ABSTRACT
On 12 November 1917, following the Bolshevik military victory in Tashkent over the forces of the Provisional Government under General Korovnichenko, the conservative and largely clerical Muslim group known as the Ulema Jamiati called the Third Congress of Central Asian Muslims, in Tashkent, to agree a common Muslim approach to the new government. The congress offered to form a coalition government with the Soviets, in the former Governorate General of Turkestan, with a regional council in which half of the seats would be held by non-Muslims. Simultaneously, the Third Regional Congress of Soviets was held (in which no Muslims participated), which declared Soviet power in Central Asia and planned to set up the new government, or Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars), with Menshevik support. Kolesov, the president of the Sovnarkom, rejected the Muslims’ proposal, however, on the grounds that their attitude towards the Soviets was doubtful and that there were no Muslim proletarian organisations that the Bolsheviks could accept into the highest organs of the regional government.
