Reid Dissertation Managing Nature 2016.07.12 Final
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository Copyright 2016 Patryk Reid MANAGING NATURE, CONSTRUCTING THE STATE: THE MATERIAL FOUNDATION OF SOVIET EMPIRE IN TAJIKISTAN, 1917-1937 BY PATRYK REID DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Diane P. Koenker, Chair Assistant Professor Tariq Ali Associate Professor John Randolph Professor Mark D. Steinberg ABSTRACT This dissertation is a geographic and environmental history of Soviet state building that examines how the Tajikistan Soviet Socialist Republic was made. In the mid-1920s, the USSR created republics in Central Asia that endure today as nation states. Tajikistan, however, lay on land that is almost entirely mountainous, where there was no physical legacy of modern economy. To build socialism here, the regime needed to import capital, people, and animals along with plans and ideals. This, in turn, required the establishment of transportation and commodity chains. These material implications of political and cultural projects are routinely left out of histories of Soviet power. My work instead illuminates the material and economic operations that fueled and sometimes confounded socialism, and connects them to global patterns of economic growth. The dissertation draws on archival and library sources from Dushanbe, Moscow, and North America to make three major scholarly contributions. First, my focus on tangible context and the hows of region-making puts political, social, and economic factors into conversation where they converged on the physical connections of state building that were literally transnational. Doing so bridges usual separations of sectors and geographies that are characteristic in histories of the early USSR. It furthermore contests conventional portrayals of Central Asia as an indistinct yet enormous cotton colony by highlighting the built and environmental conditions that made Tajikistan’s Soviet experience unique. Drawing on human geography and landscape studies, I show that the construction of the first railroads and highways in Tajikistan was a distinctive form of Soviet state-building and nation-making. Second, I comment on the nature of Stalinism. This eponymous period is known for the centralization of power and planning in Moscow and the violent promotion of a modern, industrial society. My study of the operations of material economy in commodity chains spanning the USSR shows that real economic life was under-planned, and characterized by decentralized authority. In Tajikistan, utopian visions of technological prowess were implemented mainly by horses, camels, and human hands, often challenged by the rugged physical environment. Third, I compare Stalin-era enterprises in Tajikistan to other instances of postcolonial economic growth. I find that insights from global patterns of infrastructure and commodity chain management can help ascribe concrete causes, effects, and chronologies to mobilizational projects across the USSR. I also argue that this unfamiliar case of “international development” offers opportunities for new understandings from beyond the Euro-American imperial world. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank the many individuals and institutions that supported my work on this dissertation. I know that I have not noted them all—and I apologize to those that I missed. My first thanks go to my extraordinary dissertation committee members who all helped me improve my scholarly abilities and guided my work beyond anything I could have expected. They will remain models for me to emulate throughout my career. Diane Koenker, my advisor, guided my progress through the PhD program and supported my dissertation project with rare wisdom, intellect, and reliability. Her uncommon eye for clarity helped me improve the dissertation’s groundedness, focus, and analytical rigor. Tariq Ali helped me consider new ways of relating my project comparatively to other global histories while refining its translatability. Mark Steinberg’s energy and acumen as an interlocutor and mentor inspired greater sophistication in my work, and helped me refine its relevance to other Soviet histories. John Randolph introduced me to, and pushed me on, many of the approaches to space and mobility that I grapple with in my work, and led me to interpretations I would otherwise have struggled to arrive at. My work on this dissertation also benefitted greatly from interactions with other scholars and experts who contributed to my project through comments, suggestions, questions, or other forms of support. At the University of Illinois, they include Roderick Wilson, Antoinette Burton, Kenneth Cuno, Eugene Avrutin, Cynthia Buckley, Teresa Barnes, and Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi. My work also benefitted substantially from multiple exchanges with Jeff Sahadeo, Artemy Kalinovsky, Kramer Gillin, Jessica Pickett, James Pickett, Andy Bruno, Kristy Ironside, and Christian Bleuer. I am also grateful for suggestions received at various stages of this project at conferences and meetings, including the Eurasian studies Kruzhok workshop at the University of Illinois and the Midwest Russian History Workshop, as well as through other interactions. Of those events, thanks especially to Christian Teichmann, Douglas Northrop, Shoshana Keller, Marianne Kamp, Adeeb Khalid, and Lewis Siegelbaum. Many institutions made my work on this dissertation possible financially and otherwise. A Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada supported the preliminary stages and exploratory work. My research year was funded through the University of Illinois by a Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Department of History, a Graduate College Dissertation Research Travel Grant, and the Nelle M. Signor Graduate Scholarship in International Relations. The logistics of my research year in Tajikistan were greatly eased by support from the Aga Khan Development Network and the University of Central Asia’s campuses in Bishkek and Dushanbe. Of their staff, I would especially thank Jayne Barlow in Ottawa and Chad Dear of the Mountain Societies Research Institute in Bishkek. My writing was greatly facilitated by the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities Graduate Fellowship and the Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship. I am also indebted to the staff of the institutions where I conducted research. Over the years, I benefitted much from the aid of the University of Illinois Library’s excellent staff. In iii particular, I was fortunate to have ready access to the Slavic Reference Service, of which I am especially grateful to Joseph Lenkart and Kit Condill for their help. In Russia and Tajikistan, the individuals I interacted with daily at the state archives and various libraries were highly knowledgeable and helpful. My dissertation work abroad was enriched by practical advice and various kinds of support from many individuals. One of the most urgent challenges of travel for research in Russia and Tajikistan can be finding housing. Over the course of multiple trips, several friends gave me shelter and/or helped me find it. For such help in Moscow, I thank Kelly Kolar, Ben Sawyer, and Andy Bruno; in Dushanbe, I am grateful to Bahridin Aliev (Alizoda), Mehri Garmsir, Mehdi Bemani, Roozbeh Ghasemi, Jessica Pickett, James Pickett, and Giuseppe Bonati. Along with these people, many other friends and colleagues helped me with various planning and day-to-day challenges of my research trips. These included Tuychi Rashidov, Nasrullo Khojayori, Abdulfatoh Shafiyev, Susan Grant, Maya Holzman, Botakoz Kassymbekova, Flora Roberts, and William Fierman. I also thank several friends for their companionship during my dissertation work. In Tajikistan, they included Artemy Kalinovsky, Jessica Pickett, James Pickett, Kramer Gillin, Kimaris Toogood, Shohin Odinaev, Golden Baker, Darren Thies, Robert Stewart, Daniel Winetsky, and Hanna Jansen. In Moscow, they included Rachel Koroloff, Kitty Lam, James Ryan, Steven Jug, and Alexander Babaris. In Champaign- Urbana, several supportive friends made the work towards this project easier and more enjoyable. Special thanks to Stephanie Seawell, David Greenstein, Zack Poppel, Heidi Dodson, Nathan Putnam, Lydia Crafts, Agata Chmiel, Ben Bamberger, Anna Claydon, and Carlo Di Giulio. This dissertation is dedicated to my family. I cannot imagine having completed it without their unwavering love and support. My parents, Maria and Allan, encouraged and helped me in countless ways, while my brothers, Michal and Bernard, also inspired me with their impressive achievements. My partner, Elena Bonicelli, came into my life just when I began this project, and it benefitted from regular conversations with her about economic growth and transnational relationships. More importantly, she has patiently encouraged and aided me through the highs and lows of research and writing, as well as other dissertation challenges. I hope she is pleased with the result. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………..................vi List of Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Foreign Terms……………………………………..........vii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………......................1 Chapter 1. Soviet Land by Railroad: Connecting Space and Time in