During the five years of Tajikistan’s existence as an autonomous territory subordinate to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (1924-1929) Moscow had to deal with numerous disputes between Samarqand (Uzbek capital until 1930) and Dushanbe. Statistical discrepancies between censuses conducted in 1915, 1920 and 1926 added fuel to the fire. Not all the disputes, however, had been over census figures; some of them involved financial figures too.

In July 1927 the Soviet People’s Commissars of the Autonomous Republic of Tajikistan received a letter from Tajik representatives in Moscow where the government of Uzbekistan was accused of continuously using Tajikistan’s share of income for its own purposes. Perhaps "500 000 gold roubles" mentioned in the previous chapter was a part of the financial conflict discussed by representatives of both sides in 1929. The letter also alleged that Moscow funds allocated to Tajikistan were being used by Uzbekistan for its own projects. The third point of the letter accused Uzbekistan of using "the privileges afforded to Tajikistan as a politically important but backward republic to its own advantage to catch up with the other members of the Union. None of the allocations, however, reaches the people of the Tajik Autonomous Republic."

Uzbek chauvinism practiced among Uzbekistan’s authorities and demonstrated especially in the system of education had been another matter of complaint of Tajik communists to Moscow.

The Tajik historian Rahim Masov who has conducted a massive research about the national territorial delimitation of the 1920s, has found a document in Tajikistan’s Central State Archive that lists Uzbeks’ ‘persuasion methods’ after the national-administrative divisions:

"1. It was announced that in Uzbekistan there is room only for the Uzbeks. Those who call themselves Tajik should go to Tajikistan.

2. Those who choose to stay in Uzbekistan must accept the official Uzbeki language. Therefore, the language of instruction was Uzbeki.

3. Research workers, especially teachers, who showed signs of nationalism, were released from their duty and placed in positions in which language did not play a role. This was done mostly in Samarqand, Bukhara, and Khujand.

When people were sent to Tajikistan on official business, a rumour was initiated that the person had been exiled to Tajikistan due to his affiliations or for his having identified himself as a Tajik."

Thus, Uzbekistan’s infringement upon the economic and cultural rights of the Tajiks along with other internal and external motives prompted Moscow to seriously mull over Tajikistan’s separation from the Uzbek republic. This task inevitably triggered even more furious debates between Uzbek and Tajik officials that led to what has been described by Paul Bergne as ‘the final territorial battle’ between the two Soviet entities.

The 1926 census

As talks about separation took serious turn, the Uzbek authorities found it convenient to cling on to the latest census data obtained in 1926 and accepted by the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Soviet Union. As said earlier, the census gave Uzbeks the upper hand in many Tajik-populated districts and towns. For instance, according to the 1915 official statistics, there were 59,901 Tajiks living in Samarqand compared to 819 Uzbeks. The 1920 census professes that 44,758 inhabitants of Samarqand were Tajik against 3,301 Uzbeks. The reversal culminated in 1926 when census-takers alleged that there were 43,304 Uzbeks in Samarqand with only 10,716 Tajiks. The same kind of dramatic decline in the number of Tajiks was officially registered in other areas of the region too. Officially, most of the Tajiks were concentrated in the Eastern Bukhara, present-day Tajikistan.

No official explanation had been given to the downward movement of Tajik population figures in Central Asia. But Tajik leaders believed that in 1926 Tajiks of Samarqand, Bukhara, Surkhan-Darya and other regions of Uzbekistan were threatened with exile to mountainous Tajikistan, unless they were registered as Uzbek. Later, many people of those regions confirmed the claim.

The Russian chairman of the Central Asian Economic Council Makeev supported Hajibaev by citing the following:

"Until the beginning of the national divisions, the language of instruction in all Tajik schools was Uzbeki. The Tajiks were persuaded to register themselves as Uzbek. The intensity of the persuasion was such that not only the general public, but the Tajik officials in the Party registered themselves as Uzbek." (CGA Tadzhikskoj SSR. F 35. - Op. 2. - D. 199.- L. 4).

Makeev added, if the Soviet officials knew that the 1926 census ‘had been taken under these conditions, they would not have approved it. They would even have brought those who had doctored the data to justice.’

However, justice was not done to the ‘doctors’ of the fallacious biased data. Instead, all Tajik politicians who did not accept the 1926 census figures – Abdurrahim Hajibaev, Nusratulla Makhsum, Shirinsha Shatemur, Abdulqadir Muhiddinov and others – were later found guilty of igniting nationalism and executed.

Short-lived Victory

Based on all arguments provided by Dushanbe, Khojand and its suburbs were added to Tajikistan in 1929. But most of Tajiks and their cities still remained beyond Tajikistan’s borders, and there seemed to be no end to the territorial dispute between the two neighbours.

Moscow as the final arbiter listened to all claims and counterclaims of both sides again and issued its own verdict on 3 February 1930. It rejected Tajikistan’s request for inclusion of Samarqand and Bukhara without further explanation, but decided to separate the Surkhan-Darya district from the Uzbek SSR and give it to the Tajik SSR. The task was supposed to be fulfilled within two months.

Uzbekistan could not accept the loss. Tashkent’s official protest followed Moscow’s decision immediately. Babeshko and Kleiner, two Uzbek leaders (of Slavic and German origins), asked Moscow to refrain from finalising the resolution and stated that ‘the data on the national composition and economic orientation of the Surkhan-Darya Okrug’ had not been heeded. Showing an unusual flexibility, Moscow decided to revoke its earlier decision on 13 February 1930, and Surkhan-Darya remained in the Uzbek territory. The reason is open to speculations.

One of the Speculations

In his book The Birth of Tajikistan, the late British diplomat Paul Bergne gives a perfect analysis of Moscow’s ambiguous decision-making regarding the Tajik-Uzbek territorial claims:

"Why did Moscow shrink from transferring Samarkand and Bukhara, or Surkhan-Darya? The practical arguments –geographical separation from the Tajik heartland, an Uzbek dominated countryside – were hardly persuasive. Had they been, Tashkent would have gone to Kazakhstan, and Osh and Khojand to Uzbekistan. As Dyakov (chairman of the Organisation Office of the Khojand Okrug until August 1929 – twc) himself admitted in the context of Ura Teppe, the decision was a political one. One can only speculate. Given the strength of the continuing "Young Bukharan" tradition in the government of the Uzbek SSR – where Faizulla Khojaev and Abdulrauf Fitrat were both prominent – the loss of that city in particular would have been an insupportable blow. As for making Samarkand the new capital of Tajikistan, for strategic reasons Moscow preferred a capital closer to the Tajik centre and of less consequence. The new statelet was perhaps too unstable and vulnerable. Russian memories of the Basmachestvo were too recent. Moscow was still worried about British machinations in the region. Should the Soviet grip on Tajikistan weaken, Dushanbe could be given up. The fate of Samarkand and Bukhara could not be viewed with the same equanimity." (Paul Bergne, The Birth of Tajikistan, 2007, p. 131).

(to be continued)

Tajiks of Uzbekistan. Part 3

Tajiks of Uzbekistan. Part 4