The Economic impacts of USSR on Central Asia

Saba Hassan

H1860073

Gen. History

University of Karachi

Contemporary Central Asia

Dr. Hina Khan

20/july/2022
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Acknowledgment

The completion of this written work was not possible without the support of

my surrounding people. It is actually a product of collective efforts to whom I cannot surpass

without Big Thanks.

First of all, I acknowledge the efforts of my parents; they had provided me all the tangible

needs and comfort zone for completion of this paper.

2nd I would like to say thanks to my teacher Ma’am Hina Khan , without her patience about

submission and giving us very interesting domain of ideologies for assignment. Thank you so

much.

I must I have to say thanks to my Friend Aamir Rahim, who always supports and encourages

me for any work and especially he had accompanied me for the search of material regarding this

topic.

I cannot afford to not acknowledge the efforts of our University Librarian Ma’am Nabila to

provide me the primary sources in a form of Book.

At last, I would say thanks to my classmates for their appreciation and encouragement they

poured upon me.

A single word ‘Thanks’ cannot describe my gratitude for you all people. I always will be

thankful to all of you.

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Abstract

This research work focuses on The history of the policies imposed on Central Asia by USSR

and its different aspects with the time. I have tried to embrace the topic into a theoretical

framework and it’s importance towards Russia. The paper contains the abstract understanding of

the economic policy of Russia in central Asia and its consequences from tsarist rule to Soviet

central Asia. One who read out the paper would easily elaborate the importance and economic

impacts of Russia and its effects on central Asian Muslims. The work has been done in Chicago

format writing style. The purpose is to understand the policies of Russia which were imposed on

central Asia through different scholars.

Keywords: pivot area, Soviet, tsarist rule, steppes.

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Contents
Acknowledgment...........................................................................................................................................1
Abstract..........................................................................................................................................................2
Research Questions:.......................................................................................................................................4
Literature Review:.........................................................................................................................................4
Primary Sources:............................................................................................................................................5
Methodology:.................................................................................................................................................5
Exordium:......................................................................................................................................................6
Defining Central Asia:...................................................................................................................................6
Theoretical background.................................................................................................................................6
Halford Mackinder´s theory:......................................................................................................................7
Economic policy of Tsarist in Central Asia:..................................................................................................8
Cotton boom in Turkestan:........................................................................................................................8
Confiscation of Nomad’s Surplus Lands:..................................................................................................8
Russian monopoly in Central Asian markets:............................................................................................9
Economic scene of Soviet Central Asia:......................................................................................................13
Collectivization and Its Consequences:...................................................................................................13
Cotton and Grain Policies:.......................................................................................................................15
The Industrial Leap Forward:..................................................................................................................15
The Native Working Class:......................................................................................................................16
Russian Economic Strongholds:..................................................................................................................17
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................................18
Bibliography
4

The Economic impacts of USSR on Central Asia

Research Questions:

1. Why Central Asia was important for Russians and what attracts them to expend their

territory in Central Asia?

2. How Central Asia plays a role as a pivot area?

3. What were the different policies which were imposed by Russians in Central Asia? And

how they effect on central Asian people’s?

Literature Review:

Islam Karimov: Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century—Threats to Security,

Conditions of Stability and Guarantees for Progress, (Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 1997), p. 56.

President Karimov apprehends a threat to his country’s independence from the forces of “great

power chauvinism” and “aggressive rationalism” that continue to exist in present day Russia.

Michael Kaser, “Economic Transition in Six Central Asian Economies,” Central Asian

Survey, vol. 16, no. 1, 1997.

Methodology:

The paper work was done on inductive methodology of reasoning where I put my efforts to

formulate a general understanding of Russian policies in central Asia specially focusing on

economic policy of Russia towards central Asia.. The data collected for this paper work had

multiple sources such as books of my own collection and Seminar Library of University of

Karachi despites books, scholarly articles and published research paper had also been concerned
5

for completion of this paper. The main source of data collection was Internet. Some of scholarly

debates had been concerned for this work about history of Central Asia from video sites. This

paper concluded on qualitative research pattern.

Exordium:

To understand Russia´s policies towards Central Asia, it is necessary to embrace the topic into a

theoretical framework. It was chosen to focus on a geopolitical approach to international

relations; scholars on Central Asia frequently apply this approach because it helps to clarify the

essence of developments in the region, which has always been of the major powers ‘interests.

Defining Central Asia:

Central Asia is a vast region and a home to a diversity of biomes ranging from banks of the

Caspian Sea through deserts to China; from northern Kazakh steppes to mountains in the south.

Contrary to that, widely accepted and used definition includes Kazakhstan into the so called

Central Asia proper. Prior to the Russian domination in Central Asia, the inner borders of the

region looked differently. Kazakhstan was composed of Lesser, Middle and Upper Hordes.

Turkistan encompassed Khanates of Khiva and Kokand and Emirate of Bukhara. These

territories later became soviet republics and consequently independent republics of Kyrgyzstan,

Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Theoretical background

For the theoretical history of Central Asia refers to the introduction of geopolitical theory in its

historical context. In this regards the most influential scholars who studied geopolitical rules and
6

relations in the late 19th and beginning of the 20th century are introduced and their concepts are

presented. Many of these scholars brought up new controversial world views. At the turn of the

20th century, British geographer Halford Mackinder and likeminded scholars contributed to

understanding and perceiving the world in a new context. By the end of the 19th century, the

world map was complete and territories in the newly discovered regions were divided among

individual states. . Struggle for particular areas, and more importantly for the so called Heartland,

was a driving force of international relations. Therefore, Mackinder presented his theory called

“The Heartland theory”

Halford Mackinder´s theory:

Mackinder is considered to be an influential British geographer and one of the founding fathers

of both geopolitics and geostrategic disciplines. Mackinder in his theory concludes that he only

viable way how to create a world Empire would be an alliance of Russia and Germany. Russia

would contribute with land power; Germany would contribute with its strategic position in

Europe and the resources in a fleet building and thus combine land and navy powers together.

The main geopolitical conclusions he derived were:

Who controls Eastern Europe rules the Heartland;

Who controls the Heartland rules the World Island; and

Who rules the World Island rules the World.

7

As American political scientist Charles Kruszewski points out: “Haushofer openly admits that he

considers Mackinder´s ‘geographical pivot of history’ the conception closest to his own indeed,

an outstanding school of geopolitics printed on few pages”1

Economic policy of Tsarist in Central Asia:

. During tsarist times the official Russian policy in Central Asia was calculated to ensure

continued domination by keeping peace and order in the area but interfering as little as possible

with the native religion, customs, and way of life. Even Russian urban settlements were kept

separate, albeit adjacent to local cities.

Soon, however, three problems emerged which were to dominate the development of the area.

Cotton boom in Turkestan:

The first was the cotton boom in Turkestan. The needs of the Russian and Polish textile industry

for cheap domestic cotton, the fertility of the rich soil of the Fergana Valley, and the successful

introduction of American cotton (around 1884) in the area made cotton a key product.2

Confiscation of Nomad’s Surplus Lands:

Second was the problem of so-called ''surplus lands'' in the Kazakh Steppe and in Kirgizia. There

the lands of the nomads, wherever suitable for agriculture, were bought, seized, or expropriated

by the Russians. The number of Russian settlers in the steppe grew rapidly, while the natives,

1
MCDERMOTT, Roger: “CSTO Rapid Reaction Exercises Get Off To Discouraging Start.” RFE/RL, 27
August 2009.
2
Rywkin, (1990). Moscow's Muslim Challenge: Soviet Central Asia (2nd ed.). Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315490892
8

classified as primitive, alien people (inorodtsy), like the American Indians, were forced to move

out into less desirable areas.

Russian monopoly in Central Asian markets:

The third problem was common to both Turkestan and the Steppe Region-the fact that Central

Asia had become a choice protected market for Russian-manufactured goods. Commerce

between Russia and Central Asia shifted from the hands of the previously favored Muslim

merchants into the hands of the now privileged Russians, who were finally free to dominate

trade.

These three factors--cotton, surplus land, and markets-were focal points for the years ahead. The

total land under American-cotton cultivation increased six fold from 1886 to 1890. Imported

cotton, free of duty until1878, then taxed only 2.4 rubles per quintal, was hit with a 6-ruble

import duty in 1887 and a 24-ruble levy in 1903. The Russian textile industry, which imported

96 percent of all of Russia's cotton needs in 1886, was importing only 48.7 percent by 1914. The

rest was supplied by Central Asia, where the area under cotton cultivation grew from 13,200

hectares in 1886 to 597,200 hectares in 1914.3

The cotton boom had a decisive influence on other fields of activity. First, the increase in cotton

production was paralleled by growth in the grain deficit. Central Asia, previously self-supporting

in grain, had to rely increasingly on grains imported from Russia. Industrial development also

was centered on cotton. In fact, cotton mills employed two thirds of all industrial workers and

accounted for over three-fourths of the total industrial production of Central Asia in terms of

value. While exporting cotton, Central Asia was increasing its imports of Russian cotton textiles.

3
N. V. Arkhipov, Sredneaziatskie respubliki (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1930), pp. 86-87.
9

The cotton boom created a real basis for a money economy. Central Asian markets were opened

to Russian industrial goods. Unable to compete with Western manufacturers on equal terms,

Russian manufacturers were in need of a protected market with tariff barriers to check foreign

competition. Central Asia was perfect in this respect. By 1907 it had become an important buyer

of grains, sugar, lumber, iron, and steel products as well as manufactured goods from

metropolitan Russia.4

The problem of land surplus was the most complicated one. Prior to the 1861 abolition of

serfdom in Russia, the only Russians who settled in Kazakh territory were the free Cossacks, and

they settled only along the lines of fortifications on the edge of the Kazakh Steppe. After the

emancipation, peasants from Tomsk and Tobolsk provinces started to settle in northern

Kazakhstan. Peasants from Samara, Saratov, Voronezh, Kursk, Kiev, Orel, Tambov, Chernigov,

and the Don provinces followed, especially after the 1891 famine. By 1893 the total number of

newcomers had reached 200,000.5

At this point Russian authorities decided to give the colonization movement a more orderly

character. A new ordinance in 1891 strengthened the Russian administrative hold in the steppe,

and a special regulation was issued governing further colonization. The next Russian move was

sending an expedition to the Kazakh Steppe (1895) in order to establish a "land fund" fornew

settlers out ofland "not needed" by the mostly nomadic natives. This was the first organized step

toward dispossessing the natives. The commission was not too careful in making a distinction

between "needed" and "not needed" land. Pressure was applied to make the natives relinquish

"superfluous" land. Russian immigration increased. Every spring wagonloads of weary peasants

4
G. Safarov, Kolonial'naia revoliutsiia (Opyt Turkestana) (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1921), p. 42
5
E. B. Bekmakhanov, Prisoedinenie Kazakhstana k Rossii (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, Institut
istorii, 1957), p. 168.
10

crossed the Ural Mountains and went down to the virgin lands of Kazakhstan in search of a new

life. But in 1898 an outbreak of fanaticism in the Andijan area temporarily shattered Russian

confidence.6

In 1902 a new commission was sent to Turkestan. The commission found that large areas of land

in the steppe of Semireche were "not needed" by the natives and could qualify as surplus land. It

was also understood that Russian farms required much more land than native farms because

Russian peasants used extensive methods of agriculture and planted mainly grains.7

Until then the number of Russian Cossacks and peasants in Semireche was small (only 2,500 by

1883). There were also some workers who had remained in that area after the building of a canal,

as well as refugees from the 1891-92 famine in Russia. The findings of the commission and the

mass arrival of Russian peasants after the collapse of the 1905 Russian Revolution led to an

accelerated expropriation of native land. In 1908 a second commission was sent to the steppe,

headed by Count Palen, which led to a new increase in Russian colonization.

Thus between 1903 and 1911 the Russian rural population of Semireche increased from 95,000

to 175,000, and the number of Russian rural settlers in Syr Darya Region reached 45,000. The

expropriation of Kazakh and Kirgiz lands was made easier by a legal device based on the highly

questionable assumption that all the lands in the steppe formerly belonged to the khans and not to

private owners, and therefore, after the Russian conquest, the tsar became the rightful heir to all

the "crown" land.8

6
Geoffrey Wheeler, The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia (New York: Praeger, 1964), p. 89.
7
A. A. Kaufman, K voprosu o russkoi kolonizatsii Turkestanskogo kraia (St. Petersburg: MZ i G. I.,
1903), pp. I-VII
8
Safarov, p. 42.
11

The taking over of ''surplus lands'' was most often done uncler harsh administrative pressure and

resulted in forcing the natives out of their own land. Not only nomads but even settled Kazakhs

and Kirgiz were faced with these measures. The takeover was again accelerated after a visit to

the area by Prime Minister Stolypin in 1910. It is estimated that between forty and forty-five

million hectares ofKazakh land were taken over prior to the 1917 Revolution. The main areas of

seized land were western, northern, and eastern Kazakhstan and, after 1905, Semireche and Syr

Darya as well. The land expropriation resulted in yearly famines among the Muslims between

1910 and 1913.9

1916 the tsarist government, in need of manpower, decided to draft Central Asian Muslims,

traditionally free from draft obligation, into labor units. This was the last straw. A revolt flared in

Kazakhstan under the leadership of Amangeldy Imanov, Abdu Gafar Jambosyn, and Kasym

Ospan. The revolt spread to the Jizak District of Samarkand and to the Fergana V alley. The total

number of rebels may have reached 50,000 by October.10

It was decided to expel all the natives who took part in the revolt from their land into eastern

Kirgizia. Their lands were to be opened to immediate Russian settlement. The resettlement

decision was carried out while the revolt was still in progress. In fact, a few days before the

February (1917) Revolution, Russian punitive troops were still pursuing the remnants of rebel

units. A quarter of a million Kazakhs and Kirgiz fled to Chinese Turkestan or died of famine.11

The termination of land expropriations and of Russian settlement of the area became the main

aspiration of Kazakh and Kirgiz nationalists in the years to come.

9
S. D. Asfendiarov, Natsional'no-osvoboditelnoe vosstanie 1916 g. v Kazakhstane (A1ma-Ata-Moscow:
Kazakhskoe Kraevoe izd., 1936), p. 184.
10
S. Brainin, Amangeldy Imanov (A1ma-Alta-Moscow: Kazakhskoe Kraevoe izd., 1936), pp. 50ff.
11
Asfendiarov, pp. 77ff., 101-105.
12

Economic scene of Soviet Central Asia:

This part is concentrating to those economic issues that have a direct bearing on nationality

problems or, conversely, result from nationality policies, attitudes, or conflicts. Obviously such

an approach overemphasizes controversial issues at the expense of objective achievements.

Within such limits the latter cannot possibly be given the attention they otherwise deserve.

Collectivization and Its Consequences:

The Central Asian economy emerged from the Revolution in a state of total chaos. In many areas

production fell to 20 percent of the prerevolutionary level.12 However, Despite the ongoing

Basmachi uprising, the New Economic Policy (NEPliberal )'s stance sparked a recovery.

Following the formation of the Soviet state, two agricultural reforms were implemented. The

first one was taking control of local bais' (landowners') lands and water rights and giving them to

the dekhane (Muslim peasants). Started in 1921, then expanded in 1925-27, this reform fell short

of expectations. The social and economic change brought on by the collectivization effort in

1929 ended this period of economic stabilization. Peasants in settled areas faced pressure to

organize.

Nomads were forced to settle and to join the collective farms. The previously successful farmers'

cooperatives were abandoned. An American technician working in Kazakhstan at the time

reported:
12
Istoriia sovetskogo gosudarstva i prava Uzbekistana, p. 23.
13

When the Communist shock troops began to break up those herds and to put pressure on the

nomad owners to pool their animals in so-called collective farms, the latter simply killed their

animals .... The ex-nomads who survived this period were rounded up as the kulaks have been ....

Many of them resisted dispossession; these were adjudged criminals, and sent to jail or shot.13

During this struggle the animal stock of the area was decimated. The peasants and nomads killed

millions of livestock, and millions more perished in the ensuing chaos. Only during Khrushchev's

time were precollectivization-sized herds reintroduced. "Counterrevolutionary elements," bais,

Basmachi, and other traditional villains were charged by the authorities with causing the

hardships. Scores of native communists were removed for leniency and negligence. Others were

executed for ''bourgeois nationalism'' because of their opposition to forced collectivization.

Whole groups of Kazakh nomads fled to China, while thousands of others failed to survive the

hardships. As a result, the Kazakh population fell by almost a million souls.

But despite all obstacles, the bulk of private farming was collectivized between 1929 and 1932,

with the percentage of collectivized land increasing in Uzbekistan from 1.2 in 1928-29 to 68.1 in

1932 and 95 in 1937; in Kazakhstan it raised from 2.7 in 1928 to 98.3 in 1935.14

13
John D. Littlepage, In Search of Soviet Gold (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1938), pp. 108-109.
14
E. Manevich, "Vosproizvodstvo nase1eniia i ispol'zovanie trudovykh resursov," Voprosy ekonomiki,
1978, no. 8, p. 42: V. K. Kostakov and E. L. Manevich, Regional nye problemy naseleniia i trudovye
resursy SSSR (Moscow: Statistika, 1978), p. 98.
14

Cotton and Grain Policies:

Since prerevolutionary days Central Asia has been the main cotton area of the USSR, accounting

for about 90 percent of total production. Cotton is grown on irrigated lands, in valleys and oases.

The heart of the cotton land is the fertile Fergana Valley. One of the main criticisms of tsarist

economic strategy in Central Asia was that it had turned the region into "a cotton extension of

Russia" (Lenin), much like British economic policy in Egypt, which likewise pushed cotton

cultivation at the expense of grain. But the Soviet government has not only followed the same

policy, it has done so even more decisively. Despite the fact that rice constitutes the majority of

the local diet, the expansion in cotton lands was strongly associated with the loss in the area

occupied by grains, particularly by rice. Additionally, cotton requires significantly more

irrigation than cereals, depleting the region's limited water supplies and inviting ecological

catastrophe.

The Industrial Leap Forward:

Central Asia has recently developed its manufacturing sector. With only a few cotton gin and silk

spinning factories, Central Asia was primarily an agrarian and cattle-breeding region until the

October 1917 Revolution.

The region underwent a transformation that brought it into the industrial age thanks to the Soviet

five-year plans, the relocation of several big industrial businesses during World War II, and espe

cially the post-war industrialization. However, this step forward exposed a number of constraints

that would have otherwise prevented the area's chances for industrial growth. Despite the

region's abundant mineral riches and surplus labor, according to a Russian economist who is a

member of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences, it has the following problems:

i. Limited water resources, the bulk of which are indispensable for agriculture.
15

ii. Distance from the main industrial regions of the country.

iii. Specific gaps in socioeconomic indicators as compared with the rest of the country.15

The Native Working Class:

The enormous industrial growth that occurred in Central Asia during the Soviet era completely c

hanged the region's economy and gave rise to a sizable urban working class. However, as the rise

of the native working class has not yet kept pace with the growth of industry, the bulk of

nonagricultural workers in Central Asia continue to be foreigners. The rise of the native working

class is still behind that of industry. In Central Asia, non-natives predominate among managers

and technicians in business and mining, as well as among white-collar and skilled laborers. The

majority of managers in consumer goods businesses and cooperatives, artisans in regional

industries, and manual laborers, on the other hand, are native people. They are still just a small

minority among those handling agricultural machinery. The growth of the native working class

has been a gradual process. It was essentially nonexistent at the time of the Revolution and was

still unimportant when World War II started, but it started to grow as a result of the demand for

wartime labor.

The Muslim working class is probably still in the minority in Soviet Central Asia, despite much e

xaggeration, thanks to the region's significant industrialization in the post-Stalin years. And

considering that in 1972, 55.7 percent of all Soviet workers were doing manual labor (75 percent

in agriculture), we can assume that among Muslim workers in Soviet Central Asia, the

proportion was even higher.16

15
Bedrintsev, p. 13.
16
S. M. Mirkhasimov, "Sotsia1no-kul'turnye izmeneniia i otrazhenie ikh v sovremennoi seme sel'skogo
naseleniia Uzbekistana," Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1979,no. 1,pp. 7-8.
16

Russian Economic Strongholds:

The largest factories in the republics—and obviously all those involved in the defence industry—

are referred to as "factories of all-Union importance" and are, for the most part, completely

independent of local party authorities.

They are kept from meddling with their operations, and their party organisations are managed by

special party organisers of the Central Party Committee of the USSR. Such factories choose their

managers based on both their performance and position inside the party. Russians make up the

majority of these managers in Central Asia; the number of Muslim directors only started to

increase after 1957 and is still quite small, according to emigrants from the region. Russian oasis

that are directly connected to Mother Russia and protected from excessive local influence are

made possible by the widespread existence of such businesses in Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

However, this situation exacerbates conflict between two competing ethnic groups: the more

qualified Russians, who are determined to maintain their dominant positions, and the indigenous

who are moving up the social ladder and anxious to use their newly acquired abilities to assert

their rising importance.

17

Conclusion:

The main aim of this paper was to analyses changes in Russia´s policies towards Central Asia,

i.e. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The paper operated on

the presumption that Russia strived to play a pivotal role in Central Asia since the beginning of

its expansion to this region in the end of the 18th century. Russia´s involvement in Central Asia

can be divided into two periods. The first phase encompasses the period from the late 18th

century up to 1917. In this era, Tsarist Russia expanded into the Central Asian region. After

1917, Soviet Russia took over and formally incorporated all five Central Asian -stans into the

Soviet Union. In all these three eras, Russia was contested by major powers of their times.

Therefore, their influence is taken into account, too. In the first period it was the British Empire.

Later, China and United States started to influence dynamics of the region.
18

Bibliography:

A. A. Kaufman, K voprosu o russkoi kolonizatsii Turkestanskogo kraia (St. Petersburg: MZ i G.

I., 1903), pp. I-VII

Asfendiarov, pp. 77ff., 101-105.

Bedrintsev, p. 13.

E. B. Bekmakhanov, Prisoedinenie Kazakhstana k Rossii (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR,

Institut istorii, 1957), p. 168

E. Manevich, "Vosproizvodstvo nase1eniia i ispol'zovanie trudovykh resursov," Voprosy

ekonomiki, 1978, no. 8, p. 42: V. K. Kostakov and E. L. Manevich, Regional nye problemy naseleniia i
trudovye resursy SSSR (Moscow: Statistika, 1978), p. 98.

Geoffrey Wheeler, The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia (New York: Praeger, 1964), p. 89.

G. Safarov, Kolonial'naia revoliutsiia (Opyt Turkestana) (Moscow: Gosizdat, 1921), p. 42

Istoriia sovetskogo gosudarstva i prava Uzbekistana, p. 23.

John D. Littlepage, In Search of Soviet Gold (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1938), pp.
108-109.

MCDERMOTT, Roger: “CSTO Rapid Reaction Exercises Get Off To Discouraging Start.”
RFE/RL, 27 August 2009.

Rywkin, (1990). Moscow's Muslim Challenge: Soviet Central Asia (2nd ed.). Routledge.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315490892

N. V. Arkhipov, Sredneaziatskie respubliki (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1930), pp. 86-87.

Safarov, p. 42.

S. Brainin, Amangeldy Imanov (A1ma-Alta-Moscow: Kazakhskoe Kraevoe izd., 1936), pp. 50ff.

S. D. Asfendiarov, Natsional'no-osvoboditelnoe vosstanie 1916 g. v Kazakhstane (A1ma-Ata-

Moscow: Kazakhskoe Kraevoe izd., 1936), p. 184.

S. M. Mirkhasimov, "Sotsia1no-kul'turnye izmeneniia i otrazhenie ikh v sovremennoi seme

sel'skogo naseleniia Uzbekistana," Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1979,no. 1,pp. 7-8.