ABSTRACT
In Uzbekistan, as in other Muslim republics, the principal victims of the drive against corruption and its related national and regional autarky were indigenous personnel, although local Russian officials were also implicated. And the drama of the post-Brezhnev period was the clash of wills between the centers on the one hand, led, in time, by Mikhail Gorbachev himself. Moscow's concern with the incipient threat of growing nationalism in Uzbekistan, particularly among the elites, was confirmed beyond a doubt in the latter part of 1986, after the Uzbek and all-union Party congresses, when the focus expanded to include "ideological shortcomings". Moscow attacked the elites frontally by using the media to appeal to the masses in an attempt to undermine the elites' position. As revelations of "corruption" continued to unfold, it became clear that the Uzbeks themselves viewed the phenomena by more than just abstract standards of public morality.
