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Havighurst Center for Russian & Post-Soviet Studies, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Conference on Eurasian Empire: Literary, Historical, and Political Responses to Russian Rule in the Twentieth Century October 26-29 , 2006

DRAFT PAPER, NOT FOR CITATIONS

Elites, Reforms and Power Institutions in Soviet and Outer in the 1920-1940s: a comparative historical analysis

by Dr Irina Morozova

International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden University, the Netherlands) Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute of Asian and African Studies (Moscow, )

Introduction In cold war historiography a model of Western colonial maritime empire often was the key to approach the USSR as a case of Soviet (and/or Russian) empire. The pattern metropolis–colony was applied to Moscow-Republics relationships. Sometimes southern Soviet Republics were viewed as less developed or underdeveloped in opposition to the concentrated capital coming from the European part of the USSR or as provinces subordinated to the great capital city if comparison was made with the Roman Empire. The establishment of Soviet power in the east was regarded as formation (or re- figuration) of colonial (Russian) administration. The disintegration of the USSR was perceived as a part of the general and unavoidable post-World War II decolonization process. However, even at first glimpse at the USSR’s economic history one can see that the European ‘core’ of the could not profit from the new economic reorganization and trade in the way the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British or French had built national wealth. The investments into the great constructions in and (and donations to Mongolia) exceeded the benefits, especially at the first stages of the projects. This fact pushed some scholars, like Immanuel Wallerstein, to write on the

1 systemic course of disintegration of the USSR: Moscow had not developed the proper schemes of exploiting its southern peripheries and, thus, became unable to prolong its existence as the core. However, Wallerstein’s parallel with capitalist core-periphery scheme also was not entirely satisfying: there was too little, practically none, concentrated capital in the European part of the Soviet Union and consequently, no form of capitalist exploitation of the eastern parts. The proposition that an empire minimally involves a non-native domination of a native society1 can be hardly accepted without fare criticism, especially from anthropological perspective. Confusion, firstly, derives from defining native and non- native: do the native really identify themselves as natives; aren’t they also a result of an earlier migration or conquest; how fast their identities change, so that they form a new supra-national identity or identity of imperial citizen, or a new social identity of belonging to the ruling elite (nomenklatura in the Soviet Union presents such case), for instance, or other social strata. The perception of Moscow elites as a core has also proved to be a simplification. As nowadays-available Soviet archives have shown, the republican elite recruited from the locals had more influence upon the decisions in Moscow than previously believed. Another myth about the Soviet empire created during the cold war and reinforced by the ‘parade of sovereignties’ that followed the disintegration of the USSR, was on the existence of Russian and russified core elite. Nevertheless, the times of shared perception of the USSR as a case of empire organized along ethnic lines and in the end disintegrated along these lines in the same way as the Habsburgs or Ottomans2, passed away. The recent scholarly literature on suggests a careful revision of the works by Carrère-d’Encausse, Alexandre Benningsen, Enders Wimbush and Yaacov Ro’i, who contributed a lot to the general perception of ‘imperial’ Soviet policy towards nationalities and religions3. Some scholars have set up new definitions to characterize the Soviet Union, as affirmative action empire. According to Terry Martin, affirmative action empire is a paradoxical sort of multiethnic state that supported national territories, languages, elites, and even identities and, in fact, created new indigenous nationalities (korennye narody)4. Indeed, it is hard not to concur with Martin that any association of the USSR with an empire was strictly non acceptable by any Soviet leader. The Lenin’s concept of Imperialism as the forceful impose of uneven capitalist relations upon weaker nationalities was taught to all Soviet students and scholars, as the struggle of oppressed

1 Motyl, Alexander J. Imperial Ends. The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, p. 13. 2 Dawisha, Karen & Parrot, Bruce (eds.) The End of Empire? The Transformation of the USSR in Comparative Perspective. Armonk, N.Y., 1997; Barkey, Karen & Hagen, Mark von (eds.) After Empire. Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building. The Soviet Union and the Russia, Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. Boulder, Colo., 1997. 3 Saroyan, Mark. “Rethinking in the Soviet Union” in Minorities, mullahs, and modernity: Reshaping community in the former Soviet Union. Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley, 1996, pp. 1-42; DeWeese, Devin. “Islam and the legacy of Sovietology: A review essay on Yaacov Ro’I’s Islam in the Soviet Union” in Journal of Islamic Studies, 13(30), pp. 298-330. 4 Martin, Terry. The Affirmative Action Empire. Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001. pp. 1-27.

2 minorities against imperialists was cultivated and propagandized to all the people of the USSR. Thus, the theory of Martin comes from an attempt to analyze the views and activities of Soviet policy-makers in their own terminology. The term affirmative action is itself a translation of a rather vague words’ combination polozhitel’naya deyatel’nost’, which simply means positive activity in dealing with national questions. The book by Martin by all means provides us with many interesting insights on the national policy in the USSR, particularly as the author bases his research on extensive archival material, and being influenced by these massives of documentation he mainly focuses on the policy of the Bolsheviks in their communications with nationalities. It is hard to disagree with Eisenstadt notice on empires as political systems5. However, the essential differences and variations of political systems in modern European empires, medieval Asian empires and Eurasian (nomadic) empires make this definition open to obvious objections. The relationships between the core elite and the periphery within an Empire may not differ from any pattern of the same structural redistribution of authority functions between capital and province in any state. The interdependency of peripheries in relation to each other on the core sounds like a better, although not entirely sufficient feature that may distinguish imperial structures from a state6. It could be said about the USSR that although its economy was supposed to function as a gigantic plant with its internal demand, production, production chains and consumption, there was limited opportunity for bilateral agreements between the supplier of raw material and a factory to purchase this resource. If on a small scale such relationships were possible (in a later period of Soviet history), they were still regulated from the center via the fine-year plans and fixed norms of production prescribed by the state to both the supplier and the consumer. In analysis of empire I find it important to overcome the state-oriented approach. Not all empires constituted a state in the classical definition of this term (the , - formed as a result of conquest of societies that had already established ramified bureaucracy systems, like , by people without such firm traditions of statehood as Mongolian tribes, - would be the most illuminating example). In no way the USSR was a nation-state. A supra national Soviet identity was solely declarative, and no practical policy was directed to real construction of any. The supra-national in the Soviet Union was the ruling strata – nomeklatura that above functioning in official Soviet bodies dispersed its rule throughout non-legitimized or half-legal structures of emergency powers, such as GK ChP, NKVD, KGB, etc. The rule of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was not fully legalized: the party did not legally secure its rights over property. At the same time, the high echelons of the CPSU constituted the super-legal organ in the Soviet Union. As some would argue, the super legality of Russian resulted from the Russian autocracy that in its turn had been the continuation of Moscovy knights’ and rule7. Thus, the USSR presented the case of Eurasian empire; and in order to understand its foundation

5 Eisenstadt, S.N. The Political Systems of Empires (Glencoe, N.Y.: Free Press, 1963). 6 Motyl, Alexander J. Imperial Ends. The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 7 Fursov, A. “Central : Historical Centrality, Geostrategic Condition and Power Model Legacy” in Morozova. I. (ed.) Towards Social Stability and Democratic Governance in Central Eurasia: challenges to regional security. IOS Press, Amsterdam. pp. 23-39.

3 excurses should be made into the history of the Great Mongol Empire. Whatever hypothetical this approach might be, it, nevertheless, suggests a methodological reorientation from the analysis of the USSR as a state or classical empire or even as a political system to the analysis of the Soviet super-legal organizations and first of all, the RCP(b)/CPSU, the policy and identity of their bodies and circles. In this article I will analyze the super-legal policy of the Bolsheviks at a more local level – republican and regional and try to answer the question whether and how this super-legality regime took grassroots in Central and Inner Asia – on the territory of the nowadays Kyrgyzstan that had been already under the rule of the Tsarist Russia and later became the Soviet Republic and in a foreign country - , where Russia’s influence had never been so totally overwhelming. The study focuses on crisis periods in history of social system like establishing local Soviets and party units in Asia, collectivization of the Mongolian and Kyrgyz , etc. When exogenously generated change such as, for instance, the Russian revolution, course disruption to social system by breaking traditional economic ties and social networks, threatening to certain groups with marginalization and elimination, the existing normative social order launches the mechanisms of resistance. Social system undergoes restructuralization with preservation of its latent elements and the normative social order, albeit already modified. Establishment of new political elite accompanies this radical social transformation. Both individual and collective actors search for new alliances and networks. The traditional clan/territorial identities among Kyrgyz and as they had been formed during the Tsar and Manchu times by the 1920s had to adapt to the new realities introduced into their lives from outside. Concurring with scholars who attribute the ‘success’ of Soviet rule in Central Asia and Mongolia to traditional social structures adjusting themselves to Soviet state-party hierarchies8, my research will emphasize the transformation of traditional social structures, institutions and identities that partly went underground, and partly were transformed. The study of adjustment of social groups and individuals and restructuring of the existing system of social relations may be not sufficient enough. That is why in this article I search for the reasons why the Bolshevik super-legality was established in Central and Inner Asia. The Bolsheviks created grassroots for the new type of titular nations’ republican nationalism by promoting Kyrgyz national communist cadres and creating the new ruling strata – the national nomenklatura. Representatives of various social groups entered political alliances with the Bolsheviks.

8 See Massell, Gregory J. The Surrogate Proletariat. Muslim Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919-1929. USA: Princeton University Press. 1974. pp. xx, xxii-xxiii; Poliakov, Sergei P. Everyday Islam. Religion and Tradition in Rural Central Asia. New York, London: M.E. Sharpe. 1992. pp. 16-17; Roy, O. The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations. London, New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers. 2000; Geiss, Paul Georg. Pre-Tsarist and Tsarist Central Asia: Communal Commitment and Political Order in Change (London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) pp. 58-60, 97-113.

4 The emergence of new nations and tax reform The 1920s were the times of destruction of the old social system and drastic changes within it conducted by the Bolsheviks with their universal and modernistic view on Asian society. The period of 1924-1928 is habitually portrayed in literature as a relatively peaceful and beneficial for the national economy, entrepreneurship and population: the Newly Economic Policy reforms (the NEP) provided for accumulation of capital and liberal trade, while the overarching political control could be only projected by a careful observer. The sadly known mass purges came a decade later; the year 1937 is most frequently perceived as a culmination of Stalin’s repressions. As rightfully mentioned by some scholars, our historic memory is focused on the period of the late 1930s due to the clearly shaped and literarily expressed protest by many representatives of the Soviet intelligentsia, against whom the Kremlin policy was precisely directed that time9. As many of them were famous figures in science, cultural life or Bohemians, or occupying important positions we can find detailed records about them in the archives. Nevertheless, the earlier elimination of millions of peasants and workers during the total collectivization and forced industrialization was more massive and not less brutal. Those social groups did not leave such descriptive reflections on their fate as the intelligentsia did. The documentation is dispersed in various local archives and it may be already too late to collect oral life stories on the late 1920s – early 1930s. Fortunately, in the latest literature, local resistance and characteristics of various social groups in Central Asia in the 1910-1920s are given more examination10. The Soviet collectivization is recorded as a brutal crackdown on the village and countryside. Less focus has been paid to social discontent prior to collectivization. It was land reform that anticipated the all-round collectivization. Next to the taxation of private households the land reform was among the most painful actions taken by the Soviet government in the 1920s. In Central Asia this policy escalated the already existing inter- ethnic and inter-kinship conflicts and even created new tensions. The taxation introduced by the Soviets in Central Asia at the first part of the 1920s was extremely heavy, not less than at the tsarist times. The situation also worsened due to the fact that in practice the old traditional duties and labour conscriptions were still fulfilled by the population, and dekhans (peasants) experienced the double, triple and even bigger oppression.

9 Carrere d'Encausse, Helence. Islam and the . Reform and Revolution in Central Asia. London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd Publishers, 1988; Bennigse, Alexandre & Wimbushet, S. Enders. Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1979.; Bennigse, Alexandre & Wimbushet, S. Enders. of the Soviet Empire. A Guide. London: C. Hurst & Company, 1985.; Baldauf, Ingerborg. Schriftreform umd Schreiftwechsel bei den Muslimischen Russland – und Sowiettürken (1850-1937). Budapest: Akademiai kiado, 1993. 10 Khalid A. The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia. Berkeley, 1998; Buttino M. “Politics and Social Conflict during a : immediately after the Revolution” in Collapsing Empire: Underdevelopment, Ethnic Conflicts and Nationalism in the Soviet Union. Milan, 1993.

5 In Outer Mongolia, the nomads went on paying taxes to the monasteries, although formally these taxes were abolished. In the 1920s the corporate structures of the Buddhist monasteries remained practically untouched. In Central Asia the provision tax collected in autumn provoked massive protest. The depressive memories of the civil war served as a fertile ground for accumulative collective feeling of fear and insecurity. In September 1922 in Semirechenskaya district, area of most intensive ’ migration to Central Asia, as a result of gossips that all the bread would be confiscated from the peasants, people refused to collect grain from the fields. In Dzhetesuiskaya district, where the Cossacks settlers also accounted for an essential percentage, an attempt to kill the provision inspectors was made11, and some peasants (predominantly Russians) started leaving their households. In response to the resistance the Soviets organized the extraordinary provision detachments that were supposed to use force when collecting tax. These detachments provoked even more resistance, in a military form. According to the OGPU reports, the numerous abuses of power by the provision inspectors took place12. The provision tax and taxation policy as a whole people of Central Asia perceived as a barbaric act13 conducted by enemy, with which they associated the Slavic population (or another ethnic group in the with no or minimal percentage of the Slavs) regardless of ethnic composition of local Soviets. In Mongolia the new taxation was introduced by the Mongolian revolutionary government and in no way nomads associated it with the Russians, Slavs or the USSR. The arad (people) had a negative approach towards their new bosses, but they demonstrated certain sympathy to the Soviet agents that periodically visited them. Receiving limited information about the international situation and even about the politics in the capital, the Mongolian arad had positive feelings about the fact that representatives of the big and great state paid them a visit, had conversations and were interested in “how they lived”, “what problems they had”14. In Central Asia the provision tax had been collected slowly. Most paradoxically, even the collected provision was not adequately utilized, especially in the nomadic districts of and Kyrgyzstan. For instance, in November 1922 in Pishpek, the Peoples’ Commissariat on Provision collected great amount of livestock, which due to negligence of civil agents partly perished, partly was stolen and partly scattered along the steppe15. The dissatisfaction increased with the introduction of the fiscal tax that replaced the labor cartage tax in February 1923. There were simply not enough banknotes to pay this fiscal tax. In April-May the same year famine happened in Samarkand , its inhabitants suffered from malnutrition16. In June, the peasants practically all over Central Asia had to sell the last bread, stock of seeds and livestock in order to pay the taxes17. At

11 «Совершенно Секретно»: Лубянка – Сталину о Положении в Стране (1922-1934 гг.) Т. 1 Часть 1. Москва, 2001, С. 260. 12 Ibid, С. 270-271. 13 Ibid, С. 270. 14 Information from interviews. Mongolia. August 2001. 15 «Совершенно Секретно».., С. 316-317. 16 Ibid, С. 870. 17 Ibid, С. 894.

6 the same time, the costs for transportation of grain were not less than the whole taxes collected. Partial famine was fixated in Fergana region. Poverty increased conflict. The memories of recent tsarist immigration policy after 190618 created conflict between the nomadic Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and the Russians, with whom other Slavs also self-identified in opposition towards local population. The new revolutionary authorities fully supported this popular revenge under more general slogans of struggle against the great Russian chauvinism and fighting against the remains of Russia’s imperialism. In the years of civil war the Bolshevik policy in Central Asia was vividly anti- Russian. By means of supporting “indigenous”, titular nations the Soviet power aimed to gain positive popularity of the masses. The course on nationalization of the local Soviet apparatus in the end worked for the Soviet power. The groups which lost and suffered the most in the result of new national division were the Russian peasants (labeled as ‘kulaks’), and the Russian Cossacks (predominantly in Semirechenskaya district) were eliminated as a reactionary class. Only local ethnicities enjoyed tax reduction. The communists fixated the better agricultural equipment and management of the Russian peasants in comparison with Central Asians19. This fact was characterized as a survival of the tsarist colonization policy, following at the same time its stereotypes and calling the Central Asian population “aborigines”. The dekhans, being poorly equipped, lent their lands to the Russians and even sold the subsidiary seeds to them. The Russians possessed only small strips of land after 1922 and bought the lands from the locals, who had plenty of land and, in addition, were granted opportunities to purchase better lands. The Russians, who lent land, tended to secure their rights on it and the lenders demanded the land to be returned before the actual end of lease. As a result, lots of conflicts and fights with victims happened. In the nomadic areas of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, forced and painful process of sedentarization of the nomads who lost their lands as a result of land reform took place. The settled nomads were writing petitions to the local Soviets, asking to grant them with lands. The process of redistributing the requested lands to the Kyrgyz happened on the expense of the Russian lots. Russians, as well as Kyrgyz, did not have an aversion to use all the measures to defend their interests: they denied the settled nomads access to water, provoking the massive loss of cattle20. The Kyrgyz damaged their crops and drove the cattle out to their pastures. The whole villages sometimes clashed with each other. The Russians shot the Kyrgyz who were stealing their cattle or damaging their crops. As revenge the Kyrgyz organized armed attacks on Russian settlements. In 1922 many Russian families were leaving Turkestan to Xingjian. In late 1923, a law authorizing the replacement of Russians with qualified natives was published, stipulating only that the Russians receive the same benefits as those released due to reductions in government size. The politics of korenizatsiya generally supported

18 Т.В. Станюкович, «Поселения и жилище русского, украинского и белорусского населения Среднеазиатских республик и Казахстана». Этнография русского населения Сибири и Средней Азии. Москва: Издательство «Наука», 1969, с. 221-222. 19 Not all the Russian peasants in Central Asia were able to build up their fortunes, also because usually not the richest and the most skilled peasants migrated. The Cossacks, nevertheless, practically always had strong households. 20 «Совершенно Секретно»: Лубянка – Сталину о Положении в Стране (1922-1934 гг.) Т. 2. Москва, 2001, С. 248.

7 ‘indigenous’ Central Asian ethnicities and proclaimed , Tajik, Kyrgyz, Kazakh and Turkmen as titular nationalities in 1924. The korenizatsiya (deepening the roots if indigenous nationalities) commissions in each new Republic received money from special fund for cultural korenizatsiya reported that “the method of direct replacement of Russian employees with Kazakh (for Kazakh SSR – I. Morozova) was widely used”21. In Outer Mongolia, the ethnicity that had acquired hatred of the locals was Chinese. Detachments of the Red Army and the Mongolian Red Army together led the civil war on the territory of Outer Mongolia against the White Army and the former deputies of the Qing administration. In fact, the group of Mongolian revolutionaries22 established contact with the Section of Eastern Peoples attached to the Siberian Bureau of the CC of the RCP(b) in Irkutsk and the Far Eastern Secretariat of the Comintern Executive Committee, hoping to find support for overthrowing Manchu administration. Nevertheless, the anti-Chinese and anti-Russian measures taken by the Soviet government in Outer Mongolia and in Central Asia differed by nature. The Chinese presence in Urga (the capital of Outer Mongolia) was a threat to the interests of the Soviet Union in Inner Asia and in the , while the presence of Russian proletariat and the Russian Bolsheviks-agitators and teachers in Central Asia was of primary importance for incorporation of this region into the socialist entity with the center in Moscow. Nevertheless, even the proletariat, “the locomotive of revolution” was sacrificed to the tactical interests of the Soviets in Central Asia: anti-Russian policy and inter-ethnic conflicts of Central Asian rural areas were transported to the city in the late 1920s and 1930s. There were certain key institutions in Central Asia, in which the presence or membership of Slavs was never possible. Those were the institutes of Islam. The overall crackdown on these institutions and groups, in fact, never happened. Despite the general speculative ideological statements on religion as opium for people, an alliance with Muslims had been searched for at different periods of Soviet history. In 1924 much resistance was coursed by the campaign of expropriating vaqf property (the private untaxed property of Muslim clergy) in Khorezm. Let us analyze this case as an example how the Soviets dealt with the most powerful institution and identity in Central Asia – Islam and how the Muslims were making an alliance with new revolutionary power. “The term waqf meant inalienable property devoted to religious charity. This category of property became the main resource for the maintenance of cult institutions. In addition, it represented a base for consolidation of the ‘ulama’ (Muslim scholars). Many people, who were in danger of losing their property, transformed it into a hereditary waqf (waqf al-awla).”23 In classical Islam studies, on the basis of Koran, it was elaborated that Allah had transmitted the property on land to its prophet Muhammad, who in his turn left it to his deputies – imams, qalifs and etc., and also to secular owners. In other words, the supreme possession of land (by the state) did not exclude private property and from positions of shari’at operations with land were useful activities.

21 Martin, pp. 137-138. 22 Morozova, Irina Y. The Comintern and Revolution in Mongolia. (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 2002) pp. 40-43. 23 Muminov, Ashirbek. “Muslim Law in Central Asia” in Johnson, W. and Popova, I.F. eds. Central Asian Law: An Historical Overview, Kansas: Society for Asian Legal History. 2004. p. 62.

8 Nationalization of land in Central Asia was often explained with a reference to Islam. The popular agitators for nationalization from the Muslim clergy stated that the land belonged to all the Muslim, making the link to the famous hadith that “the earth and sky belonged to god”. The opponents of nationalization referred to shari’at and inviolability and sacred character of private property. So far, the adjustment of Muslim law and categories to the Soviet state, although contradictive by nature, was called for even at early stages of Soviet rule in the region. Later, during and after the World War II further rapprochement and institutionalization of Muslim administration in the Soviet state took place24. In 1924, to protect their property the mullas and manaps (kinship aristocracy) acted as one oppositional block against the Soviet power and the reforms it launched, demanding the return of vaqf lands and liquidation of other Soviet innovations. These demands were also a reaction on denying the clergy with voting and other rights25. Another reason for the vividly shaped collective protest against the new reform was the lack of funds from the center: the Soviet leaders requested that the unification of fiscal system should be held in Khorezm without financial support from the center. Consequently, the Khorezm government pushed additional pressure on the population in terms of taxes. The agricultural tax doubled26. In January 1924 a revolt broke out in Khorezm, and in March, Dzhunaid- (famous leader of the Basmachi) made already the second attempt to conquer Khiva and again he enjoyed the overall support of the Khorezm population. No OGPU reports commented on the reasons of the revolt in Khorezm, but, on the contrary, the unclearness of the events was pointed out. To what extent the Soviet policy- makers realized the consequences of their politics in Central Asia? How did they evaluate risks connected with the new taxation and other campaigns? One can get an idea that the OGPU analytics were always late to foresee the outcomes of the reforms or they realized what was happening only when it was impossible to change anything. Thus, in case of Khorezm revolt, the central republican organs reacted only in March 1924. The Central Asian bureau of the CC of the RCP(b) had to adopt a number of resolutions on broadening voting rights and diminishing taxes, as well as “involving the middle-income dekhans to the Soviet state-building”27. In April-May the rebels dispersed in the Khorezm region28. In May 1922 the mass revolt against the Soviet power (the Basmachi) that involved about 26 thousands rebels29 looked so threatening to the Bolsheviks that they reconsidered tactics towards Islam and its institutions. On May 18, a special decree appeared, according to which the confiscated lands of the clergy were returned to their former owners, the previously closed qadi courts restored and various religious schools

24 Poujol, C. “Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Democracy Versus Justice?” in Morozova, I. (ed.) Towards Social Stability and Democratic Governance in Central Eurasia: challenges to regional security. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2005. p. 52. 25 «Совершенно Секретно»: Лубянка – Сталину о Положении в Стране (1922-1934 гг.) Т. 2. Москва, 2001, Стр. 52-53, 69-70. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid, P. 158-159. 29 The Russian State Military Archive. F. 7. Sch. 2. D. 466, l. 58.

9 legalized. In June 1924 the OGPU reports fixated “less attention of the population to the qadi courts and more attention to the Soviet courts”30. The authors of these reports mistakenly explained this process by the success of the Soviet power. In reality the raise of authority of the secular courts happened due to the recruitment of the former hadith judges by the state31. At that stage the change of the official name of the court did not lead to the essential change in its proceedings, social function and identities people had towards the court and the judge. Even more flexible policy towards religion and religious institutions the Soviets applied towards a foreign country - Outer Mongolia. By the beginning of the twentieth century lamas in Mongolia were, firstly, the most numerous (and rich) privileged layer of the population (more than 1/3 of able to work male population), secondly, the most experience administrators, literal bureaucrats and educated politicians and, thirdly, spiritual leaders of the arad (people). In the first quarter of the twentieth century Outer Mongolia was mainly associated with the theocratic monarch, the head of the Khalkha32 Autonomy – Bogod-Gegen. Taking into consideration all these factors, the Comintern agents paid special attention to the Buddhist sangha (clergy and believers) in the struggle for power in Mongolia. Acting on the advice of the Soviet communists, the Mongolian revolutionaries made an alliance that later they preferred to hide – with lamas. The Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) (later the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party – MPRP) made a ‘gentlemen agreement’ with the top Buddhist administration – Shabin department. The revolutionaries acknowledged the impossibility to refuse the ‘service’ of this department: “using the influence and strength of the Shabin Department, the MPP expected to overthrow the Chinese and proclaim Bogod-Gegen the constitutional monarch, to destroy the class of hereditary knights, simultaneously conducting work on popularization of revolutionary ideas in the masses and spreading among them European culture and by doing this to prepare ground for future marsh and final elimination of the existing order”33. In the period of 1921-1924 the tactics of united national front was proclaimed, while the slogans of class stratification and class struggle were temporarily put aside. At the first part of the 1920s the local Soviets in Kyrgyzstan (that mainly consisted of Kyrgyz) could influence the amount of tax collected and the usage of this tax. Not just the center Moscow, but the new regional and local bodies administered considerable part of tax and used the tax reform in their advantage, taking the revenge over the competing groups. In summer-autumn 1924 the taxation pressure on the population was increased by draught and poor crops in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan that also provoked the mass loss of cattle34. From January to August twelve types of tax not less than two rubles per household each had been collected.35 The draught of 1925 led to the fall of crops up to

30 «Совершенно Секретно».., С. 133. 31 ‘Second collection of valid laws and decrees of the Bukhara People’s Government’ in Туркестанская правда. Бухара, 1923, № 162, 1923, С. 17-19. 32 Khalkha - Central Mongolia, the territory of inhabitance of the dominating ethnic group Khalkh. 33 The Russian State Archive of Social –Political History (RSASPH). F. 495. Sch. 152. D. 3. L. 2. 34 «Совершенно Секретно», Т. 2, С. 16. 35 Ibid, С. 201.

10 100% even on the irrigated lands36. Bribery and the abuse of power at local levels during the collections of tax multiplied. The members of local Soviets exploited the taxation system, physically damaging those, who refused to pay tax. Russian communists could not understand the nature of bribery in Central Asia; relationships and identities based on kinship appeared to them (at least when approached from a distance) no more than a survival of the dark past. The mechanism of inter-kinship relationships they often perceived as social stratification of village. Following this logic, they complained about the economic dependency of the heads of local administration on wealthy relatives, manaps (kinships aristocracy) and agsakals (head of community on patrimonial line). Russian agents in Central Asia also could not grasp why the poor dekhan households often improved by means of wealthier layers of their kin. Such phenomenon signaled against the class approach to Central Asian peasantry and nomads; on the contrary, it indicated the positive effects of inter-kinship redistribution. In Mongolia, the Comintern agents, on the contrary, tried to ‘make exceptions’ for the nomads who had not formed any ‘form of modern social relations’ and prevent the Mongolian revolutionaries from ‘blind copying Soviet economic-socialist reforms’ and even discouraged the Mongols from naming their party communist party. The recently published OGPU archival documents vividly illustrate the logic of the Bolsheviks for all regions of the USSR: ethnic conflicts (“nationalist” in definition of the OGPU agents) were the outcome of economic and social factors, especially for the peasants. Such a causal scheme should also have worked in the opposite direction: the deepening of ethnic conflicts should have fastened the transition to the new socialist society. Such a radically universalistic view on society, aiming at changing the whole system of social relationships over the whole territory, distinguished the USSR from any other imperial entity previously existed. In general, the same logic was applied to societies of foreign states, like Mongolia; however, revolutionary logic had to be balanced with international interests of the Soviet Union (for the Bolsheviks revolutionary struggle and state diplomacy were two different categories). The society and groups in Central Asia resisted to changes, influencing the whole concept of development applied to them by Kremlin policy-makers. This process can be especially well-observed at local level: in Central Asia in the 1920s the decisions of the Commissions on land management frequently depended on their ethnic composition. In the OGPU documents one can find lots of reports like this:

«In the settlement Poltoratsk (Samarkand region – I. Morozova) a conflict between the Russian peasants and the Muslim population took place. The conflict happened because of the land re-division: the Commission on land management gave to the Russian peasants 8 ga of land, among which 1 ga occurred to be the land that belonged to the dekhans. The worker, who measured the land, took one pond of grain for his measurement service from every dekhan. The land division and the collection of grain provoked anger among the dekhans and the conflict remains still unsolved»37.

36 Ibid, Т. 3. Часть 2, С. 510-511. 37 Ibid, Т. 1 Часть 2, С. 723.

11 Mapping Soviet Central Asia and socialist Mongolia In spring 1924 preparation for the “historical division” of Central Asia was fully underway. In October 1924, the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (TSSR), Tajik Autonomic Soviet Socialist Republic (TACCR), Kara-Kyrgyz and Kara-Kalpak districts (oblast) were formed. This new territorial- administrative division of Central Asia realized in the framework of the USSR’s institutionalization was a crucial turn in the history of the region. This ‘Turkestan question’ had been actively discussed at sessions of the Central Executive Committee of the RCP(b) as early as in 1920. A special commission on partition (raionirovanie) was established and it worked upon the requests of the Presidium of the Central Asian Economic Council.38 Its main task was to provide the centre (Moscow) with reliable and detailed data on the ethnography of the region, taking ethnic, administrative and economic factors into consideration. At local level the Soviets relied on the old Tsarist cartography, which was still in use.39 However, the maps of Turkestan in the nineteenth century and of the USSR in the twentieth - provide evidence that the new administrative division completely broke up traditional economic ties in the region. Soviet Central Asia was planned with new economic centers for huge industrial enterprises and one-company cities. The old political and economic centers, the famous cities of Central Asia, were soon brought into decay, and the completely new network with new junctions – the republican capitals and one-company enterprises developed. The Republics became interdependent on each other in terms of energy and various commodities supplies. Most obviously, this new layout was engineered from Moscow, however, the republican elite had certain impact upon how the decisions on the division were made and the new borders were drawn. Outer Mongolia acquired de-jure independence in socialist times and completely due to the support of the USSR. It is commonly known that establishment of the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) in 1924 resulted from the Mongols’ adherent to the interests of the Soviet foreign policy. In the 1920s the dissatisfaction with the Soviet instructions and the control from Moscow had been growing in the Mongolian circles. The Mongols were grateful to the Soviets for liberating them from the Chinese, but in some time they found it appropriate to say “good-bye”. Among the Mongolian elite there appeared a belief that the Comintern and the USSR “had been sitting as guests in our house for too long” and it was high time to “see them off home”. Mistakes, lack of knowledge about Mongolia by the Soviet instructors irritated the Mongolian revolutionaries and the lamas, who already on their skin how firm directives from Moscow might be, and were eager to support any discontent against the Soviets. Mongolian political leaders showed tendency for unity expressed mainly in attempts to infringe the interests of the USSR in Mongolia, to prevent the absorption of Mongolia into the Soviet orbit. The Mongols decided to “slow down” the rapprochement with the northern neighbor. In 1925 the Soviet troops were withdrawn from the territory of the MPR. Secondly, the Mongols accused the State Internal Security Office (the Mongolian KGB version) in spying for the sake of the USSR, replaced its former head

38 Materialy po raionirovaniiu Srednei Azii. Bukhara, . 1926. 39 I am grateful to Prof. C. Poujol for pointing out this important fact. Koïchev, A., Nacional'no- territorial'noe razmezevanie v ferganskoj doline (1924-27), Biskek, 2001, 120s; Thorez, J., Enclaves et enclavement dans le Ferghana post-soviétique. CEMOTI. 2003. n°35, pp. 29-39.

12 and formed an CC commission to revise the activities of the Office, demanded the reduction of the amount of Soviet instructors from five to two. Thirdly, accusations were directed to the Mongolian Central Co-operative, it was criticized for “not serving the Mongols”, giving advantages to the Soviet trade organizations. Fourthly, the Ministry of People’s Economy and the Ministry of Finance prevented the Soviet state insurance company from entering and monopolizing Mongolian market, although this venture promised the Mongolian treasure 20% of the profits. The Russian currency was heavily taxed on the border (20%)40. In 1925-1927 pan-Mongolian tendencies, also supported by in , became popular among Mongolia revolutionaries, creating serious concern in the Comintern and Moscow. However, it might have been Japan and the threat of Japanese occupation of Outer Mongolia in the 1930s that pushed the Mongolian revolutionaries to rapprochement with the USSR. This explanation is supported by many Mongolian historians41. Kinship and territorial identity in the Mongolian Peoples’ Republic was considerably less important in vertical power structures and political struggle in the centre. There have been always more opportunities for a young, strong-willed and charismatic activist to reach political heights in Mongolia than in Soviet Central Asia. As some scholars have argued, this difference between Mongolian and Turkic political traditions and institutions appeared in the thirteenth century and deepened over time.42 The political struggle in the Mongolian upper circles in the 1920s resembled the inter- party struggle in Moscow to a lager extent than the inter-Republics’ ethnic conflicts in Central Asia. On the territory of nowadays’ Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajik, , Uigur, Germans, Ukrainians, Russian and other nationalities lived. The 1920s were marked by endless and cruel clashes between Kyrgyz and Russians, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Tajik, Kyrgyz and other minor ethnicities on the basis of land and water division. Kyrgyz and Uzbek groups protested against attaching some cities, towns, valleys and settlements to the territories of each other’s Republics. In August 1924 the Kyrgyz and Kazakh sent a telegram to Trotsky from the name of 30 thousand people, in which they spoke against ‘giving Tashkent to Uzbeks’43. In Osh district the conflict was so sharp that when commissions on delimitation came to this district the Kyrgyz ails did not let the Uzbek agents stay for a night. The Uzbeks that found out themselves on the territory of Kyrgyz

40 RSASPH. F. 495. Sch. 152. D. 31. L. 61-65. 41 From the conversation with Prof. L. Jamsran. September 2001. 42 See Kradin N.N, Kochevniki, mir-imperii i sotsial’naya evoliutsiya [The nomads, world- empires and social evolution]. In: Al’ternativnye puti tsivilizatsii [Alternative ways of civilization]. Moscow. 2000. p. 319; Kradin N.N, Transformatsiya politicheskoi sistemy ot vozhdestva k gosudarstvu: mongol’skii primer, 1180(?)-1206 [The transformation of political system from leadership to the state: the Mongolian example]. In: Kradin, N.N. and Lynsha, V.A. eds. Al’ternativnye Puti k Rannei Gosudarstvennosti [The alternative ways to early state]. Vladivostok: Dal’nauka. 1995. pp. 188-198. 43 «Совершенно Секретно», С. 180.

13 Republic were writing petitions to attach their ails to . In October 1924 the Fergana Tajik raised a question of joining Tajikistan44. The preserved kinship relationships played not the last role in social-political transformation of Central Asia. The national division sharpened the conflicts between kinships, clans and other groups. Traditional kinships and clans structures penetrated the local Soviets. During the elections and re-elections into the local Soviets in Kyrgyzstan the whole nomadic and rural population occurred to be involved into the inter-kinship struggle. Kinships and groups that previously had not had proper representation tried to achieve it by uniting and forming blocks against the major opponents. Party members, members of the election committees and agents of extraordinary executive committees were involved into that struggle. As a result, only the members of one group made the body of local Soviet. In the areas of Kyrgyzstan with predominantly sedentary population the struggle was accompanied by bribes of enormous size for a village45. So far, normative traditional social institutions never disappeared in Soviet Central Asia, but transformed and adjusted to new centralized vertical. As the scholar S.P. Polyakov argues, the makhalla council retained its influence, acting as a Soviet of People’s Deputies (the local elected ruling organ)46. Thus, the new Soviet economic and political institutions merged with traditional ones, sometimes in a paradoxical way. In spring 1924 the ‘national’ language was introduced as administration language of local Soviets in Kyrgyzstan47. However, linguistic korenizatsiya remained a distant goal; titular nationals were most poorly represented in exactly those positions that processed government paperwork. Russians accounted for the overwhelming majority among the trained professionals, who had the most contact with the “national masses” – agronomists, surveyors, veterinarians, doctors48. Evidently, linguistic korenizatsiya was possible only after creating national elites. However, after the World War II, when the process of korenizatsiya was almost complete, Russian remained the first administrative language. Land reform and ethnic conflict Already in autumn 1925 the preparation for introducing the new land reform started in Kyrgyzstan. The new land division aimed, first of all, to confiscate lands from rich peasants. In fact, the land reform was a preliminary experiment prior to the forced collectivization of 1929-1930. Division of land and other vital resources like water provoked even more mass dissatisfaction than during the introduction of new taxation system. Social relationships, status, identities had been previously formed around exploitation of these resources. Any manipulation with land most naturally led to new conflicts and resistance of those groups who found themselves most damaged and deprived from their former possessions and privileges. Land reform in nowadays Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia is also at the top of the

44 «Совершенно Секретно»: Лубянка – Сталину о Положении в Стране (1922-1934 гг.) Т. 3. Часть 2. Москва, 2002, С. 633-634. 45 «Совершенно Секретно»: Лубянка – Сталину о Положении в Стране (1922-1934 гг.) Т. 2. Москва, 2001, С. 251. 46 S. P. Polyakov, Traditionalism in Modern Central Asian Society, Moscow, 1989. 47 «Совершенно Секретно», С. 110-111. 48 Martin, pp.140-141.

14 list of most sharp social conflicts49. And in the 1920s the confiscation, redistribution and re-division of land turned out to be the most disastrous episode in social history of the region. Already by the reaction of the population in 1925 it was possible to predict the result of the reform. The population of certain regions in Fergana prepared themselves to take actions against the Soviet power, and some people in Khokand expected the Basmachi to appear soon.50. Bais (land owners) expressed skepticism about feasibility of the reform and argued that the confiscated lands would be returned to them in a year due to the weakness of the Soviet power and the lack of technical equipment among the poor peasants. The Muslim clergy also started agitation against the land reform: in Khokand district the mullahs speculated that only the true Muslims were capable to redistribute land among the other Muslims, while in Fergana they insisted that the land reform did not correspond to shari’at51. The reform was launched in December 1925. The large Russian peasants’ households and the Cossacks’ stanitsas especially suffered from the land reform and the ethnic hatred of the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz accompanied by anti-Russian Soviet policy. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the rich Russian peasant – kulak – was the main target for the Soviet power and any support to struggle against him, even based upon the ethnic hatred, was encouraged. At the same time the local kulaks – bais – did not differ from the Russian kulaks in the concept of the new authorities, however, the local population perceived the former as their own and the latter – as occupants, encroaching on the lands of their kinships. It is difficult to say whether or not the Soviet leaders understood this vicious mechanism of land reform in Central Asia, most probably “yes” than “no”. In any case the side effects of land policy they saw as nothing else but a separate obstacle to achieve super-national, global goal – diversifying activities of their extraordinary executive bodies and constructing new society and identities at local level. The new initiatives of the Soviet power only escalated the already existed ethnic conflicts:

«(Djalial-Abad district – I. Morozova) ... as a result of collisions between the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in kishlak (village) Ak-kishlak, Uzbeks are demanding to join Uzbekistan, since they are dissatisfied with the Kyrgyz…»52.

«Samarkand disctrict: the Kyrgyz of Hodzhent demand joining Kyrgyzstan. Since in the local apparatus there was an Uzbek majority, and the Kyrgyz bais thought that they could avoid taxes by joining Kyrgyzstan»53.

49 Rossabi, Morris. Modern Mongolia: From Khans To Commissars to Capitalists. University of California Press, 2005.; Dekker, Henri A.L. A New Property Regime in Kyrgyzstan; An investigation into the links between Land Reform, Food Security, and Economic development. A Model to Assess the Effectiveness of Land Tenure Change. Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2001. 50 «Совершенно Секретно», Т. 3. Часть 2, С. 660-661. 51 Ibid, С. 768. 52 Ibid, Т. 4. Часть 1, С. 82. 53 Ibid, С. 187.

15 «Boksa-Isfaniiskaya district: 6500 Kyrgyz. During the re-election none made to the apparatus. They suffered from poor crops as the Uzbeks, but were refused assistance. There were gossips that the Kyrgyz would be even denied access to pastures for the sake of Uzbeks… The Kyrgyz delegates went to Pishpek to ask for joining Kyrgyzstan»54.

«Fergana district, Samarkand village of Kenibadam region: conflict between Kyrgyz and Tajik groups. Kyrgyz poison the crops by Tajik, killing their guards in the fields. Tajik, accounting for a minority, avoid opened clashes…»55.

The relationships of Russian peasants with the local ethnicities became potentially explosive. A tendency of expulsion of Russians from Kyrgyzstan (and the whole Central Asia) was clear. Many Russian families started selling their possessions and prepared to move. The Cossacks (particularly in Djetysuiskaya district), desperate by the land reform, practically were preparing an armed rebellion. The Cossacks openly announced their demand to establish an Autonomous Cossack Republic in Turkestan. People were writing petitions to the center, spreading the gossips on the arrival of Trotsky and revenge over the Kyrgyz administrators56. In spring-summer 1926 the clashes on religious ground started: Cossacks were fighting against ‘musul’manschina’ (Muslim religion in a negative connotation). The clashes between Kyrgyz and Russians had lethal outcomes57. Kyrgyz burnt the Russian hay stocks and steppes. In February 1926 Kyrgyz of Djalial-Abad district were threatening the Russians to “take the double revenge” for the Kyrgyz Basmachi killed in 191958. The primary ‘titular’Soviet apparatus in Central Asia was gradually acquiring what the communists called “political consciousness”. The eastern republics successfully deployed the rhetoric of backwardness to secure special financial help59. In 1926-1927 the general drop of titular nations in the governmental positions happened. Theoretically, titular nations were favored, however, in Uzbekistan, the proportions of Uzbek diminished60. The bais of Tyshkan ail of Djarkent of Djetysuiskaya district were agitating the ail population against Russians, saying that the autonomy of Kazakhstan was not a real one until Russians were running the Republic: “We should take political institutions in our hands, and currently we are granted representations only in the unimportant organs”61. Nevertheless, the percentage of titular nationals, despite temporal ups and downs was growing in long-term dynamics. Already by summer 1926 it had become clear that the land reform had not brought the expected results. Firstly, the newly redistributed lands occurred to be occupied again by their former owners and the local rural unions and party units remained sluggish about that. The land only nominally belonged to the poor, but it was cultivated by the bais, who also received the profits. Some poor peasants returned the land or lent it. There were 20

54 Ibid, С. 224-225. 55 Ibid, С. 303-305. 56 Ibid, Т. 2, С. 249. 57 Ibid, С. 436-437. 58 Ibid, Т. 4. Часть 1, С. 109, 159-160. 59 Martin, pp. 130 – 131. 60 Martin, p. 145. 61 «Совершенно Секретно», С. 522.

16 officially registered cases of land leasing in Fergana and Tashkent districts. Nevertheless, they demonstrated the general tendency rather than an exception. As a result of all these collisions and improper cultivation of land by its new owners, also due to the lack of equipment and livestock, the areas under crops reduced by 20-25% in comparison with 1925, and some areas under cotton and rice dropped by 75%62. The administrative measures were supposed to struggle against the predominantly natural economy of Central Asia. The increase of the amount of collective farms could be seen already in 1925-1927 (from 64 to 132 collective farms), however, with no efficiency. Although credits in 1929 increased by 250% in comparison with 1928, they were not distributed equally among regions, and the people responsible for the credits’ redistribution were not Soviet policy-makers in Moscow, but the local titular nation administrators. The life of Mongolian arad also had not improved during the years of revolution. The Comintern fixated this fact: “The exploitation of the Mongolian is not less than the taxation put upon the Soviet peasant”63. The social benefits issued by the government were nominal: the law on unification of tax system from 1926 that released the tax burden from the most poor layers of the nomads, and the state credit system introduced in 1927 aimed not at the benefits of the poor, but at the crackdown on the rich and higher middle-class nomads, which consequently did not led to the increase of living standards. The attempts to decrease the taxes on the poor not just provoked a bad stereotype of the non-profitability to be rich, but coursed sheer losses to the government. In was calculated, that the release of households that possessed less than 20 bodo (big horned cattle) from taxes cost 80-100 thousand rubles to the Mongolian state treasury. Nevertheless, the government, receiving special loans from the Soviet Union, undertook these measures. Bribery and unfair redistribution in Kyrgyzstan was criticized by the Russian Bolsheviks, who came with inspections to the Republic. From the point of view of the planners in Moscow, strict centralization of redistribution mechanism would minimize the interference of intra-clan and intra-kinship relationships into the credit redistribution system. They aimed to diminish the role of certain individuals occupying decisive positions in the new administration and to make these positions insecure: in the 1930s short-term appointments, replacements and purges were at the pick. During the first five-year plan (1928-1932) monetary aid from the center flew to the local cadres. It was accompanied by a strong developmentalist ideology and the greatest progress of korenizatsiya, from the point of view of some scholars64, was achieved during that time period. With the first five-year plan the course was taken on hiring unskilled local rural labor force in the new industries in the cities. Ethnic conflicts started migrating to the city already in the middle of 1920s. Crisis in village impacted on the city: In July 1926 mass revolts of the unemployed happened in Tashkent65. In 1925-1926 the Moscow instructors published some figures that were deemed to illustrate the increase of workers, peasants

62 Ibid, С. 386. 63 RSASPH. F. 495. Sch. 154. D. 391. L. 60. 64 Martin, p. 24. 65 «Совершенно Секретно», С. 484-485.

17 and office employees (‘sluzhaschie’) in percentage, while no qualitative growth of the working class really happened. Martin indicates the decline of rural ethnic conflicts in 1927, according to the United State Political Office (OGPU) reports that began to emphasize the “growing interethnic hostility based on the battle for work”66. Our experience of work with the same materials tells another story: despite the new OGPU focus on proletariat rather than on peasants, interethnic conflict in the village did not diminish, in general. When forced collectivization started, the situation in rural areas degraded. After 1929, when the first five-year plan had eliminated unemployment and created a labor shortage ethnic conflict increased. The so-called vydvizhenie campaigns were initiated – campaigns of promotion of workers and peasants from blue-collar or agricultural labor into white-collar managerial positions. The decree of Central Asian Bureau from December 1931 listed 61 local nationalities to be promoted immediately into leadership positions in various economic organs. Consequently, many of the new important appointments were unproductive and at times even ridiculous. For example, a Sherief Nurmanov, a locomotive driver with 12 years of work experience and 5 years of party membership was made assistant director of the Central Asian Railways and head of its cadres department. Kyrgyzstan responded to the decree with promotion of 125 local nationals to positions in the center and 240 to district-level positions. This improved the Kyrgyz rate of korenizatsiya from 9.8 % in January 1931 to 17.0 % in June 193167. Through 1932 the percentage of titular nationals increased, however, in 1933 there was again an evident regress. Campaigns against ‘local nationalism’ were alternating with campaigns against “great chauvinism”. Both sides – those who run korenizatsiya and those to whom it was directed - were engaged into a vicious cycle of conflict. In the MPR the Comintern supported cadres’ policy according to the Soviet pattern. The slogan of “mongolization” of apparatus set up by the Comintern agents implied preparation of national cadres into party and state structures. However, at different periods “mongolization” was interpreted by the Mongolian revolutionaries in various ways. In 1927, the toughest year for the Soviet presence in the country, the slogan was used against the right wing in the party that supported the interests of the USSR. The Comintern suggested increasing the percentage of the Mongols in the departments, in which they were underrepresented: Mongolian Central Co-operative, Veterinarian Department. The right wing deviators tried to use “mongolization” for all party-state structures and secure their positions by using nationalistic rhetoric against the Soviet agents in Mongolia, who at that time stood for the interests of the left wing68. The majority, nevertheless, seemed to support the right wing in 1927, and in March the CC of the MPRP adopted the platform on “strengthening Mongolian national roots” and “gradual liberation from political influence of the USSR”69. However, the left wing deviators supported and promoted by the Comintern won at the Seventh MPRP Congress and severely crashed upon the “right”.

66 Martin, p. 148. 67 Martin, pp. 175-176. 68 RSASPH. F. 495. Sch. 2. D. 70b. L. 259. 69 Лузянин С.Г., Россия – Монголия – Китай в первой половине ХХ в. Политические взаимоотношения в 1911-1946 гг. Москва, 2000. C. 146.

18 By the 1930s the critical mass of local nationals’ representatives in the state-party structures of the USSR did not reach the required level to create an ethnicized patron- client relationships, which became possible only in the Brezhnev period. The party conceived of itself as a non-national, or supranational rather than multinational party. The questions that the opponents would certainly raise: Why the easterners were not so well represented as the westerners in the central structures of the CPSU? One of the answers suggested by Terry Martin: “Any sufficiently talented and reliable eastern nationals were in a major leadership position in their own republic and could not be spared for central assignments. The easterners who were sent to Moscow were those who had lost out in factional struggles and were being exiled to a distant and insignificant assignment.”70 The mass repressions that happened in the USSR in 1936-1939 were not ethnical purges, but the result of brutal struggle for leadership within the party. In 1937, the Uzbeks in GULAG accounted for 3,55% of the whole amount of prisoners, the Kazakhs – 0%, the – 0, 53%, the Armenians – 0,62% and the Turkmen – 0%71. The forced collectivization in 1929-1930 was one of the strongest social shocks that peoples of Central Asia had to undergo together with other nationalities of the Soviet Union. As it has been proven in modern historical disciplines, the main reason for launching that risky and violent campaign was the lack of funds for industrial development, or in other words, - the village was sacrificed to the city. Forced collectivization and rapid, intensive industrialization were a central part of the course on economic centralization that had been taken after the end of NEP in 1928. Since that time party structures acquired the right to interfere directly in all social-economic relations all over the country. As far as it was believed that proletariat should lead collectivization in villages, special detachments of 25 thousands urban communists (dvadtsatipyatitysyachniki) were sent to distant agrarian and pastoral areas to inspire and teach the local population. The mass collectivization in the Soviet Republics started in autumn 1929. It was run by primary party organizations (party cells up to 1934) (the PPOs) that received plans from the center and used all methods possible to fulfill them. The violent expropriation of households’ property, the forced recruitment of people to collective farm (kolhoz), the breaking of the existed system of economic relations and traditional morals and values, - those were the realities of mass collectivization. In January – February 1930 the number of new collective farms was increasing at an alarming rate, and the PPOs of different districts were competing against each other for the highest percent of collectivized households. The rapidly formed kolhozes were so weak that could break up in one day, and their members tended to leave the kolhozes and go working for private farms (that did not completely disappear). In Outer Mongolia, the social campaign comparable with the Soviet collectivization was expropriation of jas property (untaxed monastic property) in 1930- 1932. The MPRP members (left wing) anticipated 1/3 of national wealth expropriated from the monasteries to fill in the gaps of state treasury.

70 Martin, pp. 180-181. 71 Il’in V. 1996. Gosudarstvo i sotsial’naya stratifikatsiya sovetskogo i postsovetskogo obschestv (1917-1996 gg.). Syktyvkar: Izdatel’stvo Syktyvkarskogo Universiteta. See: http://socnet.narod.ru/library/authors/Ilyin/strata/8.htm

19 The idea of launching such a campaign in Mongolia had a long history. It was the Comintern that in the middle of the 1920s first came out with the idea. Some Comintern agents (Reighter, for instance) called for the expropriation of the monastic property, insisting to “strike while the iron was hot”72. Those Soviet agents thought that it was appropriate to use in Mongolia the same methods as in the Soviet Republics. “In the nearest future we will have to launch (in Mongolia – I. Morozova) confiscation, similar to the confiscation of the church property in the USSR in Povolzh’e”, however with reserve: “This confiscation is likely to be of such a character…not like that confiscation, when we captured fabrics and plants immediately after the October revolution. We have to be careful. Let the Mongolian CC 3-4 times annually report to the Comintern. The Comintern representative should go to the regions to collect complaints”73. The Comintern agents were mistaken: firstly, what had been possible in Sp.- Petersburg right after the revolution became feasible in Mongolia only by the end of the 1930s; secondly, the Mongolian CC was unwilling to report to Moscow: the jas campaign was a pure Mongolian activity. The Mongols did not take into consideration the Soviet resolutions on the untimeleness and risks connected with the confiscation of monastic property. Comparing perspectives of expropriation policy in Mongolia with Soviet Central Asia, the Comintern agent Mamaev pointed out: “Expropriation in Mongolia is ten times more difficult than in the Soviet Turkestan”74. He implied the degree of the Comintern influence on the population and the general involvement of masses into revolutionary processes. The Mongolian government finally decided to implement the idea of forced collectivization and expropriation of monastic property after the success in expropriation of the property of inherited knights in autumn 1929 – winter 1930. At the beginning of April 1930 the Comintern informed the CC of the MPRP that it considered expropriation of jas property to be too risky and it orientated the Mongols at gradual stratification of lalams and etc. Most evidently, policy-makers in Moscow cared not about the positions of lamas, but about the possibilities of mass revolts75. Against the background of mass discontent about the MPRP policy lamas could have used the chance to consolidate their forces around the struggle for their incomes and property. Monastic households in Mongolia were local corporate structures – constant elements of Mongolian society. Without their transformation or elimination of them the success of social-economic reforms remained doubtful. The forced expropriation of monastic property and repressive measures towards lamas were supposed to shake and change the traditional Mongolian society. In 1930-1932 Mongolian revolutionaries started to liquidate jas in unexpectedly cruel way. The monastic cattle was often given to another owners, even from rich strata, but those, who performed on the side of the new power and assisted in robbing the monasteries. The arad did not receive much form the campaign, the expropriated cattle often was given to them on very unprofitable conditions. The kolkhozes, where considerable part of the expropriated monastic property was kept, simply eat the cattle. The kolkhoz was nothing but a label: the chaotically gathered arad led by an extreme

72 RSASPH. F. 495. Sch. 154. D. 391. L. 42. 73 Ibid., L. 50. 74 Ibid., L. 56, 71. 75 Ibid., Sch. 4. D. 73. L. 9.

20 leftist had no idea about collective socialist management. The total number of livestock dropped, social discontent increased. The results of broad-scale confiscation were tragic. In 1931-1932 the number of livestock diminished by 32% from the level of 1930 (23,5 mln.). The shortage of commodities spread all over the country. The old transport services were destroyed, and the new ones had not been created yet. In April 1932 the mass resistance evolved: rebellions burst out practically in all aimaks (the larger administrative unit) of Outer Mongolia. The rebels “robbed, destroyed cooperatives, kolhozes and other revolutionary organizations; the activists were arrested and killed”76. The expropriation of the property of lamas occurred to be an enormous social shock for the Mongolian society in the twentieth century; however, it did not provoke ethnic conflicts, since it was run by the Mongols themselves. That was one of the principle differences with Central Asia, where land reform and collectivization in addition coursed inter-ethnic conflicts. However, as we have tried to prove in the above-mentioned, the Soviet reforms in Central Asia – taxation, land reform and collectivization – did not have just one band- master in Moscow, but were greatly influenced different local groups, especially those, that made alliance with the new Soviet power. Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Kazakh and other local leaders were competing for status and priority in their community77 and for the resources, the old redistribution mechanism of which was broken. Membership in the local committees of collectivization, party cells and police was a way to pay off old scores. The Soviet welfare emerged at the certain stage of the development and strengthening of party structures. The nomenclature in Central Asian Republics was not less strong, broad and influential than in the European regions. The local national nomenclature was even more stiff, consolidated and bureaucratic than in the centers. By the 1960s national cadres were promoted in all social spheres. The communist parties of the Republics had identical structures and functioned in the same way as the Russian Communist Party of the USSR. The Secretaries Generals of the national parties in 1966 were all of local nationalities. The representatives of the local nationalities occupied the key positions in the administration of the Republics. The interests of nomenclature were above any form of nationalism. The most important, basic nucleolus of the whole hierarchical pyramid was a PPO. One existed in every factory, plant, enterprise, kolhoz and sovhoz, military unit or education institution. Although PPOs were reservoirs of cadres for higher nomenclature appointments, their main mission in the Soviet society was to control people at the enterprise. This control spread not only on labour, public activities and ideology, but also on interpersonal relationship and intimate life of people. The PPOs organized not only the party members and their free time, but also non-party activists. As we have argued before, in rural areas of Central Asia, the councils of agsakals mutated into party cells. The authority of high officials on city, regional and oblast levels in Central Asia also had many features of the former agsakal’stva: the official disputes on work and performance of the first secretaries by ordinary party members were much rarer occasions than in

76 Рощин С.К. Политическая история Монголии (1921-1940 гг.). Москва: ИВ РАН, 1999. p. 258. 77 See Horowitz, D. Ethnic Groups in Conflicts. (Berkeley, Calif., 1985), pp. 152-154.

21 European Republics of the USSR, and the heads of obkoms, raikoms and gorkoms surrounded themselves with more things of prestige consumption, like elite apartments, summer houses, automobiles, etc., and kinship played not the last role in choosing a protégé. The patron-client relations, developed in the whole USSR, were particularly strong in Central Asia; - no young party member could expect a promotion without patronage of an elder comrade. After receiving the new higher post he remained loyal to the one, who had promoted him. However, it is necessary to realize that the patron-client relations were stiff up to the oblast level. On the republic level, and by all means on the all-union level, this communal principle gave the way to the harsh political struggle. An important factor that worked for the acceptance of Soviet socialism in Central Asia was the social welfare of the 1960-1970s. The general improvement of living conditions in the region really started after the World War II, particularly in the 1950- 1960s, and it was tightly connected with the development of Soviet institutions, shifting new social identities and involvement of newly educated national cadres into public life in the Republics. That time the personal motivation of people to support socialism and the party increased, and it was so because the centralization of economy had presented its first results: the plants, the collective farms, the PPOs and various professional organizations could provide their employees and members with minimal social welfare and special benefits for successful work. By the 1950s the redistribution of property was mainly over in the USSR, nomenclature had accumulated enough means to maintain its dominance and started more careful redistribution to common citizens. If in the 1930s people joined the party and collective farms to survive, in the 1940s the membership in the party and kolhoz let them feel the power over the other individuals. In the 1950s and especially in the 1960s they fully realized the social-economic benefits, which the kolhoz and the PPO brought them. People got the access to free medical care and education. They could send their children to kindergartens, schools, colleges and summer pioneer camps, and they knew that the Soviet school was the only way for their children to make up their fortunes. Kolhozes and enterprises provided their peasants and workers with apartments and some household utensils. Different kinds of sanatoriums and resorts all over the country were available for the people. Business, educational and recreation trips to other Republics were organized on a regular basis. Free clubs and cheap cinemas and theatres appeared even at the most distant parts of the USSR. If there was shortage of some products or services, people stood in the waiting lists and in their turn they got it. The same processes had been underway in socialist Mongolia in the 1960-1970s. In the 1960s Khrushchev allowed to have small individual households. Such a change rose enthusiasm among all citizens of the USSR and especially in Central Asian Republics. In the latter the private sector in agriculture contributed (unofficially) up to 70% of a family income78. Thus, at certain age an average Soviet citizen could have a small flat, a small private household (dacha) and even a car. Pensions were guaranteed by the state, and their amounts were quite enough for food and some other things. That was the Soviet welfare (lasted up to the mid of the 1980s), and the citizens of Central Asian Republics enjoyed it practically on the equal basis with the other nationalities of the

78 Kuznetsova S.I., “Etnocotsial’nye problemy gosudarstv Tsentral’noi Azii” in Rossiya i Okruzhaiuschii Mir: Kontury Razvityya (Moscow, 1996), p. 236.

22 USSR. Consequently, the reports on inter-ethnic conflicts in Central Asian Republics in big quantities re-appear only in the 1980s. However, one should not fail to remember that Central Asian Republics did not overtake the Slavic and Baltic Republics in economic development79. According to the GDP index per person, the most prosperous Central Eurasian Republic was Kazakhstan, it was at the fourth place among the most developed Republics and left behind even and Lithuania. Kyrgyz Republic was the tenth, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan80 – the 13th, 14th, and 15th.

Conclusion When social roles and identities are formed around or closely connected with property (land, water, livestock), labor and welfare redistribution mechanism, any experiments with this property like expropriating it or the rights on it from the former owners, redistributing it, imposing new rules of exploiting it lead to conflict between all collective and individual actors involved. The transformation of social roles may course such a sharp change of identities, in which individual actors receive more opportunity for mobility. The new elite in Soviet Central Asia and socialist Mongolia was formed atop the elimination of the old. Stripped of their political influence at the beginning of the 1920s, the economic base of previously privileged groups was destroyed through land reform in Soviet Central Asia in the late 1920s, collectivization and industrialization in the 1930s, sedentarization, and confiscation in Mongolia in 1928-1934, prior to their physical liquidation. During the WWII and in the 1940s Stalin launched more loyal policy towards local nationalism81 and some traditional institutions (for instance, religious institutions), and by the 1950s the new privileged ‘class’82 was entrenched in Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. Khrushchev’s decision in 1962 to reorganize party organizations along economic, rather than administrative, lines in fact led to complete consolidation of power by republican nomenklatura among all party and state institutions. Brezhnev’s ‘stability of cadre’ policy (1964-1982) was a period in which Central Asian “families” and “clans” flourished; in later perestroika times, these groups were labeled as mafia and purged, together with their “long-stay” First Secretaries. However, the “clans” reconsolidated and made an alliance in the late 1980s with Gorbachev, the central power, to promote their representatives in the leading posts in the Republics. In Mongolia the increasing living standards corresponded to the raise of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party’s popularity and authority in the eyes of the population, and during the rule of Tsedenbal (1952-1984) the repressive cadres policy refocused on the educational and cultural institutions. Being concerned about the questions of origin and history the new political elite both in Soviet Central Asia and in the de-jure independent Mongolia promoted a

79 Fridman L.A., Vidyasova M.F., “Polozhenie SNG – Evrazii v menyaiuscheisya structure sovremennogo mira” in Rossiya i Okruzhaiuschii Mir: Kontury Razvityya (Moscow, 1996), pp. 20-22. 80 Zakumbaev A.K. 1997. Ekonomicheskoe razvitie soiuznyh respublik i raionov. Alma-Ata. 81 This shift, however, did not echoed in that was continuously guided from Moscow to oppose any manifestation of nationalism (pan-Mongolism). 82 Voslenskii M. Nomenklatura: Gospodstvuiuschii Klass Sovetskogo Soiuza. (Moscow: MN “Oktyabr’”, 1991

23 new mythologized quasi-scientific national identity and state-building concepts83. These concepts once being formed and taught through the socialist education system and ideology, on the one hand, influenced local identities and, on the other, demonstrated an amazing continuity in politics of the Newly Independent Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia since the beginning of the 1990s till nowadays.

83 Ilkhamov, Alisher. “Archaeology of Uzbek Identity” in Central Asian Survey, December 2004, 23 (3-4).

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