ABSTRACT
Soviet Policy and the Structure of Dependence The reduction of Khiva and Bukhara by Russian troops in 1920 transformed the centuries-old khanates into “people’s soviet republies.” Ostensibly sovereign and independent states, in the course of the next four years they made the transition from the status of subordinate allies of Soviet Russia to that of thoroughly controlled satellites and finally to political annihilation through absorption into the Soviet Union. Although the creation of the two republies would not have been possible in 1920 without Russian armed intervention, the establishment of the new regimes satisfied the long frustrated wishes of the small group of local nationalist and liberal reformers who assumed power in place of the deposed khan and emir. Four years later, power having passed into the hands of men more devoted to Russia and more committed to Communism, the two republics liquidated themselves upon orders from Moscow.
