Before the 1917, the Khanate of Khiva, along with the Emirate of Bukhara, was a protectorate of the Russian empire. By 1920, these became the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic and the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic. I’ve read a little bit about this era in Bukhara, but I haven’t been able to find much information in English about Khiva. So just what was going on in Khiva in the years after the Russian Revolution?
The final years of Khiva were marked by instability and weakness as regional factions waged their wars of ideologies across Central Asia.
When Isfandiyar Khan returned to Khiva in March 1917, he found the local Jadids had allied themselves with the newly formed Soviet Russian garrison. They petitioned for reforms and freedoms, in April such demands were granted, making way for the Majlis council that promised civil liberties, an electorate based on a property qualification, a government budget, fiscal accounting, a salaried judiciary, new-method schools, a railroad, and expanded telegraph and postal service. Although they intended to modernize Khiva, old problems of Turkmen-Uzbek animosity stalled progress. Dissatisfied with their representation, the leaders of the Turkmen 1916 uprising soon turned hostile once more, escalating raids against Uzbek villages in May of 1917. When the Majilis turned to Russian aid in suppressing the raiders, the conservative forces encouraged Isfandiyar Khan to move against the distracted Jadids and stage a coup. The members of the Majilis were thus arrested and replaced with conservative electorates, and the Jadid party outlawed. The failure of the Jadids drew the Russians in, an earlier agreement in January between Isfandiyar and Kuropatkin outlined Russian military supervision and modernization efforts. One Colonel Zaitsev was ordered to pacify the region, yet disorder remained, Turkmen raids continued and the Russian garrison proved ineffective with low morale and discipline.
When the October Revolution stirred the empire, Khiva stood relatively unscathed. Lack of Russian enclaves prevented the spread of Bolshevik ideals, and what Russian presence there were in the form of business and military posts were rather anti-Bolshevik as well. Though Zaitsev was nominally replaced, he refused to recognize Soviet authority. Instead, Zaitsev cooperated with Isfandiyar to crack down on the Jadids. However the colonel soon left with his Cossacks to attack Tashkent in aid towards the anti-Bolshevik Kokand forces. This force was unsuccessful and Zaitsev was arrested. Djunaid Khan, a Yumot chief influential in Khiva and involved in the 1916 Turkmen revolt, consolidated his power, abolishing the Majilis and executing numerous Jadids. Those that escaped set up a Young Khivan committee in exile in Tashkent.
In the spring and summer of 1918 Djunaid continued his consolidation, setting up local military commanders, restructuring taxes against the Uzbeks, and deposing old Yumot tribal rivals. When Djunaid raided Urgench and confiscated the local Russian treasury, the threat of a newly arrived Bolshevik garrison in Petro-Aleksandrovsk threatened his rule. He preliminarily had Isfandiyar assassinated, fearful that his puppet might turn to the Russians for help. Late November defeats and overly bold maneuvers from Djunaid led to peace through the Treaty of Takhta in April 9th, 1919. Under urges from Tashkent to focus on the Transcaspian front, Khiva saw favorable terms: Russia reaffirmed its independence, free trade and diplomacy was reestablished, and amnesty was allowed for all prior hostile Turkmen forces. Unwisely Djunaid remained apprehensive towards Tashkent and the Russians, relations deteriorated amid the Bolshevik-White battles in the area. The Young Khivan exiles on the other hand were gathering support and numbers to depose the oppressive Djunaid Khan.
In November of 1919, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front determined to invade the Khanate, under the proclamation of "freeing" the oppressed and granting Khivans the right to self autonomy. In practice the front against Djunaid was to unify the interests of Khivan Communists, Young Khivans, and anti-Djunaid Turkoman chieftains, once the campaign was completed the Soviet could later on impose their will onto Khiva. Successful actions in late December and January led to full capitulation by February.
A revolutionary committee was set up and local committees replaced Djunaid's military command posts. On April 1st a political mission from Tashkent arrived in Khiva to conduct elections for a nationwide congress of soviets, by the end of the month, the First All-Khorezmi Kurultai of Soviets met, electing Lenin as the honorary chairman, abolishing the khanate, proclaiming an independent Khorezmi People’s Soviet Republic under a Council of People’s Nazirs, adopting a new constitution, and sending a delegation to Moscow. Thus was the end of the centuries old Khanates, and the steady reorganization of the region into the Soviet system.
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