ABSTRACT
The territory and peoples of what are now Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan were ruled by Russia for almost one hundred and fifty years, first by the tsarist regime and then by the communists. The republics of Central Asia and, apparently, all the other republics of the former Soviet Union were less well-prepared for independence than the former colonies of Britain or France. Uzbekistan was incorporated into the Soviet planned economy, as were all the other republics of the Soviet Union. The socialist legacy that Central Asia received from the USSR comprises not only political and economic institutions, physical capital and a polluted environment; it also includes elements of the social psychology of the population. Union republic governments lacked the administrative capacity and the experience to handle a range of routine tasks; their structures were also ill-suited to the development of a framework for policy making.
