ABSTRACT
Uzbekistan celebrated its political birth at Bukhara in February 1925 when the First Congress of the republic's Communist Party convened. The major external guest greeting those assembled was Mikhail Kalinin, the chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union, which was also a newcomer to statehood. He congratulated the crowd in the hall: Naturally, Uzbekistan must play a large role in Central Asia, a role one might even say of hegemony. An understanding of Uzbekistan's past is essential to assessment of current developments. There is every reason to believe that Kalinin's remarks in 1925 faithfully reflected the Kremlin's view of Uzbekistan's standing in Central Asia. The changing of the guard brought an alteration in the class nature and the regional basis of the Uzbek political elite. Usman Yusupov was originally a poor peasant from the Ferghana valley who had matured in the Tashkent political machine.
