ABSTRACT

This chapter begins with the late 1930s and draws attention to the "action/reaction" and "attack/retreat" patterns. Initially, a novel framework is proposed which treats the native leadership in terms of its geopolitical or regional components. Special attention is given to the post-1983 phase of the "stimulus/ response" pattern, which began with an attack on the status quo both at the center and in Central Asia. The purge in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic lasted for five years and overlapped with the innovations Gorbachev introduced into the Soviet political system. The Fergana Valley is the major cotton region of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its development as such since 1929 has been the prime impulse behind Soviet economic efforts in the republic. That ambitious and mobile natives from these areas have hitched themselves to the Soviet wagon is an important regularity surfacing throughout the history of Soviet Uzbekistan.