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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Tajikistan
Index
After establishing communist rule throughout formerly tsarist Central
Asia in 1924, the Soviet government redrew internal political borders,
eliminating the major units into which the region had been divided. The
Soviet rationale was that this reorganization fulfilled local inhabitants'
nationalist aspirations and would undercut support for the Basmachis.
However, the new boundaries still left national groups fragmented, and
nationalist aspirations in Central Asia did not prove as threatening as
depicted in communist propaganda.
One of the new states created in Central Asia in 1924 was Uzbekistan,
which had the status of a Soviet socialist republic. Tajikistan was
created as an autonomous Soviet socialist republic within Uzbekistan. The
new autonomous republic included what had been eastern Bukhoro and had a
population of about 740,000, out of a total population of nearly 5 million
in Uzbekistan as a whole. Its capital was established in Dushanbe, which
had been a village of 3,000 in 1920. In 1929 Tajikistan was detached from
Uzbekistan and given full status as a Soviet socialist republic. At that
time, the territory that is now northern Tajikistan was added to the new
republic. Even with the additional territory, Tajikistan remained the
smallest Central Asian republic.
With the creation of a republic defined in national terms came the
creation of institutions that, at least in form, were likewise national.
The first Tajik-language newspaper in Soviet Tajikistan began publication
in 1926. New educational institutions also began operation about the same
time. The first state schools, available to both children and adults and
designed to provide a basic education, opened in 1926. The central
government also trained a small number of Tajiks for public office, either
by putting them through courses offered by government departments or by
sending them to schools in Uzbekistan.
From 1921 to 1927, during the New Economic Policy (NEP--see Glossary)
Soviet agricultural policy promoted the expansion of cotton cultivation in
Central Asia. By the end of the NEP, the extent of cotton cultivation had
increased dramatically, but yield did not match prerevolutionary levels.
At the same time, the cultivation of rice, a staple food of the region,
declined considerably.
Data as of March 1996
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