ABSTRACT
Prior to the Bolshevik revolution and the abandonment by the Soviets of all extra-territorial privileges which Russian subjects had previously enjoyed in China, Kashgar had been economically nothing more nor less than part of Russian Turkestan. Separated from the rest of China by vast deserts, and from India by almost impassable mountains, Kashgaria gravitated naturally towards Turkestan, where the road was not particularly difficult, and the existing railway opened up an easy road to the west, bringing Pekin itself within an easy journey of a couple of weeks. At the time of the Chinese revolution, when disorders and murders broke out in Kashgaria, the Russian Consul summoned a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Cossacks from Tashkent for the protection of Russian subjects. The Chinese revolutionary authorities in Kashgar called at the Consulate in a body to protest against the introduction of Russian troops into the friendly territory of China.
