Central Asia was part of the Russian Empire since the 1800s. After the collapse of the Russian Empire many fights of the Russian Civil War took place in Central Asia. The borders of the region went through a lot of change in the last 100 years.
Before the Bolsheviks
The Russian Empire had been expanding its frontiers in Central Asia since the 1700s. The valley of the Ural river had been conquered in the 1730s and the city of Orenburg was founded in 1743. In the year of 1865 Russian Forces occupied the city of Tashkent, and 3 years later in 1868 the Emirate of Bukhara had been conquered. The Russian Empire was also able to annex land from the Qing dynasty in the second half of the 19th century with unequal treaties (=one-sided terms requiring China to cede land, pay reparations or open treaty ports)
Revolution and Russian Civil War
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 soon a civil war broke out between the Reds (Bolsheviks) and the Whites (Tsarist forces). In Central Asia the Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic was founded on April 30, 1918. In the southern parts of Central Asia several anti-Bolshevik rebellions broke out in the next years.
Bukharan People's Soviet Republic
In March, 1918 the Red Army marched on Bukhara demanded that the emir surrender the city to the Young Bukharans (a communist movement). As Russian sources report, the emir responded by murdering the Bolshevik delegation, along with several hundred Russian inhabitants of Bukhara and the surrounding territories. However, the emir had won only a temporary respite. As the civil war in Russia was turning in favour of the Bolsheviks a well equipped army was sent to occupy the city. The siege of Bukhara started on the 20th of September and after four days of fighting the Emir was forced to give up Bukhara and flee to Dushanbe (and later to Kabul). The Bukharan People's Republic was proclaimed on 8 October 1920 under Faizullah Khojaev.
Khorezm People's Soviet Republic
The Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was created as the successor to the Khanate of Khiva in February 1920 and officially declared on 26 April 1920. On 20 October 1923, it was transformed into the Khorezm Socialist Soviet Republic. The Khorezm PSR only existed until 1925 when the reorganization of Central Asia took place and the KPSR was split between the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR.
Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic
The KASSR was founded on 26 August 1920 and existed only until 15 June 1925 when it became Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic. In 1936 it was again renamed to Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic
Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
The TASSR was declared on 30 April 1918 in Tashkent by local Bolsheviks, but the Islamic Council met in the city of Kokand ad declared a rival Turkestan Autonomous Republic battling the Bolsheviks as part of the conservative Basmachi rebellion. In the late 1917, the TSFR was cut off from the RSFSR by the revolt of the Orenburg Cossacks, but held out, despite being surrounded by hostile states, until the arrival of the Red Army in September 1919. In 1924 the TASSR was split into Turkmen SSR, Uzbek SSR, Tajik SSR and Kara-Khirgiz Autonomous Oblast.
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