Uzbek cotton: the turn of uzbekistan into the cotton raw materials base of the soviet state

Journal of History Culture and Art Research 
6 
rapid movement of another group from the "agrarian" sector to the "industrial" 
sector. The situation, which today is considered as an indicator of "ethnic" 
differences, developed only in the 20th century, more precisely in the 40s and 
70s. It is during this period that mutual stereotypes are formed, they are 
interpreted as "national" (or "ethnic"), and economic strategies are given a 
"traditional" or "modern" character. Uzbeks, Tajiks and other peoples of Central 
Asia are strongly attached to the supporters of "backward", "traditional", 
"collectivism", i.e. they come with all the features they had in the 20s and 30s. it 
was quite possible to refer to the Russians, Ukrainians and others, for example, to 
the French and Germans at the end of the last century". 
The author describes the situation in Soviet times, when many villagers were 
unemployed. "I will give information about the Mindon village council of Uzbeks 
located in the Fergana valley," writes S. Abashin. "By the beginning of 1991, about 
11,000 people lived in this village council, of which about 5,000 were considered 
able-bodied. In fact, 2.5 thousand people or exactly 50% of the working-age 
population of the Mindon village council worked in the collective farm. About 
2,000 collective farmers were members of cotton brigades; worked directly in 
agricultural production. The remaining 500 were administrative staff, 
maintenance staff, kindergarten and kindergarten staff, and others. The most 
interesting thing is that only 60 of the 2,000 members of cotton brigades worked 
more than 300 days a year, and the rest less, including about 600 people - less 
than 50 days a year. Most of the collective farmers worked in collective farm 
production for no more than 2-3 months a year. For the rest of the time, these 
"workers" in the field of agriculture either did not work anywhere, or were 
engaged in part-time work on their farms, or worked informally in various fields 
outside of agriculture. 
Later, S. Abashin talks about the reasons for the emergence of guest 
workers: 
"There are natural limits to the growth of agricultural production. At the end 
of the last century (meaning the end of the 19th century) in Mindon, each 
household had about 5-6 hectares of irrigated land. In the early 1990s, each 
household owned less than 1 ha of all irrigated land, including private and 
collective farm land. Even if we take into account the increasing profitability per 
unit of irrigated area, it can be seen that the opportunities for earning income in 
agricultural production gradually narrowed over the next 100 years. Therefore, 
the population is forced to look for work outside Mindon ... The overpopulation of 
the agrarian population has reached a critical level, and the "native" peoples of 
Central Asia are increasingly "abandoning" agriculture for other sectors of the 
national economy. In particular, the process of migration of the population of 
Central Asia to Russia is increasing. 
Today, the socio-economic, demographic, cultural and personnel problems in 
Uzbekistan are largely related to the Soviet policy of turning Uzbekistan into a 

---