Publication

This paper examines the factionalism and other problems that plagued the Communist Party in Soviet Uzbekistan from 1924-1925 until the country’s independence in 1991. Basically, the text concludes that the accepted characterization of party dynamics – i.e., that politics in Soviet Uzbekistan was defined by indigenous "clans" or regional "solidarity networks," which stemmed from traditionally strong family bonds and a clan-based social structure – has little or no basis in fact. Indeed, the “clan thesis” may actually have been an offshoot of a Soviet propaganda campaign that followed a purge of Uzbek officials in the 1980s.