The disclosure, although incomplete, of the archives of the highest Soviet state and party organs made it possible to study historical events, the coverage of which for many years was based on concepts that were far from reality. Among these events, in our opinion, the so-called Basma movement in Soviet Turkestan is of great scientific interest.
In the autumn of 1920, the despotic regime of the Emir of Bukhara, Seyid Alim Khan, was overthrown and the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic (BNSR) was proclaimed. In Moscow, this was regarded as a major success in implementing the strategy leading to the victory of the world revolution. However, as representatives of the RSFSR were convinced on the spot, the situation there was very difficult. In particular, the insurgency began, and the sources of its material supply were located in Afghanistan-beyond the reach of the Red Army units, the only real force capable of fighting the uprising, as it turned out. As noted in one of the reports of Soviet military intelligence, "on May 2, an Emir's official Khojakulov arrived in Mazar-i-Sherif, who was entrusted by the former emir with the leadership of operations in the Baisun region," and the emir's agents spread rumors that the Afghan and British governments " have pledged to assist the rebellion against the Russian Bolsheviks and their allies in the capital of Bukhara - mladobukhartsev" 1 . By November 1921, most of Eastern Bukhara was under rebel control.
Even before these events began, it was clear to the Soviet leadership that Afghanistan had an extremely important role to play in the success or failure of grandiose plans to launch revolutionary transformations in Central and South Asia. In particular, it was to become a base for exporting the revolution to India - one of the primary goals of the Comintern. Meanwhile, it was necessary to take into account that among the Afghan political elite, after the collapse of the caliphate in Turkey, the ideas of creating a new caliphate ...
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