The Establishment Of Soviet Government Organs In Turkestan (1917–1924) And Their Role In The Policy Of Public Service Provision
Keywords:
Turkestan, Soviets, public servicesAbstract
This article examines the emergence of Soviet governing structures in Turkestan between 1917 and 1924 and evaluates their role in organizing public services amid civil war, famine, and institutional transition. It traces the shift from revolutionary committees and city soviets to the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic’s (TASSR) people’s commissariats, supervised by the Turkestan Commission, and shows how these bodies attempted to deliver utilities, food supply, health care, education, and transport under conditions of scarce resources and contested legitimacy. Using a comparative-institutional approach grounded in decrees, administrative records, and secondary scholarship, the study argues that the early Soviet period laid the administrative foundations for mass public services through centralization, nationalization, and the New Economic Policy’s pragmatic adjustments. Nevertheless, cadre shortages, urban–rural divides, and insurgency constrained reach and quality. The period culminated in national-territorial delimitation in 1924, which reconfigured governance but preserved the central features of Soviet service provision.
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