The Transcaspian Government (1918 - July 1919) was a "

Menshevik The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

Socialist Revolutionary Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolut ...

" coalition set up by the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

workers of the

Trans-Caspian Railway The Trans-Caspian Railway (also called the Central Asian Railway, ) is a railway that follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It was built by the Russian Empire during its expansion into Central Asia in the 19t ...

in 1918. It was based at

Ashgabat Ashgabat (Turkmen language, Turkmen: ''Aşgabat'') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Turkmenistan. It lies between the Karakum Desert and the Kopet Dag, Kopetdag mountain range in Central Asia, approximately 50 km (30 ...

Transcaspian Oblast The Transcaspian Oblast, or simply Transcaspia, was an oblast of the Russian Empire and early Soviet Russia to the east of the Caspian Sea during the second half of the 19th century until 1924. It was bounded to the south by Iran's Khorasan Pro ...

Origin

Autonomous sentiments were developing amongst the local Turkmen population, with the formation of the Turkmen National Army (TNA) in February 1918. Concerned about this, the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

Ashgabat Soviet appealed to , leader of the Tashkent Soviet for military support and declared it would carry out a census of all arms-bearing men in the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

majority town on 17 June 1918. However, this sparked off two days of rioting. The Tashkent Soviet dispatched some

Red Guards The Red Guards () were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolition in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a ...

led by V. Frolov and a

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

contingent who arrived on 24 June and disarmed the Turkmen Cavalry Squadron, which was the core of the TNA. Frolov declared

martial law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

and personally shot the five members of a delegation of railwaymen that had tried to present a petition to him. He proceeded to Kizyl-Arvat to continue restoring Bolshevik control but local railway workers had heard of the events and armed themselves. Frolov and a number of his bodyguards were shot and the remainder disarmed.

Ashkhabad Committee

On 14 July 1918 The Ashkhabad Executive Committee was founded by

s and Social Revolutionaries following their successful revolt against the

s of

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

. This committee took the name of the Trans Caspian Provisional Government in November 1918, but is generally referred to as the Transcaspian Government. The initial leadership consisted of: * Fyodor Funtikov,

worker, President * Vladimir Dhokov, railway worker * D. Kurilov, railway worker * L. A. Zimen, school teacher and orientalist, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Military action

The Committee had around 1000 armed men, which consisted of Armenian and Russian troops. British opinion of these forces was less than complimentary. General Wilfrid Malleson had been dispatched by the British Government to resist the Bolshevik forces and assisted the Transcaspian forces by sending them a machine gun team across the border from India. This team stopped the Transcaspian forces being completely overrun by the Bolsheviks early in the conflict. Malleson then sent an Anglo Indian unit to assist in what became referred to as the Malleson mission. The combined Anglo-Indian and Transcaspian force then went on to successfully engage the Bolsheviks, pushing them out of some of the major cities. The Government was largely in a weak position. It had no economy and was existing on the money it had gained from the Soviets when it took over. The main economy was based on cotton, but it had no means to export it. It largely sought funds from the British which it did not get, even for food the British military had used and promised to pay for.

The execution of the Baku Commissars

The Execution of the Twenty Six Baku Commissars

On the night of 20 September 1918, under the leadership of Fyodor Funtikov, they executed the

26 Baku Commissars The 26 Baku Commissars were Bolshevik and Left SR, Left Socialist Revolutionary (SR) members of the Baku Commune. The commune was established in the city of Baku, which was then the capital of the briefly independent Azerbaijan Democratic Repub ...

who had fled Baku by ship to Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan.

The crisis of December 1918

In December 1918 there was a crisis in the Transcaspian Government. The Government felt it could not control the capital and asked help from the British, who helped by sending troops there. However the Government was fragile, Malleson's opinion being that they had at best a tenuous grip on their forces and people. In addition, Malleson had promised funds and had not delivered them. The people started protesting and the Committee resigned. It was replaced by another committee, which was appointed by Teague-Jones. The new committee eventually came under the influence of Denikin's Southern White Russian army and his men came to bolster the force, creating the White Turkestan Army in January 1919. However, when the British withdrew in the same year, the Bolsheviks went on the offensive and defeated the Transcaspian forces. By 1920 the Tashkent Soviet had regained control of the area and the Transcaspian Government was no more.

References