ABSTRACT
The immediate background of the transformation of Inner Asia during the period from the 1920s to the 1980s was the tremendous upheaval of the First World War and the political dislocations engendered by the ensuing breakup of the Chinese and Russian empires and the weakening of the British position in India. The revolutionary states that replaced these empires were to play a much more active role both as models of political, economic, and social change and as intrusive forces seeking to subordinate the peoples of Inner Asia to their interests.
