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National Sentiment and Migration in Soviet Central Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Gregory Gleason
Gregory Gleason*
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico (USA)
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Extract

The Program of the CPSU adopted at the 27th Party Congress (1986) included a guarded reference to the nationality question. It observed that the “nationality question, as it has been inheritedfrom the past, has been successfully solved.” This reference to nationality problems as a remnant of the fading capitalist past was not designed to suggest that problems of a national character have ceased to exist in the Soviet Union today. Gorbachev made this point to the Congress delegates noting: “Our achievements should not create the impression that there are no complications in nationality processes. The contradictions characteristic of all development are unavoidable in this sphere as well.” The violent outbursts of a national character in Kazakhstan in December 1986 provide fresh evidence that ethnic tensions lurk just beneath the surface. These tensions have been held in check largely by the threat of reprisals from central authorities who have regarded meaningful expressions of nationalism as treasonous.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Fall 1987 , pp. 228 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by the Association for the Study of the Nationalities of the USSR and Eastern Europe, Inc. 

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References

Notes

* This paper was prepared with assistance from the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar

1. Literally the phrase reads: natsional'nyi vopros, ostavshiisia ot proshlogo, v Sovetskom Soiuze uspeshno reshen. See Kommunist, no. 4 (1968), p. 127.Google Scholar

2. For this quote and a discussion of the goals of contemporary national problems see Yuri Bromlei, “Sovershenstvovanie natsional'nykh otnoshenii v SSSR,” Kommunist, no. 8 (1986), pp. 78–86. See page 80 for the reference to Gorbachev.Google Scholar

3. A treatment of Russian nationalism may be found in Dunlop, John B., The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). A more recent treatment of the “Russian New Right” may be found in Alexander Yanov, The Russian Challenge (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1987).Google Scholar

4. The basic work on nationalism is Kohn, Hans, The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in its Origins and Background (New York: Macmillan, 1944). For more recent treatment see especially Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

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20. See Daniel, Matuszewski, C., “The Turkic Past in the Soviet Future,” Problems of Communism (July-August, 1982), pp. 76–82.Google Scholar

21. Grey, Hodnett, Leadership in the Soviet National Republics: A Quantitative Study of Recruitment Policy (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1978).Google Scholar

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23. Rowland, Richard H., “Regional Population Redistribution in the USSR: 1979-84,” Soviet Geography (March 1986). vol. 28, 3:158–181, p. 164.Google Scholar

24. Op. cit., p. 177.Google Scholar

25. Op. cit., p. 175, table 9.Google Scholar

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28. Quote on 35 percent—Bedrintsev?Google Scholar

29. The title of the resolution is “O dal'neishem ukreplenii trudovoi distsipliny i sokrashchenii tekuchesti kadrov v narodnom khoziaistve,” See Kh. Umarov for a discussion, Ratsional'no ispol'zovat’ trudovye resursy,” Kommunist Uzbekistana, no. 9 (1985), pp. 12–22.Google Scholar

30. See Partinaia zhizn' (Tashkent, August 1979), p. 77.Google Scholar

31. Khodzhaev, E., “Srednee obrazovanie i rabochaia kvalifikatsiia,” Turkmenskaia iskra (3 April 1979). Also see Gudzhalova, L. V., “Puti snizheniia tekuchesti kadrov v promyshlennosti Turmenskoi SSSR,” Isvestiia Akademii Nauk Turkmenskoi SSR, Seriia obschchestvennykh nauk, no. 3 (1983), pp. 11–15; Gurshumov, I. P., “Motivy potentsial'noi tekuchesti kadrov,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 1 (1984), pp. 76–78.Google Scholar

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33. See, for instance, Todoro, Michael P., Internal Migration in Developing Countries (Geneva: International Labour Office, 1976).Google Scholar

34. Lee, E. S., “A Theory of Migration,” Demography, no. 1 (1966), pp. 47–57.Google Scholar

35. Umarov, , op. cit., p. 20.Google Scholar

36. Ziuzin, , op. cit., p. 111.Google Scholar

37. Lubin, Nancy, Labor and Nationality in Soviet Central Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

38. Shister, Georgii, “Vazhnyi faktor rosta i sovershenstvovaniia struktury rabochego klassa Uzbekistana,” Kommunist Uzbekistana, no. 2 (1983) p. 39.Google Scholar

39. Ibid. Google Scholar

40. Ibid. Google Scholar

41. Shister, , op. cit., p. 37.Google Scholar

42. Ibid. Google Scholar

43. This is documented in the author's doctoral dissertation, “Between Moscow and Tashkent: The Politics of the Uzbek Cotton Production Complex” (The University of California, Davis, 1984). The data will soon be available in Between Moscow and Tashkent: Center and Periphery in Soviet Politics (forthcoming).Google Scholar

44. For a discussion see Richard Rhoda, “Rural Development and Urban Migration: Can We Keep Them Down on the Farm?” International Migration Review, vol. 17 (1984), pp. 34–68.Google Scholar

45. Ziuzin, , op. cit., p. 113.Google Scholar

46. Musaeva, T. B. and Khasanova, R. T., “K voprosu ratsional'nogo ispol'zovaniia trudovykh resursov molodezhi,” Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane, no. 10 (1977), p. 31.Google Scholar

47. Hodnett, Grey, “Technology and Social Change in Soviet Central Asia: The Politics of Cotton Growing,” in Henry Morton and Rudolf Tokes, eds., Soviet Politics and Society in the 1970s (New York: Free Press, 1974), pp. 60–177.Google Scholar

48. See Gleason, Gregory, “Educating for Underdevelopment: The Soviet Vocational Education System and its Central Asian Critics,” Central Asian Survey (Spring, 1985), pp. 39–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49. See, for instance, Kharakhanov, M. K., “Regional'nye problemy razvitiia narodonaseleniia na sovremennom etape,” Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane no. 9 (1983), pp. 31–37.Google Scholar

50. For a discussion of the role of the elites in the national question see Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone, “The Nationalities Question,” in Wesson, Robert, pp. 145–147. Also see Steven L. Burg, “Muslim Cadres and Soviet Political Development,” in World Politics (1984), 37, 1: 24-47; for a detailed study of one particularly influential Central Asian leader see Gregory Gleason, “Sharaf Rashidov and the Dilemmas of National Leadership,” Central Asian Survey (1986).Google Scholar