afghanistanwhich became known as the Armenian Genocide. Enver Pasha eventu-
ally made his way to Moscow, where Lenin put him in charge of military
operations against the basmachis and instructed him to make contact with
Amir ’Aman Allah Khan and the Indian revolutionaries in Kabul in order
to encourage them to foment anti-British activity in northern India.
Shortly after he reached Bukhara, Enver Pasha changed sides and
declared his support for the exiled Khan of Bukhara, a decision due in
part to treaty negotiations between Moscow and Mustafa Kemal, who was
now President of Turkey and Enver Pasha’s most bitter political enemy.
Enver made his base in Ferghana and Tajikistan, where he began to refer
to himself as Vice-caliph, Commander of the Islamic Forces and Son-in-
Law of the Caliph. Enver appealed to ’Aman Allah Khan for assistance
and the Amir covertly began to supply him with cash and arms, as well
as providing his mujahidin with a safe haven in northern Afghanistan. In
February 1922 Enver Pasha occupied Dushanbe and the following month
besieged Bukhara. Moscow responded by sending thousands of additional
troops, heavy armour and war planes to the area, forcing Enver Pasha
to lift the siege and flee to his mountain stronghold in Tajikistan. A few
months later he was killed in an encounter with a Soviet search party. The
basmachi revolt rumbled on for several more years, but Enver Pasha’s death
ended any hopes of an independent Turkistan for the next seventy years.
The flag of Turkistan in the Turkistan American Association, New York. The suppression of
the Basmachi Movement ended hopes for an independent Turkistan but the movement itself
went underground. In the 1980s ‘Turkistanian’ nationalism resurfaced following the break
up of the Soviet Union and the civil war in Afghanistan.