Autonomous status

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From about 500 BC to 500 AD, the region of what is now Karakalpakstan was a thriving agricultural area supported by extensive irrigation.[3] It was strategically important territory and fiercely contested, as is seen by the more than 50 Khorezm Fortresses which were constructed here. The Karakalpak people, who used to be nomadic herders and fishers, were first recorded by foreigners in the 16th century.[4] Karakalpakstan was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Khanate of Khiva in 1873.[5] Under Soviet rule, it was an autonomous area within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic before becoming part of Uzbekistan in 1936 as the Karakalpak ASSR.[6] The region was probably at its most prosperous in the 1960s and 1970s, when irrigation from the Amu Darya was being expanded.[citation needed] However, the evaporation of the Aral Sea has made Karakalpakstan one of Uzbekistan's poorest regions.[4] The region is suffering from extensive drought, partly due to climate patterns, but also largely because the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers are mostly diverted in the eastern parts of Uzbekistan. Crop failures have deprived about 48,000 people of their main source of income and shortages of potable water have created a surge of infectious diseases


Karakalpakstan is now mostly desert and is located in western Uzbekistan near the Aral Sea, in the lowest part of the Amu Darya basin.[8][7][9] It has an area of 164,900 km2[10] and is surrounded by desert. The Kyzyl Kum Desert is located to the east and the Karakum Desert is located to the south. A rocky plateau extends west to the Caspian Sea.

Autonomous status
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Its predecessor, the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was an autonomous republic in the Soviet Union until its incorporation into the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932. The Republic of Karakalpakstan maintained its predecessor's formal sovereignty, even after the independence of Uzbekistan in 1990.[11] Karakalpakstan shares veto power with Uzbekistan over decisions concerning its affairs. According to the constitution, relations between Karakalpakstan and Uzbekistan are "regulated by treaties and agreements" and any disputes are "settled by way of reconciliation". Its right to secede is limited by the veto power of Uzbekistan's legislature over any decision to secede.[10] Article 74, chapter XVII, Constitution of Uzbekistan, provides that: "The Republic of Karakalpakstan shall have the right to secede from the Republic of Uzbekistan on the basis of a nationwide referendum held by the people of Karakalpakstan."

In July 2022, large protests broke out in the region over a proposed constitutional change which would strip Karakalpakstan of its autonomy.[12][13] The proposed change was later scrapped in response to the demonstrations.

The head of the republic is the Chairman of the Parliament (known as the "President of the Republic" from 1991 to 1992). The head of the government is the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, who heads the Karakalpak Council of Ministers.

One of the deputy chairmen of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis is a representative of Karakalpakstan as per the constitution.

The population is estimated 1,948,488 (2022), with 51% living in rural areas.[15][16] In 2007 it was estimated that about 400,000 of the population are of the Karakalpak ethnic group, 400,000 are Uzbeks and 300,000 are Kazakhs.[4] The Karakalpak language is closer to Kazakh than to Uzbek.[17] The language was written in a modified Cyrillic in Soviet times and has been written in the Latin alphabet since 1996.

Other than the capital Nukus, major cities include Xojeli, Taqiyatas, Shimbay, Qońirat (Kungrad) and Moynaq.

The crude birth rate is 2.2%: approximately 39,400 children were born in 2017. Nearly 8,400 people died in the same period. The crude death rate is 0.47%. The natural growth rate is 31,000, or 1.72%.

The median age was 27.7 years old in 2017, which is younger than the rest of Uzbekistan (median age of 28.5 countrywide). Men are 27.1 years old, while women are 28.2 years old.

Dynamics of the number and ethnic composition of the population of Karakalpakstan according to the All-Union censuses of 1926–1989:
The economy of the region used to be heavily dependent on fisheries in the Aral Sea. It is now supported by cotton, rice and melons. Karakalpakstan is well known for its fruits, such as plums, pears, grapes, and apricots, in addition to all kinds of melons. Hydroelectric power from a large Soviet-built station on the Amu Darya is also important.

The Amu Darya delta was once heavily populated and supported extensive irrigation based agriculture for thousands of years. Under the Khorezm, the area attained considerable power and prosperity. However, the gradual climate change over the centuries, accelerated by human induced evaporation of the Aral Sea in the late 20th century has created a desolate scene in the region. The ancient oases of rivers, lakes, reed marshes, forests and farms are drying up and being poisoned by wind-borne salt and by fertilizer and pesticide residues from the dried bed of the Aral Sea. Summer temperatures have risen by 10 °C (18 °F) and winter temperatures have decreased by 10 °C (18 °F). The rate of anemia, respiratory diseases and other health problems has risen dramatically.

Beruniy is located on the northern bank of the Amu Darya (Oxus) and is the administrative seat of Beruniy District. It is located 41.69 latitude and 60.75 longitude and it is situated at elevation 101 meters above sea level. It has a population of 50,929 making it the 3rd largest urban area within Karakalpakstan.
Historically, Beruniy was known as Kat or Kath and served as the capital of Khwarezm during the Afrighid dynasty and owed both its glory and demise to the Amu Darya (Oxus).Silt deposits from the river made the surrounding land fertile, and its water, through a network of man-made irrigation canals, has aided agricultural growth on vast scales since ancient times, at the same time, the nearly flat alluvial plain on which the lower course of the Amu Darya (oxus) flows has caused the riverbed and adjoining canals to shift over time, accordingly, Kaṯ has had to be relocated due to flooding at various times.
From historical reports that such a natural shift was in progress during the 10th century, when Kaṯ was at the zenith of its prestige. According to a Chorasmian tradition related by Abu Rayḥān Al-Biruni's Āṯār, one of the Afrighid Kings, whose reign began in AD 616 in the era of Alexander (and the Seleucids) built his castle at Fir on the outskirts of Kaṯ; this citadel consisted of three concentric forts, in the middle of which rose the royal palace. Fir’s fortifications were so high that they would be visible from a distance of fifteen km or more. The citadel Fir (or Fil) was conquered by the Arabs in AD 712. In terms of size and splendour the capital of Chorasmia rivalled the other major urban centres of Central Asia. According to Al Biruni, who eye-witnessed the flooding of his hometown before his emigration at the age of twenty-five (in 998) to Iran, Fir “was broken and shattered by the Oxus, and was swept away piece by piece every year, till the last remains of it had disappeared” in the year 1305 of the Seleucid era (AD 994).

Kat was a commercial hub with a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional population. The 10th-century text on geography the Ḥodud al-ʿālam describes Kat as a town with abundant wealth, a “resort of merchants,” and an “emporium of all Transoxiana’. Its major products were cotton cushion covers, quilted garments and felt carpets which suggest that cotton then played an important role in the rural economy of the region, just as it does today. Kat also had many non-Muslim inhabitants. It is reported that Kat was the seat of bishopric of the Christian church in the 8th century (Tolstov). It was probably in Kat that there lived and worked the Christian scholar ʿIsa b. Yaḥyaʾ Masiḥi, a colleague of Abu Rayḥan Al-Biruni, himself a native of of Kāṯ. There must have also still been a Zoroastrian community in Kat from whom Biruni obtained the rich research data on Zoroastrianism in his Āṯār al-bāqia. The Ḥodud al-ʿālam adds that Kat was the gate of Turkestan and that the townspeople were warlike and active fighters for the faith.

In AD 995 Kat lost its status as the capital of Chorasmia to Gorgānj across the Oxus, synchronous with the dynastic change from Afrighids to Maʾmunids. Three centuries later, in AD 1333, Ibn Baṭṭuṭa , on his way from Gorgānj to Bukhara, passed through Kat, which he portrays as a small but prosperous town. Some forty years later, Timurs army devastated the town (and most of Khorezm) but later he had the destroyed walls reconstructed.

The modern history of Kat has been marked by more flooding and population shifts but also by name changes. In the 17th century, another wave of flooding washed out the old canals. As a result, Anusa, the Khan of Khiva (1663-85), ordered he construction of the Yarmis canal and built a fortress on the left side of the Oxus to which he transferred the remaining population. Meanwhile, the ruins of old Kat on the right side of the river became known as Sheikh Abbas Wali, after a local mausoleum.

In the 19th century the inhabitants of the new Kat once again were relocated across the river around the mausoleum the settlement becoming known as Sobboz (being) renamed Berunyi in 1957 in honour of the medieval scholar and polymath Al-Biruni who was born on its outskirts. It gained the status of city in 1962. In 1969 the Amu Darya River overflew its banks. As a result many buildings in Beruniy were badly damaged. However, the town was quickly repaired and continues as an important centre.

Beruniy today is the administrative center of Berunyi district (tuman) which appears on satellite maps as a vast continuum of built environment and farmland, with a network of canals branching out from the Amu Darya.

The task of outlining the history of Khorezm and the Karakalpaks during the relatively recent Soviet period is in someways harder than describing more distant events. The published Soviet versions of events assert that, with the exception of a few religious or bourgeois reactionaries, the peoples of Central Asia wholeheartedly welcomed the Revolution and gave it their full support. The accounts are so distorted and one-sided that they would be laughable were it not for the chilling realization that either misguided loyalty or terror resulted in several generations of authors substituting fantasy for reality. Sharaf Rashidov, the former Communist First Secretary of Uzbekistan, makes the point for us admirably in his book "Soviet Uzbekistan", published shortly before his demise in 1983:
"The victory of the Revolution marked a turning point in the history of the peoples of our country. The cleansing wind passed over Turkestan as well, sweeping away with it the dirt and the scum of the old world, a world of cruel social and national oppression, feudal and capitalistic exploitation, the tyranny of the khans, rich landowners and tsarist officials, and lack of rights for the working people."

"A new epoch had come – an epoch of intellectual renaissance, a rapid and steady rise of the economy and development of all national and ethnic cultures of Central Asia, an epoch of friendship, brotherly co-operation, and mutual assistance of the peoples of our country."
Penned by one of Uzbekistan's most corrupt politicians, these words sum up the appalling hypocrisy of the former Soviet regime.


Contents
Khorezm and the October Revolution
The Khorezm Soviet Republic
The Stalin Years
The Post-War Period
Depths of the Cold War
The Collapse of Communism
References

Lenin Square, No'kis
A poster of Karl Marx overlooks a Soviet parade in Lenin Square, No'kis, in the early 1980s.
Khorezm and the October Revolution
The task of outlining the history of Khorezm and the Karakalpaks during the relatively recent Soviet period is in someways harder than describing more distant events. The published Soviet versions of events assert that, with the exception of a few religious or bourgeois reactionaries, the peoples of Central Asia wholeheartedly welcomed the Revolution and gave it their full support. The accounts are so distorted and one-sided that they would be laughable were it not for the chilling realization that either misguided loyalty or terror resulted in several generations of authors substituting fantasy for reality. Sharaf Rashidov, the former Communist First Secretary of Uzbekistan, makes the point for us admirably in his book "Soviet Uzbekistan", published shortly before his demise in 1983:
"The victory of the Revolution marked a turning point in the history of the peoples of our country. The cleansing wind passed over Turkestan as well, sweeping away with it the dirt and the scum of the old world, a world of cruel social and national oppression, feudal and capitalistic exploitation, the tyranny of the khans, rich landowners and tsarist officials, and lack of rights for the working people."

"A new epoch had come – an epoch of intellectual renaissance, a rapid and steady rise of the economy and development of all national and ethnic cultures of Central Asia, an epoch of friendship, brotherly co-operation, and mutual assistance of the peoples of our country."
Penned by one of Uzbekistan's most corrupt politicians, these words sum up the appalling hypocrisy of the former Soviet regime.

Sharaf Rashidov
Sharaf Rashidov, First Party Secretary of the Uzbek SSR, 1959 to 1983.

Yet the alternative view was also biased, although not in such a ludicrous manner. Non-Soviet historians have argued that the response of the local population varied from indifference to violent opposition and that their incorporation into the Soviet system was only achieved through Russia's overwhelmingly superior military strength. What we lack in both accounts is any record of events from the point of view of the endemic population who generally played a minor role in the events that shaped their lives for the next 70 years. Following independence, local people are now much more willing to describe openly what life was like in Khorezm during the Soviet period and some local academics are researching the period from a new standpoint. The danger now is that history is being rewritten, not always objectively, from the new nationalistic Uzbek, Turkmen, or Karakalpak perspective. At the end of the day there is no substitution for an eyewitness account, but unfortunately only a handful have been published. Sadly few of today's citizens can remember as far back as the events that followed the 1917 October Revolution but many remember the Stalin era, both before and after the Great Patriotic War.

While the Russian Provisional Government attempted to continue the war against Germany throughout 1917, they were submerged by increasing lawlessness at home. Finally, on 6 November, a group of Bolsheviks led by Trotsky stormed the Winter Palace and ousted the Provisional Government, opening the way for Lenin to establish the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

It was a time of major crisis. Russia had been devastated by the war. The Empire was disintegrating – Poland, the Ukraine, Estonia, Finland, Moldova and Latvia all declared independence, as did Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan following the humiliating peace treaty signed with Germany in 1918. Soon Russia would be engulfed in the Civil War between the Red and White factions - for and against the Revolution.

Within Central Asia itself the main political response to events taking place in Russia was centred on the Russian community in Tashkent. At that time the city consisted of two parts, the old Muslim town with a population of about 200,000 and the new and adjacent Russian quarter with a population of about 50,000. Following the so-called revolution of February 1917, and the abdication of the Tsar, the official ruling Turkestan Committee effectively vied for power with the unofficial Tashkent Soviet. As early as September, before the October Revolution, the Tashkent Soviet had proclaimed its authority over the whole of Russian Turkestan and within days of the Revolution members of the Turkestan Committee had been arrested by local activists. By the end of November the Tashkent Soviet had gained complete control of central Tashkent. Following the creation of a soviet government in Petrograd, the soviets of Turkestan and Bukhara aligned themselves with Tashkent and a Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan Region was formed, headed by a prominent Bolshevik. Certain Tashkent Jadidists, including some future leaders such as the two Bukharans, Abdurauf Fitrat and the younger Faizulla Khojayev, threw their hand in with the Bolsheviks, although many others wanted Muslim not Communist rule.

Amazingly neither the former Turkestan Committee nor the new Tashkent Soviet contained a single representative of the local Muslim population, essentially excluding 95% of the population of Turkestan. Yet it was clear that many of the Jadidists, and others who could speak on behalf of the Muslim majority, saw the Revolution as an opportunity to gain autonomy and self-governance, although not necessarily complete independence from Russia. An All-Russian Muslim Congress that had convened in Moscow during 1917 had already proposed a democratic federal republic to govern the Muslim territories, while a Muslim conference in Tashkent demanded Muslim autonomy for Turkestan within a Russian federal republic. In December an Extraordinary Muslim Congress held in Khokand (the Khanate located in the Ferghana Valley) established an independent regional government led by young nationalists. It declared its desire for a Pan-Turkic confederation of progressive Central Asian states, for the education and Westernization of its people, and for the modernization of its religious establishments. At the very same time a vast and peaceful demonstration for autonomy took place in Tashkent.

Yet the Tashkent Soviet had held a Congress in November 1917 aimed at establishing the foundations of Soviet power in Turkestan, during which they arrogantly resolved that Muslims should be excluded from all government posts! The Muslims appealed to Moscow to rein in the Tashkent Soviet, but Stalin refused to intervene in this distant dispute. Locally the Tashkent Soviet clearly saw the Khokand government as a direct and highly popular threat to its own existence and at a Congress of Soviets held in Tashkent in January 1918 it was declared "counter-revolutionary". Within a month Red Army forces had surrounded and invaded the town, causing considerable loss of life and leaving only a handful of fugitive survivors to tell the tale. By April 1918 the Bolsheviks in Tashkent had formed the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

The extinction of the Khokand government sent a brutally clear message to those Muslim leaders still contemplating national self-rule within Central Asia. Resistance to Soviet rule now went underground in the form of a mujaheddin-like guerrilla movement, which the Bolsheviks derogatorily termed the Basmachis, a term normally reserved for bandits and murderers. The first Basmachi campaign had taken place in Ferghana during 1918 and 1919 and moved on to Tashkent in 1920. However the Basmachis were very poorly equipped and lacked co-ordination, even more so than the Red Army - itself a rag-tag mixture of Russian army deserters and East European ex-PoWs. The arrival of Enver Pasha, the former Minister of War for the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, at the end of 1921, provided the Basmachis with some dynamic leadership for a brief period, during which they managed to take control of both Dushanbe and Bukhara. Enver Pasha soon built up a considerable following and succeeded in defeating the Red Army on several occasions. He established links with the Basmachis in Ferghana and with the Yomut leader, Junaid Khan, who was fighting the Bolsheviks in the Qara Qum, close to Khorezm. However this high profile campaign was short-lived and the Bolsheviks managed to ambush Enver Pasha in the Pamirs during 1922. Even so the Basmachis continued their campaign in the region, continuing to embarrass the Soviets into the mid-1930s.

The successful suppression of the aspirations of the Muslim majority is all the more remarkable given the fact that Central Asia had been effectively isolated from Moscow and Petrograd during the Civil War. The relatively small Turkestan Red Army had been forced to fight not just the Basmachis but the more professional soldiers of the White Army, not just on one but on several fronts. As early as November 1917 officers from the former Imperial army formed the first White opposition forces in south-eastern Russia, cutting communications between Tashkent and Moscow. By March 1918 the Civil War had begun. Ural and Orenburg Cossacks took over control from local soviets and the moderately socialist Mensheviks formed an interim government in the Volga city of Samara. By August the whole of south-east Russia was under the control of anti-Bolshevik forces, with General Dutov in control of Orenburg. With the railway from Central Asia effectively blockaded and Moscow desperate for cotton supplies, they even had to revert to camel caravans to ferry cotton from Khorezm to Emba. Because of the desperate lack of local fuel several railway engines were converted to burn fish that had been dried in the port of Aralsk for the purpose. The smell must have been incredible! Meanwhile, in Transcaspia, the local soviet had been ousted from power by anti-Bolshevik forces in Ashgabat, who then called on support from British forces in Persia. This cut the railway line to the Caspian. The Turkestan Red Army was split, with some troops fighting Dutov on the Aktjubinsk Front north of Emba, some fighting to the east in Semirechye, the largest force trying to contain the uprising in Ashgabat, and with a residual force left behind to maintain control in Tashkent. Even in the capital the Bolsheviks were not secure – a rebellion in January 1919 was violently suppressed, causing many deaths, which rang alarm bells in Moscow. In retrospect it is remarkable that the Red Army eventually prevailed, a result that owes more to the lack of co-ordination between its opponents than to its own prowess.

The behaviour of the Soviet regime after the Revolution was in sharp contrast to the promises that had been made before the Revolution. Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks had frequently denounced Tsarist imperialism over the years and, once in power, Lenin promised racial equality and national self-determination for Russia's many subject peoples. By July 1918 the Bolsheviks had already established the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, or RSFSR, with its own constitution based on a free federation of independent nations. One of Lenin's other early decisions was to establish a new Commissariat of Nationalities under the Chairmanship of Joseph Stalin, possibly an unfortunate choice. However like many other early promises from the new regime, these ideals proved to be short-lived. Turkestan and the Steppe Region had become home to about 2 million Russian immigrants who wanted to remain an integral part of Russia. The region had huge natural resources and the Bolsheviks had no desire to leave this vast region open to British Imperialist interests. There was also increasing concern about the potential challenge that could emerge if the various Muslim territories of Central Asia should unite to form a pan-Islamic State. By early 1919 the new regime had dropped any idea of independent nation states, let alone Muslim states, in Central Asia.

From the first-hand account of Frederick Bailey, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Indian Army who had been sent to Tashkent in charge of a small diplomatic mission to make contact with the new Bolshevik rulers, the Russian city had become a dangerous and sinister place during the period of his residence in 1918 and 1919. The city was under curfew and everyone was under suspicion, with the spies and agent provocateurs of the CheKa looking everywhere for anti-Bolshevik sympathizers. Once found an enemy of the regime might be disposed of with no more than a pistol shot to the head or, if lucky, might be sent to the forced labour camp at Perovsk. People's identity papers were checked constantly while the bourgeoisie were evicted from their homes and stripped of their property and furniture by fanatical commissars. During the 1919 famine all of the trees across the city were cut down for fuel and the Bolsheviks even stole food from the peasants, leading to a critical response from Lenin. In the centre of Tashkent the statue of General Kaufmann had been something of an embarrassment during that year's May Day celebrations and in July it was removed from its granite pedestal to be replaced some months later with a giant hammer and sickle.

It took time for these major events to have an impact on the backwater of Khorezm, which was way behind Khokand in terms of its political awareness. There was no radical Russian enclave in Khiva to spread the Revolution, the merchants of Urgench being all anti-Bolshevik, along with the officers of the local Russian garrison. Earlier that year Lenin had told the Seventh Party Conference that he did not want the peasants of Khiva to live under the Khan's rule, but the Tashkent Soviet did not regard either the Khivan or Bukharan Khanates as a priority and for a while they remained independent. Isfandiyar Khan, with the support of Colonel Zaitsev and Junaid Khan, made the most of the situation by hunting down local Jadidists and other radicals. In November 1917 a number of Jadidists seem to have been put on trial (the evidence is not clear) but were saved from execution. Despite the fact that the internal situation within the Khanate remained unstable with the Turkmen raids continuing unabated, discipline within the Russian garrison had fallen to such a low level that Zaitsev ordered the pro-Bolshevik infantry regiments back to Petro-Aleksandrovsk. Zaitsev had originally intended to spend the winter in Khiva and to then join up with Dutov's forces in Orenburg, but his Cossack forces were growing increasingly restless and he decided to change his plans. In January 1918 he left Khiva for Charjou, where he gained reinforcements in readiness to attack Tashkent while its forces were engaged in overcoming the uprising in Khokand. But when he encountered Soviet troops just outside of Samarkand, Bolshevik supporters persuaded his Cossacks to lay down their weapons, forcing Zaitsev to flee as a fugitive. After reaching Ashgabat he was quickly spotted and arrested.

The departure of the Russians left Isfandiyar Khan's regime totally reliant on Junaid Khan, who commanded the only pro-Khivan armed forces in the Khanate. Junaid Khan now acted through the timid Isfandiyar to increase his grip on power. The Majlis was abolished and in May the Jadidist leaders who had earlier been put on trail were executed. The handful of remaining Jadidists, who had since gone underground, escaped to Tashkent to form a small revolutionary committee in exile, known as the Young Khivans.

Junaid Khan was selfishly ambitious, opposed to the Bolsheviks and reformers not on idealistic grounds, but because they threatened his control over Khorezm. While Isfandiyar was left as the titular head of state, Junaid Khan began to install his own system of control, just like the inaqs of old. He set up a network of military commanders to rule the separate regions of Khorezm, using the services of the established court officials but reporting directly to him. He began the construction of a palace at his village of Bedirkent, close to Takhta, which effectively became the new capital of Khorezm. Taxes were raised, especially for the Uzbeks, who were also forced to undertake compulsory labour service to clean the irrigation canals. All Turkmen were ordered to arm themselves at their own expense and to make themselves available for military service. Junaid faced a limited rebellion from his old rival Yomut leaders, but these were soon overcome and by late summer he was firmly in control of the local Yomut population. At the end of September he raided Urgench and stole money and property from the local Russian merchants and banks, arresting some Russians in the process. However the Russian garrison at Petro-Aleksandrovsk had just been reinforced with Red Army soldiers under the command of a new Bolshevik military commissar, Nikolay Shaydakov, who ordered Junaid Khan to release his Russian captives. Junaid Khan complied but warned Shaydakov not to interfere in Khivan affairs, realizing that he was still vulnerable to Russian intervention, especially if Isfandiyar appealed to Petro-Aleksandrovsk for help. Junaid decided that his security would be enhanced with Isfandiyar out of the way, especially as he could then rule through Isfandiyar's more malleable and grateful brother, Sayyid Abdullah. He instructed his eldest son to go to Khiva and assassinate the Khan.

A month or so earlier Junaid had refused a request from Ashgabat to slow down the Soviet advance on Transcaspia by attacking the garrison at Petro-Aleksandrovsk – he felt that the mission was too dangerous, especially since Russian reinforcements could be quickly despatched by steamer from Charjou. At the same time he knew that the nearby garrison posed a constant threat to his position. As autumn turned to winter navigation on the Amu Darya became impossible and Junaid Khan made his move. Turkmen forces crossed the Amu Darya at six separate locations and laid siege to Petro-Aleksandrovsk. But, quite unexpectedly, a steamer from Charjou managed to get through with reinforcements and the siege was broken after only eleven days. In the following spring Russian troops returned from Charjou and defeated Turkmen forces on the left-bank in the region of Pitnyak.

The Petro-Aleksandrovsk Soviet was keen to annex Khiva, but Tashkent needed all the troops it could find for the Transcaspian front. Instead they sent a peace mission to Khorezm and negotiated a settlement with Junaid Khan, known as the Treaty of Takhta, which was signed on 9 April 1919. Khiva would remain independent and would re-establish normal diplomatic relations and trade with Russia, who in turn would offer an amnesty to all Turkmen charged with anti-Soviet activity. However relations with Russia remained difficult with Junaid reacting uncooperatively to a request to supply troops for the Transcaspian campaign and then refusing to accept the Russian diplomatic representative sent to Khorezm in accordance with the terms of the Treaty. That summer also saw a revolt by a detachment of Cossacks based at Shımbay, who allied themselves with local Karakalpaks to take control of the entire delta region, from No'kis up to the Aral coastline. When Shaydakov and his troops steamed down the Amu Darya to No'kis to put down the revolt they were annoyed to be fired upon by Junaid's Turkmen supporters. After relieving No'kis Shaydakov headed back to Petro-Aleksandrovsk in fear of another Turkmen attack following the onset of winter. In fact Junaid Khan was already discussing the possibility of such an attack with the rebels in Shımbay.

However, for the Soviets, the tide was turning. By October the European Red Army had defeated Dutov and Soviet forces from Tashkent had reached Qizil Arvat in Transcaspia. Moscow had only just established a new government for Turkestan, the Commission for the Affairs of Turkestan, and the focus now began to turn on the still independent territories of Bukhara and Khiva. For once the smaller province of Khiva was singled out as the priority, given its outright hostility to Russia and its ongoing instability, another revolt by Junaid's Yomut rivals having only just broken out again in Xojeli and Kunya Urgench. At the same time the constant flow of disaffected radicals from Khiva had swollen the ranks of the Young Khivans in Tashkent from just over a dozen to a militia of around five hundred. In November the Turkestan military authorities sent Skalov, their new military representative for Khiva, to Petro-Aleksandrovsk to organize an invasion, just as a relief force from Charjou was extricating Shaydakov's forces from No'kis where they had been under attack by a combined force of Turkmen and rebel Cossacks.

Skalov crossed the Amu Darya on 25 December with 430 soldiers, including some leading zealots like Faizullah Khojaev. They took Khanqa and Urgench without a struggle, only to find themselves besieged in Urgench by Junaid Khan's troops for the following three weeks. Meanwhile Shaydakov's army of 400 soldiers defeated the Cossack and Karakalpak rebels at Shımbay before crossing the river to take control of Xojeli, where their numbers were swollen by rebel Turkmen forces opposed to Junaid Khan. After the fall of Kunya Urgench Junaid Khan retreated to Bedirkent to face Shaydakov's army from the north and Skalov's army to the south. After a two-day battle at Takhta Junaid Khan escaped into the Qara Qum. Khiva was taken on 1 February.

With the Red Army in control Sayyid Abdullah Khan, the very last Qongrat Khan and member of the Chinggisid dynasty was forced to abdicate with his power transferred to a temporary revolutionary committee led by Hajji Pahlavan Yusupov. Only a tiny minority of the Young Khivans was Communist, yet Tashkent immediately responded to this faction’s request for the establishment of a soviet republic in Khorezm. A political delegation was quickly despatched to conduct elections to a nationwide congress of soviets. On 27 April the First All-Khorezm Congress of Soviets met and agreed to abolish the Khanate in favour of an independent Khorezm People's Soviet Republic. The Young Khivans were now in control of Khorezm, heading 10 of the 15 available departments, and with the chairman of their central committee, Hajji Pahlavan Yusupov, acting as premier.