Abstract

From 1916 to 1922, Russia was shaken by the First World War and the Russian Civil War. These upheavals are often presented as having severely disrupted, if not entirely halted, the trade networks through which Russia had come to dominate commerce in Xinjiang. This paper, however, argues that such a narrative obscures the long-established merchant networks that continued to sustain cross-border trade despite war, embargoes, and the formal closure of official routes. Rather than collapsing outright, commerce adapted to new political conditions through the activities of merchants, carriers, brokers, and firms whose ties long predated the crisis. Many of these actors were Central Asian Musulmans whose identities, kinship ties, and commercial relationships transcended the boundaries of the modern nation-state. Drawing on British consular records and Chinese archival sources, this paper shows that exchange continued from Ili in the north to Kashgar in the south through informal and semi-clandestine channels. Merchants moved goods across the frontier despite official prohibitions, while Russian commercial institutions, such as the Russo-Asiatic Bank, various private companies, and individual merchants in Xinjiang, adapted flexibly to the gradual unraveling of the treaty-power regime that had once guaranteed extensive privileges to Russian subjects. By examining the activities of Russian merchant communities during this transitional moment, the paper also complicates the understanding that the commercial relationship between Russia and Xinjiang was exploitative. It reveals how state-backed economic imperialism was mediated on the ground through local negotiation, personal relationships, and the pragmatic repositioning of Musulman merchants amid shifting political authority.