Fayzulla Khodzhayev

Who was Fayzulla Khodzhayev?

Fayzulla Ubaydullayevich Khodzhayev was an Uzbek politician.

Khodzhayev was born into a family of wealthy traders. He was sent to Moscow by his father in 1907. There he realized the tremendous gap between contemporary European society and technology, and the ancient, tradition-bound ways of his homeland.

He joined the Pan-Turkist Jadid movement of like-minded reformers in 1916, and, with his father's fortune, established the Young Bukharan Party. Seeing the Russian Revolution as an opportunity, the Young Bukharan Party invited the Bolsheviks of the Tashkent Soviet to seize Emirate of Bukhara by force in 1917. When this attempted invasion failed, Khodzhayev was forced to flee to Tashkent, and was only able to return after the Emir of Bukhara fled in September 1920.

Appointed head of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic, he barely escaped assassination by Basmachi Revolt leader Enver Pasha. With the reorganization of Soviet Central Asia and subsequent purge of suspected Uzbek nationalists in 1923-1924, Khodzhayev rose to become President of the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. However, he opposed Joseph Stalin's heavy-handed control, particularly in the matter of cotton monoculture.