Uzbekistan

A

Russian Conquest

During Qŭqon’s expansion northward, imperial Russian forces were conquering Kazakh territory north of the Syr Darya and pushing farther south. Although the Uzbek khanates waged an armed resistance against the Russian incursion, Russian control was extended over present-day Uzbekistan in the latter half of the 19th century. Russian forces began advancing on Qŭqon’s frontier fortresses in the north in the 1850s, capturing Ak-Mechet (present-day Qyzylorda, Kazakhstan) in 1853. After the conquest of Toshkent in 1865, the khanate’s influence was limited to the Fergana Valley. Bukhara was conquered in 1866 and forced to become a vassal state in 1868, and then Khiva fell in 1873. The Russian conquest was complete in 1876, when Qŭqon was formally annexed. Under Russian rule, Khiva and Bukhara maintained some measure of autonomy as semi-independent states, although they were ultimately subordinate to the Russian Empire.

Russian rule introduced new tensions into Central Asian society. The development of a commodity economy brought profits to some farmers, while it deprived others of their land. Many Central Asians resented the new, corrupt local administration as well as the increasing incursion of Russian colonists into areas such as the Golodnaya Steppe. Moreover, they perceived the new rulers as non-Muslim infidels. In 1916, already overburdened with requisitions of livestock and produce to support Russia’s involvement in World War I (1914-1918), the local populace revolted against a decree making them subject to a draft for construction battalions behind the front lines. The imperial government brutally suppressed the revolt.

B

Soviet Period

The Russian Empire collapsed in the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Bolsheviks (militant socialists) seized power in Russia. During the Russian Civil War (1918-1921), the Bolsheviks sought to reclaim the territories of the former Russian Empire. They established, by force, a new set of political entities in Central Asia that were ruled by local Bolshevik soviets, or councils. In 1918 the Bolsheviks made much of the southern part of Central Asia, including part of present-day Uzbekistan, into the Turkistan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Other areas of present-day Uzbekistan were still under the administration of Khiva and Bukhara, whose traditional leaders were overthrown in 1920. These latter territories became the Khorezmian People’s Soviet Republic and the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic, which still maintained nominal independence. In 1924 the borders of political units in Central Asia were changed, and the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was formed from territories of the Turkistan ASSR, the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic, and the Khorezmian People’s Soviet Republic. The same year the Uzbek SSR became one of the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which had been created in 1922. Bolshevik rule was opposed by a Central Asian guerrilla movement known as the basmachi starting in 1918. Although the basmachi were largely put down by 1923, they reappeared in some areas of Uzbekistan during the collectivization of agriculture at the end of the 1920s.

The Uzbek SSR included the Tajik ASSR until 1929, when the Tajik ASSR was upgraded to the status of an SSR. At this point, the Tajik SSR received some additional territory that had belonged to the Uzbek SSR since 1924. In 1930 the Uzbek capital was changed from Samarqand to Toshkent. In 1936 the Uzbek SSR was enlarged with the addition of the Karakalpak ASSR (present-day Qoraqalpogh Autonomous Republic), taken from the Kazakh SSR. Territory was transferred several times between the Kazakh SSR and the Uzbek SSR after World War II (1939-1945). The present-day borders of the Central Asian states are a result of the territorial units that the Soviets circumscribed during this period.

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The Soviets imposed many changes in the Uzbek SSR. In 1928 land was forcibly collectivized into state farms. Another land-related development, one with a catastrophic impact, was the drive initiated in the early 1960s to substantially increase cotton yields in the republic. The drive led to overzealous irrigation withdrawals from the Amu Darya and the subsequent ecological disaster in the Aral Sea basin.

During World War II many industries were relocated to the Uzbek SSR from more vulnerable locations in western regions of the USSR. They were accompanied by large numbers of Russians and members of other nationalities who were evacuated from areas near the front. Because so many Uzbek men were fighting in World War II, women and even children began to take a more prominent role in the economy. Some local women even began to work in urban industries, although the Uzbek population remained overwhelmingly rural. Also during the war the Soviet authorities relocated entire ethnic groups from other parts of the USSR to the Uzbek SSR and elsewhere in Central Asia. Stalin suspected these groups of being in collaboration with the Axis powers against the USSR.

Uzbek society was altered in major ways during the Soviet period. Islam, the traditional religion of the region, became a focal point in the 1920s for the antireligious drives of Communist zealots. Most mosques were closed, and religious schools became antireligious museums. Uzbeks who were deemed nationalist, often practicing Muslims, were targeted for imprisonment and in many cases execution during Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge of the 1930s, which extended throughout all levels of Soviet society. Another development was the virtual elimination of illiteracy, even in rural areas. Only a small percentage of the population was literate before 1917; this percentage increased to nearly 100 percent under the Soviets.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was the only legal party in Uzbekistan until 1990. The first secretary, or head, of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan (the republic’s branch of the CPSU) was consistently an Uzbek. However, over much of Soviet history, Uzbeks were underrepresented in the higher levels of the republic Communist Party organs. Uzbeks were even more underrepresented in the central organs of the levels of the party in Moscow.

Political corruption was rampant in the USSR, including in the Uzbek SSR. This was especially true during the time when Sharaf Rashidov was head of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, from 1959 to 1983. Following Rashidov’s death in 1983, the CPSU’s national campaign to clean up corruption widely publicized the misdeeds of the Uzbek SSR’s political officials in the preceding period. These officials were accused of a scam that involved inflating cotton production figures for the republic and diverting payments from the Soviet Union’s central government for recorded, but nonexistent, cotton. Islam Karimov, the former leader of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan and head of that party’s reincarnation, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), became president of the Uzbek SSR in 1990.

C

Independent Republic

The disintegration of the Soviet Union became inevitable in August 1991, after a failed coup attempt by Communist hardliners in Moscow. That month Uzbekistan declared its independence. After the official collapse of the USSR in December, Uzbekistan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an alliance of most of the former Soviet republics. It became a member of the United Nations in March 1992.

Uzbekistan held presidential elections in December 1991, at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Karimov, the incumbent president, was reelected by an overwhelming majority of the vote. Most political groups in opposition to the PDP were not allowed to field candidates. The sole exception was Erk (Freedom), which nominated Muhammad Salih. Karimov, however, controlled the press and other vital organs during the campaign. According to official election results, Salih received only 12 percent of the vote. After the election, Karimov proceeded to establish an authoritarian-style regime. His government sought to crush political opposition, for example, by banning all genuine opposition parties in the early 1990s.

In early 1995 Karimov announced that the government would not object to the formation of blocs within the Oliy Majlis (Supreme Assembly). Subsequently, the government sanctioned the creation of two new political parties: the Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party and the National Revival Democratic Party. However, these parties were not true opposition parties, as they fully supported the policies of the president. In a referendum called by the assembly in March 1995, voters approved putting off presidential elections until the year 2000, extending Karimov’s term until then. In April a group of activists affiliated with the banned opposition party Erk (Freedom) were given lengthy prison sentences for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the government by force.

Uzbekistan cautiously approached reforms to transform its Soviet-developed, centrally planned economy to one based on the principles of a free market. Karimov was an outspoken critic of more radical reforms implemented in some other former Soviet republics. Consequently, the government of Uzbekistan resisted any substantive reforms and retained control over most sectors of the economy. Relatively little was accomplished before Karimov effectively suspended reforms in 1996. However, in the early 2000s Karimov held out the promise of further economic reforms as a way to secure renewed aid from Western financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Meanwhile, Karimov continued to rule in an authoritarian manner. No opposition party was allowed to present candidates in the legislative elections that were held in December 1999. In January 2000 Karimov was reelected president in an election that Western observers criticized as neither free nor fair. In a referendum held in January 2002, voters approved a constitutional amendment to extend the presidential term of office from five years to seven; however, it was not specified when the change would go into effect.

Karimov justified his clampdown on political opposition by claiming that allowing it more freedom would leave Uzbekistan vulnerable to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Karimov pointed to the situation in neighboring Tajikistan, where a brutal civil war from 1992 to 1997 pitted extremist Islamic forces against the government. Karimov claimed that violence could also break out in Uzbekistan without strict controls on political activity. Despite his heavy-handed approach, which drew international criticism for violations of human rights, extremist Islamic groups continued to gain supporters, especially among the poor in the Fergana Valley. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was founded in the 1990s with the purported aim of overthrowing the government and establishing an Islamic regime in Uzbekistan. The IMU reportedly had links to the fundamentalist Taliban regime in Afghanistan and used bases in Afghanistan and Tajikistan to launch a series of incursions and attacks in Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000. Uzbekistan responded by bombing and mining border areas.

The government’s campaign against the IMU took on international significance in 2001 following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The attacks were linked to al-Qaeda, an international terrorist network that seeks to rid Muslim countries of Western influence and establish fundamentalist Islamic rule. Uzbekistan allowed U.S.-led forces to use its southern Khanabad air base for staging operations in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda was based. By publicly supporting the United States in its war on terrorism, Uzbekistan established itself as a strategic U.S. ally.