to control and led to a revolt in 1916. Consequently, the administration of Transcaspia became a byword for corruption and brutality within Russian Turkestan, as Russian administrators turned their districts into petty fiefdoms and extorted money from the local population. In 1908 Count Konstantin Konstantinovich Pahlen led a reforming commission to Turkestan which produced a monumental report detailing these abuses of power, administrative corruption and inefficiency. Revolution and civil war Following the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, Ashgabat became a base for anti-Bolshevik counter-revolutionaries, who soon came under attack from the Tashkent Soviet. The Communists succeeded in taking control of Ashkhabad in the summer of 1918, forming a Soviet. In response, Junaid Khan and forces loyal to the Czarist government joined together to drive out the Communists. In July 1919, these anti-Communist allies established the independent state of Transcaspia. A small British force, led by General Wilfrid Malleson, from Meshed (Persia) occupied Ashgabat and parts of southern Turkmenistan until 1919. It is alleged that 26 Baku Commissars were gunned down by British forces or their Transcaspian allies. The region was one of the last centres of Basmachi resistance to Bolshevik rule, with the last of the rebellious Turkoman fleeing across the border to Afghanistan and Iran in 1922–23. Soviet Union On 27 October 1924, the Turkestan ASSR was dissolved. In accordance with the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Turkmen SSR, it became one of the republics of the Soviet Union. At this time the modern borders of Turkmenistan were formed. The Turkmen Government renamed Ashgabat into Poltoratsk after a local revolutionary, however the name "Ashgabat" was restored in 1927. In February 1925, the Turkmenistan Communist Party held its first Congress in Ashkhabad. From this period onward the city experienced rapid growth and industrialisation, although it was severely disrupted by the October 1948 Ashgabat earthquake. With an estimated surface wave magnitude of 7.3, the earthquake killed 10,000–110,000. According to other local sources, two-thirds of a population of 176,000 inhabitants perished. In the 1950s, the 1,375 kilometre long Qaraqum Canal was built. Draining the Amu-Darya river, it enabled huge areas to be opened for cotton production. It also greatly diminished the inflow of water to the Aral Sea, resulting in an ecological catastrophe. Turkmenistan was not among the most economically developed Soviet republics, with a largely agrarian economy. This is despite exploration and exploitation of