Basmachi Movement - Aftermath

Aftermath

Indigenous leaders began to cooperate with Soviet authorities and large numbers of Central Asians joined the Soviet Communist Party under Lenin and Stalin's indigenization policy. Many gained high positions in the governments of the Uzbek, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics, formed out of the Turkestani Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924. During the Sovietization of Central Asia, Islam became the focus of antireligious campaigns. The government closed most mosques, repressing Islamic cleric and targeting symbols of Islamic identity such as the veil. Uzbeks who remained practicing Muslims were deemed nationalist and often targeted for imprisonment or execution. Stalinist collectivization and industrialization proceeded as elsewhere in the Soviet Union.