Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic

The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as Turkmen SSR (in Turkmen: Түркменистан Совет Социалистик Республикасы; in Russian: Туркменская Советская Социалистическая Республика), was one of the fifteen constituent republics of the former Soviet Union, from 1921 to 1991.

History

Creation

After the Russian revolution of 1917, Ashgabat became a base for anti-Bolshevik forces, and was attacked by the Tashkent Soviet. British troops occupied Ashgabat and southern Turkmenistan until 1919, and after the British withdrawal, Turkmenistan became the Turkmen Oblast of the Turkestan SSR within the Russian SFSR on August 7, 1921. On May 13, 1925, Turkmenistan seceded from the Russian SFSR to become the Turkmen SSR as one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union. At this time the modern borders of today's Turkmenistan were established. It changed its official name to the Republic of Turkmenistan on October 27, 1991, proclaiming itself independent on December 26, 1991, after the dissolution of the USSR.

Because Turkmen were generally indifferent to the October Revolution, little revolutionary activity occurred in the region in the following years. However, the years immediately preceding the revolution had been marked by sporadic Turkmen uprisings against the Russian rule, most notably the anti-Tsarist revolt of 1916 that spread throughout Turkmenistan. Their armed resistance to Soviet rule was part of the Basmachi Revolt throughout Central Asia from the 1920s to the early 1930s, which included most of the future dependencies of the USSR.^{[citation needed]} Opposition was fierce and resulted in the deaths of large numbers of Turkmens. Soviet sources describe this fight as a minor chapter in the history of the republic.

In October 1924, when Central Asia was divided into different ethnonational political entities. The Transcaspian Oblast of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkistani RASST) together with Charjew, Kerki and a part of the Shirabad provinces of the Bukhara SSR and the Turkmen province (Daşoguz) of the SSR Chorasmia was unified to create the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR), a full constituent republic of the Soviet Union, where Turkmens made up approximately 80% of the population.

Socialist Republic

During forced collectivization and settlement of nomadic and semi-nomadic groups along with other socioeconomic changes in the first decades of Soviet rule, pastoral nomadism ceased to be an economic alternative in Turkmenistan, and by the late 1930s Most Turkmen had become sedentary. The Soviet state's efforts to undermine the traditional Turkmen lifestyle resulted in significant changes in family and political relationships, religious and cultural practices, and intellectual development. A significant number of Russians and other Europeans, as well as groups of various nationalities, mainly from the Caucasus, migrated to urban areas. Modest industrial capacities were developed and limited exploitation of Turkmenistan's natural resources began.

Under Soviet rule, all religious beliefs were attacked by the communist authorities as superstitions and 'vestiges of the past.' Most religious education and religious observance were banned, and closed the vast majority of mosques. An official Central Asian Muslim Board based in Tashkent was established during World War II to oversee the Islamic faith in Central Asia. For the most part, the Muslim Board functioned as an instrument of propaganda whose activities did little to improve the Muslim cause. Atheist indoctrination stifled religious development and contributed to the isolation of the Turkmen from the international Muslim community. Some religious customs, such as Muslim burial and male circumcision, continued to be practiced during the period. Soviet, but most religious beliefs, knowledge and customs were preserved only in rural areas in "popular form" kind of unofficially. Islam is not sanctioned by the state Spiritual Direction.

The Soviet regime's indigenization policy (korenizatsiia) involved the promotion of national culture and language and the creation of a native administration for each ethnic group on its own territory. During the 1920s, as was the case throughout During the Soviet Union, there was direct support and funding for the creation of theaters, publishing houses and newspapers in native languages, as well as universal public education, and this was the case for the Turkmen minorities during the Soviet administration of Turkmenistan.

In the 1920s, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic standardized the Turkmen language (as before this, the vast majority of the population was not literate and those who were literate tended to use Chaghtai or Persian languages to write, although in the late XIX and early XX there was growing interest in using the Ottoman Turkish register for writing, as it is an Oghuz language and linguistically closer). Rigorous debate in the national press and in various literary and educational magazines about Teke, Yomut and other regional and tribal dialects was followed by centralized decision-making around the creation of a particular national standard, the simplification of the Arabic alphabet. Persian and the eventual transition to the Cyrillic alphabet.

Beginning in the 1930s, Moscow kept the republic under firm control. Previous nationality policies of the 1920s and early 1930s involved promoting the use of the Turkmen language for administration in all the areas of state, party and economy (along with the more durable system of preferential quotas and advancement for ethnic Turkmens in government, parties and industrial jobs with the aim of achieving a majority Turkmen bureaucracy) and attempts to demand non-Turkmen to learn the Turkmen language.

From the 1930s onwards, nationality policy favored the use of the Turkmen language in areas of government 'closer to the people': education, health, etc., along with the acceptance of that knowledge of the Russian language would also be necessary for most government work. As an advance in many careers: the government would no longer work to make knowledge of the Russian language superfluous to advancement and would cease active efforts to make Turkmen the language of the administration, and from 1938 onwards, non-Russian students in The entire Soviet Union would be required to master Russian to advance in secondary and university education.

The non-Turkmen cadre in both Moscow and Turkmenistan closely supervised the national cadre of government officials and bureaucrats; In general, the Turkmen leadership staunchly supported Soviet policies. Moscow initiated almost all political activity in the republic and, with the exception of a corruption scandal in the mid-1980s that ousted First Secretary Muhammetnazar Gapurov, Turkmenistan remained a quiet Soviet republic. Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika did not have a significant impact in Turkmenistan, as many people were self-dependent, and the territory's settlers and the Soviet Union's ministers rarely intertwined. found it little prepared for the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the independence that followed in 1991.

Dissolution

When other constituent republics of the Soviet Union put forward sovereignty claims in 1988 and 1989, Turkmenia's leadership also began to criticize Moscow's economic and political policies as exploitative and detrimental to the well-being and pride of the Turkmen people. By unanimous vote of its Supreme Soviet, Turkmenistan declared its sovereignty in August 1990. In March 1990, Turkmenistan participated in the internationally observed referendum on the future of the Soviet Union, where 98% of participants voted in favor of the preservation of the Soviet Union. After the August 1991 coup d'état in Moscow, Turkmen communist leader Saparmyrat Nyýazow called for a popular referendum on independence. The official result of the referendum was 94 percent in favor of independence. The Supreme Soviet of The republic then declared the independence of Turkmenistan from the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Republic of Turkmenistan on October 27, 1991. Turkmenistan became independent from the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991^{[citation needed ]}

Politics

As with the other Soviet republics, Turkmenistan had followed Marxist-Leninist ideology governed by the republic's sole party, the Communist Party of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, a regional branch of the Communist Party of the Union Soviet.

The politics of Turkmenistan took place within the framework of a socialist single party. The Supreme Soviet was the unicameral parliament of the republic headed by a president, with his superiority over both the executive and the judiciary. The branches and their members met in the capital of the republic, Ashgabat.

Economy

In 1950, the 1,375-kilometer-long Karakum Canal was built. Supplying itself with the Amu Daria River, it made possible the irrigation of large areas of land that were dedicated to cotton production, but it also caused the destruction of the toghay forests, also drastically cutting off the flow of water. into the Aral Sea, resulting in an ecological disaster.

The rapid development of the economy of the Soviet Union took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The gross harvest of raw cotton in 1960-1980 increased from 0.36 million tons to 1.3 million tons, although Then the growth rate slowed and in 1990 only 1.4 million tons were harvested. Natural gas production increased in the same period from 1.1 billion cubic meters to 63.2 billion cubic meters per year. In the decade From 1980, the increase continued and in 1990 it amounted to 87.8 billion cubic meters (10.8% of the production of the entire Union).

Industry

The leading industries of the Turkmen SSR were:

• Gas industry

• Oil industry

• Chemical industry

• Engineering industry

• Electrical industry

• Food industry

Oil production was concentrated in areas of western Turkmenistan. Oil refining in Krasnovodsk. Large gas fields in Shatlyk, Dauletabad, Nayip, Achak and others. More than 95% of electricity is provided by thermal power plants.

The chemical industry was represented by the extraction of mirabilite (in Kara Bogaz Gol Bay), sulfur (in Magdanly) and others, the production of iodine, sodium sulfate, superphosphate (Chardzhou), potassium fertilizers (Gaurdak), sulfuric acid and others. Machine construction and metallurgy companies (production of equipment for the oil and food industries, electrical cables, gas equipment, etc.).

The most important companies in the construction materials industry are the Bezmeinsky cement plant and the Ashgabat glass plant. Light industry specializing mainly in the primary processing of cotton, wool, astrakhan skins, silk cocoons, the production of cotton, wool, silk fabrics, knitwear (Ashgabat, Mary, Chardzhou and others).

Artistic carpet weaving was known for its exports in other countries, the main branch of the food and flavor industry is the oil and fat industry (the production of cottonseed oil). In connection with the need of the USSR industry for uranium, the Caspian Mining and Metallurgical Combine was built in the city of Aktau, which included the extraction of uranium ore, its processing and enrichment.

The network of companies of this complex provided the main production with chemical reagents (nitrogen fertilizer and sulfuric acid plants), thermal energy, fresh water. A developed infrastructure of a rapidly growing city was built, including a seaport. To supply water to the population and companies, industrial desalination plants were built using secondary steam from thermal power plants, including the BN-350 fast neutron nuclear reactor (currently stopped and in shutdown), which was the first nuclear desalination plant in the world. with a capacity of 120,000 m³ of water per day. After the collapse of the USSR, Aktau mainly became the center for the development of oil and gas fields.

Agriculture

In 1986 there were 134 state farms and 350 collective farms in the republic. Agricultural land amounted to 31.7 million hectares, of which:

• Agricultural land - 1.1 million hectares
• Hectare - 30.4 million hectares.

Turkmenistan is a republic of irrigated agriculture. The irrigated area in 1986 reached 1,185 million hectares. Of great importance in the development of the economy of the republic and especially agriculture is the Karakum Canal named after V. I. Lenin. Agriculture provided more than 65% of gross agricultural production. Its main industry is cotton cultivation (raw cotton harvested 1,137 million tons in 1986).

Cotton was grown in almost all irrigated agricultural areas. About 14% of the crops are occupied by cereal crops (wheat, barley, rice, dzhugara; gross cereal harvest - 320 thousand tons in 1986). Fruit growing, viticulture, horticulture and meloniculture were developed. In animal husbandry, the main place belonged to karakul breeding, which was based on pastures distant from Karakum.

Administrative subdivision

The Turkmen SSR was divided into 5 oblast (provinces) as shown in the table below (data from January 1, 1976, source: Great Soviet Encyclopedia).

Oblasts

Transportation

Length of operation (for 1986):

• Railroads - 2.12 thousand km,
• Autopistas - 13,0 thousand km (even with a hard surface - 10,8 thousand km).

The main seaport is Krasnovodsk, connected by ferry to Baku. Navigation on the Amudarya River and the Karakum Canal.

Gas pipelines: Western Turkmenistan - Bekdash - Mangyshlak, Maiskoye - Ashgabat - Bezmen and others. Turkmen gas was supplied through pipelines to the Central Asia - Central gas pipeline.