Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

The Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (initially, the Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic; 30 April 1918 – 27 October 1924) was an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic located in Soviet Central Asia.

During the Russian Empire, the Turkestan ASSR's territory was governed as Turkestan Krai, the Emirate of Bukhara, and the Khanate of Khiva. From 1905, Pan-Turkist ideologues like Ismail Gasprinski aimed to suppress differences among the peoples who spoke Turkic languages, uniting them into one government. This idea was supported by Vladimir Lenin, and after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks in Tashkent created the Turkestan ASSR. But in February 1918, the Islamic Council (Uzbek: Shuroi Islamia) and the Council of Intelligentsia (Uzb. Shuroi Ulammo) met in Kokand city and declared a rival Turkestan Autonomous Republic, battling Bolshevik forces until the 1920s.

Meanwhile, a power struggle among the Communists ensued between those favoring a Pan-Turkist government like Turar Ryskulov and Tursun Khojaev, and those in favor of dividing Soviet Turkestan into smaller ethnic or regional units, such as Fayzulla Khodzhayev and Akmal Ikramov. The latter group won, as national delimitation in Central Asia began in 1924. Upon dissolution, the Turkestan ASSR was split into Turkmen SSR (now Turkmenistan), Uzbek SSR (now Uzbekistan) with the Tajik ASSR (now Tajikistan), Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast (now Kyrgyzstan), and Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast (now Karakalpakstan).