Introduction

In October 1917, in the course of the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Vladimir I. Lenin (Ulyanov, 1870–1924) seized power in Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) and dissolved the Russian Empire. After five years of the ensuing and devastating Civil War and external intervention they established their control over most of the former imperial lands. The Bolshevik takeover was accompanied by a country-wide structural, political and societal transformation which included state–Muslim relations. Among the key factors which enabled the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power and to create a radically new polity – the USSR (1922–91) – were the Russian Empire's internal political turmoil, aggravated by major human and economic losses during the First World War, and the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary socio-economic and national programme. Of particular appeal to an impoverished multi-ethnic population was the Bolsheviks’ promise of land, bread, peace and equality, as well as the right to self-determination for Muslim and other non-Russian peoples.

The 1917 October Revolution had been preceded by two bourgeois-democratic revolutions, in 1905–7 and in February 1917, which unleashed mass political activism, including in Muslim-majority parts of the empire. The 1905 October Manifesto issued by Emperor Nicolas II (r. 1894–1917) granted Russia's Muslims the right to participate in the parliamentary process, to form their own political parties and to publish periodicals and books in Arabic, Tatar and other languages of Russia's Muslims. Consequently, in August 1905, Russia's Muslim politicians, businessmen and intellectuals convened the First All-Russia Muslim Congress; and at the Second All-Russia Muslim Congress, which took place in January 1906, the first Islamic political party – Ittifāq al-Muslimīn (Union of Muslims, 1906–17) – was established. Ittifāq's members, many of whom were Tatars, formed their faction in the Russian parliament with a sociopolitical programme close to that of the party of Russian liberals, the Kadet Party (Constitutional Democratic Party, 1905–17). And during the Third All-Russia Muslim Congress, which convened in August 1906, Azeri and Kazakh political activists established their National Parties – Musavat (Equality) and Alash, respectively.