Life In Uzbekistan Under The Soviet Union

On August 31st, 1991 Uzbekistan declared their independence from the former Soviet Union. This marked the end of a very tumultuous relationship with the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan is located Northeast of Iran and Northwest of India and Pakistan. The people of Uzbekistan are called Uzbeks and make up more than 80 of the total population. Other groups are Russians, Tajiks, and Tartars. Under the Soviet Union there were many disasters and general unrest. The Bolsheviks, the original founding political group of the Soviet Union, were not popular in the area of Uzbekistan. In 1924, Uzbekistan officially became a member of the Soviet Union.

Uzbekistan is a mostly arid and dry country. Their main contributions to the Soviet Union were gold, natural gas, uranium, and cotton. In order for Uzbekistan to grow cotton they had to irrigate using the Aral Sea to do so. The Aral Sea, under the Soviet Union, was the fourth largest fresh lake body of water on Earth. Now the sea, due to poor irrigation tactics of the Soviet Union, is 1/3 of the size that it was in the mid 1960s. Cotton is a very valuable crop but takes an enormous amount of water to keep it growing well. Without the building of dams and proper irrigation ditches, the sea has been drained of much of its water and has not been able to catch up or become replenished. Since less than 5 of Uzbekistan can be farmed, it has left Uzbekistan in a water shortage crisis. This is one way that life in Uzbekistan under the Soviet Union has transformed what the country must deal with today.

Under the Soviet Union, poverty was high and the military police ruled with an iron fist. Under Stalin, the Uzbeks were never trusted and always seen as potential political enemies. The enigmatic and paranoid Stalin had hundreds of thousand of Uzbeks and Tartars sent to the Gulag Camps located in Siberia. This created an atmosphere of distrust and hidden anger against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.