frunze did not organize any reprisals and did not order his people; everyone who wanted to came back. Later, in 1920, the Orenburg Cossacks will be cut down to the root.

The White Guards and the group of Ataman Dutov went south - about 800 people.

September 13 - the day of completion of the Aktobe operation. But what is characteristic is that Frunze and other Bolsheviks never stop.

Central Asian mosaic

In the autumn of 1919, a commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, headed by M.V., left for Turkestan. Frunze, V.V. Kuibyshev, Ya.E. Rudzutak - to help the Turkestan Soviet Republic. Theoretically, the Turkestan Soviet Republic existed from April 30, 1918, occupied an area of ​​1 million 700 thousand square kilometers with a population of approximately 5.3 million 5 million of the population of the republic were local peoples ...

In the cities of Turkestan remained restless. Not all Russians and Europeanized natives were so fond of Soviet power. On January 17–21, 1919, an uprising broke out in the capital of Soviet Turkestan, Tashkent.

In the east of Turkestan, the ataman of the Semirechensk Cossack army Annenkov ruled.

But these are the little things in life. The Emirate of Bukhara with a population of one and a half million people and the Khanate of Khiva with a population of a million people were not parts of the Russian Empire, but its vassals. The Emir of Bukhara and the Khan of Khiva did not even think of submitting to the Russians - neither white nor red. In many areas, the Uzbeks, Sarts, Kirghiz and Tajiks lived their traditional way of life. Has the central government fallen? And well, they can live without it.

In reality, the power of the Turkestan Soviet Republic extended only to large cities and along the railway, to regions with a population of 400-500 thousand people.

From the north was the white Siberia of Kolchak, in the south - Muslim Afghanistan and Persia (and Persia also had its own civil war).

In the west lay the Trans-Caspian region ...

Transcaspian government

In June 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of Turkestan is trying to mobilize to send the Red Army to the Urals against the Cossacks.

The European population of the Transcaspian region, that is, Russians and Armenians, sabotaged the mobilization. The railway workers had reservations even during great war. A detachment of Red Guards headed by Extraordinary Commissar Frolov, a 25-year-old deserter from the Russian army, was sent to Ashgabat.

Commissioner Frolov organized the executions of several hundred people, in which he personally participated. On July 12, 1918, Frolov's detachment was completely destroyed by the rebellious Russian railway workers.

On July 13, in Ashgabat, workers created a local government (Temporary Executive committee Transcaspian region) from the Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats, who used to be part of the local Soviet of Deputies together with the Bolsheviks.

In addition to the Izhevsk-Botkin Republic, this is the only truly workers' government during the Civil War! Its head is the locomotive engineer Funtikov (SR). The only person with higher education in this government - the teacher Zimin, who became the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Power in the cities of the region passed into the hands of strike committees (strike committees). The Transcaspian army was organized, mainly from Russians and Armenians.

On July 24, 1918, the Bolshevik forces crossed the Amu Darya from the east and took the city of Chardzhou. On August 10, the Reds approached the Merv oasis. On August 11, the Trans-Caspian government asked for help from the head of the British military mission in Mashhad (Persia), General Malleson.

First, the British sent a machine-gun platoon from the Punjab Regiment. The help of the Sikhs who served in the British army did not change the alignment. Already on August 14, the Transcaspians began to retreat from Merv to Kaafka (130 km from Ashgabat).

Transcaspian forces: 700 Russian and Armenian infantry and 400 Turkmen cavalry, one armored train with five 76-mm guns. At Kaafka they were approached by three companies of infantry and a machine-gun platoon of Punjabis - 600 Sikhs and 20 British officers. On August 28, 1918, the Bolsheviks attacked Kaafka with 2,000 infantry and an armored train with 10 114-mm guns. They drove the Turcoman cavalry, but were repulsed by a bayonet attack from the Punjabis.

By September 5, a company of the Hampshire Regiment and a platoon of the Royal Field Artillery arrived in Kaafka - two guns. The commander of the British, Colonel Knollis, took command of the combined forces of Russians, Turkmens, Armenians and the British Empire. In September, the Bolsheviks attacked Kaafka three times, but were repulsed by the Indians. On September 25, reinforcements arrived, consisting of two squadrons of light cavalry - 300 Indians and 12 British officers. Colonel Knollis decided that his forces were sufficient to defeat the Bolsheviks.

On October 14, about 1.2 thousand Indians and British and 1.5 thousand Russians, Armenians and Turkmens took the town and railway station of Dushak, 50 km east of Kaafka. They defeated 2,000 infantry and 400 cavalry sabers, captured 6 guns and 16 machine guns. During the first battle, a Bolshevik echelon with ammunition exploded from a shell hit, the station was destroyed, and the Bolsheviks, due to the inability to use their armored train, retreated to Merv.

At the same time, the Punjabi infantry suffered heavy losses, up to 200 people. All British officers were killed or wounded.

Colonel Knollis sent two squadrons of light cavalry to encircle Merv, and the Bolsheviks, fearful of being cut off, retreated to Chardjou. Merv was occupied by the allied forces on November 1, 1918.

It is difficult to say how events might have turned out, but the British government ordered Colonel Knollis not to move further east. The British occupied the Ashgabat-Merv-Krasnovodsk railway and stood motionless. And the Bolsheviks were gathering strength.

The last time the British-Indian troops participated in the battles against the Bolsheviks in Transcaspia on January 16, 1919. On January 21, the British government ordered the withdrawal of all its troops from there. The withdrawal of troops to Persia ended on April 5, 1919.

The Transcaspian government did not fall. Krasnovodsk, Kizil-arvat, Ashgabat obeyed him, and not Soviet Tashkent.

Passion for the "Baku commissars"

The Trans-Caspian government shot the legendary "Baku commissars". These 26 had predecessors: in July 1918, armed detachments of the Trans-Caspian government entered Ashgabat and shot 9 commissars at the Annau station.

But who has heard about the Ashgabat commissars? But everyone knows about the Baku people!

... These are the leaders of the Baku Republic, which existed from October 31, 1917 to July 31, 1918. Soviet power in the heart of Azerbaijan was not established by Muslims: the only Muslims in the Baku Council of People's Commissars were M.A. Azizbekov and N.N. Narimanov (besides, Narimanov is a Tatar). The rest are Georgians Dzhaparidze, Armenians Shaumyan and Gabrielyan, Jew Zevin, Russians Fioletov and Sukhartsev.

Baku was too important a center oil industry; it was possible to transport oil products from here in all directions ... Lenin ordered to send 7 armored cars, 13 aircraft, 80 artillery pieces, 160 machine guns, 10 thousand rifles, ammunition and bread.

Barter is barter! Sea expeditions delivered 20,000 poods of gasoline and 3,500 poods of lubricating oils to Astrakhan. The Communists never had the conscience to deny that all this was necessary to supply the Red Army.

“The position of B.K. complicated by the lack of a strong alliance between multinational. The Baku proletariat and the broad masses of the working peasants of Azerbaijan. villages."

Calling a cat a cat, for the majority of Azerbaijanis, the Baku Council of People's Commissars was a bunch of impudent foreigners who "seized" power, clashed with the godless Bolsheviks, and now they are exporting the national wealth of Azerbaijan, oil, in exchange for weapons...

On March 18, the Musavatists “revolted,” or, simply put, they led a wave of popular protest. main support Council of People's Commissars were Armenian militants and lumpen rabble. During street fighting, they did not spare the cartridges supplied by Lenin, and then a terrible massacre of "Tatars", that is, Muslims, began. Up to 10 thousand people were killed. After these events, the Baku commune began to spread, as cancer tumor. Its metastases-revolutionary committees have strengthened in six regions of Azerbaijan.

It remains to congratulate the Baku commissars on the triumph of the Leninist national policy: in May 1918, the Musavatists created their own government in Tbilisi and on May 27 declared the independence of Azerbaijan, which they had not even thought about before.

Azerbaijanis acted together with the Turkish army. The Turks were allies of Germany. At the end of June, the Baku Soviet invited British troops from Persia.

On July 31, the Musavatists and the Turks were already approaching Baku. On the same day, two British battalions landed in Baku. The Baku Soviet has turned into a kind of native government that no longer decides anything.

This episode of "intervention" lasted about a month: the number of Turkish and Azerbaijani troops outnumbered the British by a hundred times. On September 14, the British evacuated by sea back to Iran. They did not take the members of the Baku Council with them, even though they asked for it.

On September 15, 1918, the Turks and Azerbaijanis under the leadership of Enver Pasha entered Baku. On the same day, the Baku Soviet fled, abandoning its supporters. Turks and Azerbaijanis massacred Armenians and Russians in retribution for the massacre of Muslims. According to the British, 10 thousand were killed, according to Turkish - 7 thousand, and according to Soviet data, about 15 thousand people of both sexes and from old people to babies in a cradle.

The Turkish occupation lasted a month and a half - until the defeat of Turkey in the World War.

Then the British brought an Indian division into the Transcaucasus, taking control of the railway from Baku to Batum - the route for transporting oil. British government established a demarcation line from the mouth of the Bzyb River to the east, through the regions of Sukhum, Kutaisi, Tbilisi, Dagestan to a point 5 miles south of Petrovsk ("Kori Line"). The crossing of this line was forbidden both by the Volunteer (Denikin) army and the troops of the Transcaucasian republics.

This second British "intervention" was also short-lived. In April 1919, the British decided to leave, and by the end of August, all troops had been completely evacuated.

On August 31, the Baku commissars tried to escape on ships to Astrakhan. But the ships of the Caspian military flotilla, still neutral, set off in pursuit. Tellingly, the Reds were disarmed and sent home. Only 35 of the most important commissioners were sent to prison. These - the organizers of the March 18 massacre - were "shone" by a military field court. They were saved only by the rapid offensive of the Turkish troops. On the night of September 14, the British fled from Baku, the Turks shelled the city with artillery pieces; that night, the Bolsheviks, still at liberty, released those already in prison from prison.

Another attempt to escape on the ship - but the ship's crew did not want to save the Bolsheviks. The sailors crossed the Caspian Sea and handed over the commissioners to the local Transcaspian government.

26 scoundrels were not shot at all in the basement. They were tried in compliance with all norms of civilized legislation on charges of high treason, surrender of Baku to Turkish troops, support external enemy- Turks, in organizing torture, extrajudicial murders, robberies, organizing ethnic massacres. Tried, sentenced, and on September 20, 1918, he was beheaded. Their heads were cut off by a Turkmen executioner, a man of incredible strength.

The commission of the Cheka and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee opened the pit with the remains, all the details were known ... Socialist-Revolutionary Vadim Chaikin even wrote a book about it. But truth is not needed at all! It's so ugly - they cut off their heads ... And who? Some kind of Socialist-Revolutionaries…White Guards are needed!

An edifying, colorful story is needed. The communists ordered the artist Brodsky to paint a suitable picture: how commissars are shot. Everything is as it should be in the picture: the heroic faces of the commissars with their heads held high, the angry faces of people in Asian robes aiming at them, British officers in colonial cork helmets...

Needless to say, the British did not watch the execution? Did not interfere in Russian affairs? And what exactly did the British units of pith helmets that entered the Transcaspian region not wear? That the Russians sentenced the Baku commissars to death, and that the only Asian who participated in the execution was the Turkmen executioner?

The main thing is that the legend went on, the picture was replicated in millions of copies, films were made, nonsense was written about the execution in textbooks ...

Under Soviet rule, "26 Baku commissars" were just not deified. Their ashes were transferred to Baku and in 1968 a magnificent pantheon was erected.

The word "basmach" first appeared after the suppression of the Kokand uprising of 1873-1876. Another Kokand Khanate, absolutely independent state, in 1860 announced a gazavat - that is, attacked the Russian Empire. In 1865, after the capture of Tashkent, the khanate became a vassal of the Russian Empire.

After the uprising, the khanate itself was abolished. On February 19, 1876, the Fergana region was created as part of the Turkestan Governor-General.

Already after the defeat of the Khan's army, part of his subjects continued to fight under the green banners of Islam, continued to ghazavat. "Basmachi": from "basmak" - to attack, to attack. The Basmachi themselves called themselves "the army of Islam." The movement was not purely grassroots. Part of the horsemen scattered by artillery, mowed down by rapid-fire rifles from the army of the Kokand Khan did not want to capitulate.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Basmachi movement had almost disappeared. Probably, it would have completely gone away if it were not for the Soviet government.

Among the flickering and disappeared states in November 1918, Kokand autonomy was proclaimed under the leadership of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cadets. In February 1919, troops of the Turkestan Republic entered Kokand.

If the Muslims were still ready to endure decent Russian artisans, then it turned out to be beyond their strength to endure the Bolsheviks.

One of the leaders of the Turkish Revolution, Enver Pasha, also helped the Basmachi movement a lot. Here are the ideas of pan-Turkism, and knowledge of modern weapons.

In the people's detachments of the "army of Islam" there were 500, and 800, and even 1500 trunks and sabers (like Ishmael-bek). Here, as elsewhere in the case of popular leaders, everything depended on who you attacked. Because some leaders of the Basmachi treated the White movement well and slaughtered mostly the atheists of the Reds. Others had a penchant for socialism and only wanted to see him with a Sharia face. Still others slaughtered all the Russians, just in case, without finding out which of them was white and which was red.

Islamic "interveners"

In October 1919, the Third Anglo-Afghan War ended. It is not necessary to see in it the "intrigues of the colonialists": the then usurper of the Afghan throne and the future great friend of Soviet Russia, Lmanullah Khan, tried to annex part of India inhabited by Muslims to Afghanistan.

Defeated by the British, he sent his troops to Merv, expelling the local Soviet from there. Amanullah also offered military assistance against the Bolsheviks to Muslim Fergana. But on the condition that Fergana joins the Islamic Central Asian Federation he is creating. Nothing came of this idea: the local Muslims did not want to recognize Amanullah, and without them Amanullah did not dare to fight the Red Army. And he quickly withdrew his troops from Merv.

Apparently, also an "interventionist".

The total number of Basmachi in 1919 varies, according to various estimates, from 10 to 30 thousand people. It’s worth converging on 20: the average numbers are often the most correct.

White forces of Central Asia

In Turkestan, the Whites sought to create a united Front from the Caucasus to Siberia. In addition to the troops of Khiva and Bukhara, which declared their independence after 1917, it included the Semirechensky Cossack army, personnel of the Turkestan military district, troops of the Transcaspian region, workers' squads of the Central Asian Railway and units of the Tekinsky cavalry regiment that arrived in Turkestan. Colonel P.G. Kornilov, the brother of the deceased general, headed the headquarters of the Muslim anti-Bolshevik army of Madamin Bek. Kolchak recognized the rights of autonomy for Khiva and Bukhara and helped them with weapons.

Turkestan Front

Communists from Moscow actively helped the Turkestan Republic, and at the same time annexed it to the rest of the Soviet Republic.

From the starving Soviet republic, Sovdepiya, 2 million poods of grain were taken to Central Asia. The weapons were counted into wagons and trains. On the Turkestan front, the Bolsheviks had absolute superiority in artillery and aviation. Besides them, no one had planes.

On August 11, 1919, the Reds took Ashgabat. Funtikov's government faced a real danger of a military defeat. In an internecine fight between politicians, Funtikov lost. He was accused of abuse of power and imprisoned. The government and the army of the Transcaspian region declared their submission to General Denikin. Denikin sent a division of General Litvinov, an artillery battery and several hundreds of Cossacks to help them.

Only in January 1920 did the operation to capture Krasnovodsk begin. The city near the Caspian Sea was defended by the remnants of the workers' squads, the White Guards of Litvinov, the Ural Cossacks fleeing from the Bolsheviks. There are about 5 thousand people in total. There were about 8 thousand Reds, plus 20 artillery pieces and used aircraft.

On February 6, 1920, the Red Army broke into the city. 1600 whites surrendered, about a thousand died, the rest were evacuated by steamers to Persia.

In the autumn of 1919, the forces of the Semirechye Cossacks of Ataman Annenkov liquidated the last pockets of Soviet power in Semirechye.

In the autumn of 1919, the troops of the Turkestan Front under the command of Frunze made their way from the Orenburg steppes to the Pamirs. Neither the remnants of the white Cossack army of A.I. had the strength to resist them. Dutov, nor among the Basmachi.

By the spring of 1920, Frunze had conquered all of Turkestan. As in other operations, the success of military operations was ensured by the tsarist "military experts", who developed action plans, and the Chekists, who kept the Red Army soldiers at bay and carried out a "cleansing" of the conquered territory.

Terror against the local population was especially cruel in the Ferghana Valley. In his later writings, Frunze made precisely such terror a part of military doctrine.

And again the slogans of the World Revolution hovered over the heads of the Red Army. The cautious Frunze, who always measured seven times before cutting off, did not cross the borders of the former Russian Empire. But Trotsky in August 1919 submitted a secret note to the Central Committee. He proposed to create a cavalry fist of 30-40 thousand sabers and throw it through Afghanistan to India.

The offensive of Denikin's troops prevented the realization of this idea.