The Tashkent Soviet was a public organisation set up in Tashkent

Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...

 during the Russian Revolution.

The Tashkent Soviet was established on 2 March 1917 at an inaugural meeting which consisted of thirty five workers from the Central Asian Railway. It was headed by a technician by the name of I. I. Bel'kov. The following day there was a meeting in the local Duma

Duma

A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...

 which set up an Executive Committee of Public Organisations to manage the "sociopolitical and economic life of the city".

Only two Central Asians were involved in this committee, the lawyers Faizullah Khojaev

Faizullah Khojaev

Fayzulla Ubaydullayevich Khodzhayev was an Uzbek politician.Khodzhayev was born in to a family of wealthy traders. He was sent to Moscow by his father in 1907...

 and Tashpolad Narbutabekov. Despite this failure to actively involve the majority population, many Central Asians had high hopes for the post-tsarist era. The poet Sirajiddin Makhdum Sidqi published poems of popular verse to popularise the revolution. Veterans of the Jadid

Jadid

The Jadids were Muslim modernist reformers within the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. They normally referred to themselves by the Turkic terms Taraqqiparvarlar , Ziyalilar , or simply Yäşlär/Yoshlar...

 resistance to the draft in 1916 such as Kojaev and Munawar Qari organised the Tashkand Muslim Council (Tashkand Shura-yi Islamiya).

Tashkent was a divided city, with the Central Asians (predominately Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

) generally living in the Old City, while Russians and other Europeans usually lived in the New City, which was also where the railway was developed. The Soviet set up an independent provisions commission to battle what it described as "trader-marauders", however this term soon lost its ostensible class connotations, as the term was used to refer uniquely to Central Asians. At the same time, when some Central Asian workers set up a Muslim branch of the Social Democratic Party

Social Democratic Party of Russia

The Social Democratic Party of Russia was a political party founded in Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev on November 26, 2001. First name of party is: Social Democratic Party of Russia . It was a coalition of several social democratic parties, had approximately 12,000 members, but had no seats in the...

, the Tashkent Soviet did not welcome them.

The Tashkent Soviet fought the Transcaspian Government, assisted variously by the British Malleson Mission

Malleson Mission

The Malleson Mission was a military action by a small autonomous force of British Soldiers, led by General Wilfred Malleson, operating against Bolshevik forces over large distances in Transcaspia between 1918 and 1919.- Background :...

 and the White Russians for control of the region between 1918 and 1920.