The First World War strengthened the contradictions between the indigenous people of Central Asia and the settlers from the European part of Russia. The article discusses the reaction of the Council of Ministers and the State Duma of the Russian Empire to the uprising in Turkestan in 1916, which in recent years has been attracting increasing attention of Russian and foreign researchers. The authors emphasize that in the course of the work of the commission of the members of the State Duma in Turkestan, some Petrograd politicians (among them A.F. Kerensky), increased influence, both amid the regional and the midmost elite.