The opium war at the ‘roof of the world’: the ‘elimination’ of addiction in Soviet Badakhshan

Abstract

This article provides an overview of drug consumption in the Pamirs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and examines the evolution of the early Soviet responses to opium smoking in Soviet Badakhshan on the basis of published literature, archival materials, oral histories and medical records. The author demonstrates that biomedicine remained significantly underdeveloped in that region during the first decades of Soviet rule, with central and local authorities relying on punitive and restrictive administrative measures in their fight against drug addiction. As these measures failed to wipe out opiate addiction in Gorno-Badakhshan, the opium war at the ‘roof of the world’ culminated in the Great Terror, providing the Stalinist regime with the ‘radical’ solution by liquidating drug dealers without any ‘show trials’ and incarcerating opiate consumers. The consequences of such administrative regulation of addiction in Soviet Badakhshan were dire: in the years between 1941 and 1968, only few patients with the diagnosis of narkomania were hospitalized in the Tajik Republican Psychiatric Hospital, while the exact numbers of repressed drug users who perished in prisons and Gulag camps are destined to remain unknown.

Keywords:

• Tajikistan
• Soviet Badakhshan
• Central Asian medical history
• opium use
• repression of drug users

Acknowledgements

The Central Asia Program, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, The Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University; Global Health Research Center of Central Asia (GHRCCA), Columbia University, New York, USA.

Notes

Located in the Pamirs region, Mountainous Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (Gorno-Badakhshanskaia Avtonomnaia Oblast' or GBAO) was officially founded in January 1925 and made part of the Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic; at that time it was referred to as AGBO. In numerous publications on GBAO, it is interchangeably referred to as the Pamir(s), ‘the roof of the world’, Gorno-Badakhshan and Soviet Badakhshan (as far as its Soviet history is concerned).

According to one estimate made in 1901 (Aknazarov 2005a), there were 683 households in Rushan, 512 in Shugnan and 219 in Vakhan and Ishkashim, with a total population of 13,796 people.

Such time would have come as early as in the 1920s, when all Cherkesov's wishes were implemented by the Bolsheviks to the degree that he could hardly imagine when writing his report.

RGVIA [The Russian State Archive of Military History], f. 1396, op. 2 dop., d. 2167, l. 99.

In pre-Soviet Central Asia, opium smoking was mainly prevalent in areas bordering (or otherwise closely connected due to commercial links) with China and Persia, with Turkmen people generally considered being most affected (Latypov 2008).

Unfortunately, Shergaziev himself (or Shergaziev's original source, the Party Archive of the Institute of History of the Communist Party at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, f. 58, op. 4, d. 344, l. 61) did not specify the date to which this estimate applies, but the title of his paper implies its relationship to the post-revolutionary period of 1920–9. Other archival records paint a similar picture in the Pamirs in the 1920s and provide a similar ‘estimate’ of ‘up to 90%’ of all financial means being spent on opium. In later publications by Tajik historians, who reproduced the same estimate and either referred to Shergaziev directly or to the Uzbek Communist Party Archive, there is some confusion in terms of the period to which this estimate applies. Iskandarov and Iusupov (1976) supply this account as a context for the 1906 prohibition; Odilbekova (1984) also suggests its relation to the pre-revolutionary Pamir; Nazarshoev (1970, 1982) insists that the estimate was given for the first years of Soviet rule in the Pamirs.

According to TsGA RT [The Central State Archive of the Republic of Tajikistan], f. 172, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 193–196, the hospital in Khorog had 20 beds in 1930, whereas the Rushan-based hospital had 10.

Tal'iants' surname is spelled as Tel'iants in most other publications.

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, ll. 27–28.

RGASPI [The Russian State Archive of Social and Political History], f. 62, op. 2, d. 1272, ll. 3–4; TsGA RT, f. 172, op. 1, d. 14, ll. 163–169.

See also TsGA RT, f. 172, op. 1, d. 32, l. 54. Tel'iants insists that this replacement resulted from the efforts of the local party organization in Gorno-Badakhshan. However, based on the activity report of the Tajik Narkomzdrav during the first six months of 1928, and particularly the findings of Narkomzdrav's surveys in Kuliab, Kurgan-Tube and former Hissar regions, it seems that this step of removing unqualified medical personnel was part of the wider changes in Narkomzdrav's policies towards ‘peripheries’. See TsGA RT, f. 172, op. 1, d. 14, ll. 188–202.

However, Slavnin's estimate raises some questions. As some archival reports of the Tajik Narkomzdrav indicate, contrary to Paradoksov's publications, the denominator of 4640 (that is, the total number of residents in Rushan district) may need to be applied with regard to the number of opium addicts reported by Slavnin, thus further reducing the prevalence of opium addiction in Rushan in 1926 from 11.4% down to 7.3%. See TsGA RT, f. 172, op. 1, d. 38 t. 2, l. 382.

In later publications by Tajik doctors and historians Slavnin's surname has nearly always been misspelled as either Slavin or even Slavina. Also, the issue of opium addiction as the main focus of Slavnin's survey in Rushan has disappeared from later works that cited his findings.

It is important to note that it is the smoking of opium that early Soviet authors emphasized and identified as ‘narkomania’ in the Pamirs whereas the ‘eating’ of opium attracted almost no attention and did not seem to create serious tensions between the regime and the consumers.

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 290, l. 32; TsGA RT, f. 279, op. 2, d. 111, l. 15.

TsGA RT, f. 279, op. 3, d. 54, ll. 2–4ob, 12, 13.

The resolution of the Communist Party on the Pamirs issued in the same period also emphasized deficiencies in the struggle against opium smoking along the ‘treatment and prevention line’. See PAIPI TsK KP RT [The Party Archive of the Institute for Political Research of the Republic of Tajikistan Communist Party Central Committee], f. 3, op. 6, d. 61, l. 59.

PAIPI TsK KP RT, f. 3, op. 1, d. 62, l. 11; TsGA RT, f. 279, op. 4, d. 59, l. 1.

See also TsGA RT, f. 279, op. 4, d. 59, l. 3.

TsGA RT, f. 279, op. 7, d. 74, ll. 56–61; TsGA Tadzhikskoi SSR, f. 279, op. 5, d. 15, ll. 4–7 (in Radzhabov 1966).

The first Pamiri doctors, N. A. Kashkorova and A. O. Odinamamadov, graduated from the Tajik State Medical Institute in Stalinabad in summer 1954 and were posted in Gorno-Badakhshan.

TsGA RT, f. 279, op. 14, d. 178, ll. 1–28.

In the context of the opium war in Gorno-Badakhshan in the 1920s, where the police functioned as part of/under the administrative department of the local executive authorities, administrative struggle was often identical to law enforcement.

TsGA RT, f. 9, op. 1, d. 257, ll. 52–53.

It should be noted that the initial ‘signs’ of the Soviet struggle against opium consumers in Gorno-Badakhshan appeared long before the 1925 First Pamir Congress of Soviets. Already in 1923 Shirinshoh Shotemur was writing to the Turkestan Central Executive Committee that opium users were not eligible to be elected into the Revolutionary Committees (Revkoms) in the Western Pamir (Nazarshoev 1970). In June 1925, four months before the Pamir Congress, the militia of Gorno-Badakhshan was praised by the Tajik ASSR Revkom for their struggle against drug smuggling and smoking of opium and cannabis (Imomyorbekov 2009). In June 1925, the Krasnaia Niva journal also published a celebratory article on the achievements of Soviet workers in the Pamirs and their struggle against opium smokers who were alien to the new regime (Gavriliuk and Iaroshenko 1987).

TsGA RT, f. 9, op. 1, d. 257, ll. 95, 95ob.

See also TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, l. 27.

The proposal to offer financial rewards to informants was made at the Presidium of the GBAO Executive Committee after reviewing the results of the administrative struggle against opium smoking achieved between April and August 1928. One of the findings of that review was a dramatic fall in drug seizures, as they decreased nearly four times between 1927 and 1928. In the next years, ‘the administrative department’ tended to ascribe the lack of seizures during some periods to its inability to deploy a wide network of secret collaborators because of the deficiency of funds. See GA GBAO [The State Archive of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast], f. 1, op. 1. d. 31, ll. 110, 111.

GA GBAO, f. 1, op. 1. d. 31, ll. 110, 111.

RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, ch. II, d. 2308, ll. 1, 11, 12.

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, ll. 143, 144; TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 290, l. 33.

GA GBAO, f. 1, op. 1. d. 31, ll. 110, 111 in A. Imomyorbekov, ‘Rol’ Organov Militsii GBAO v Ukreplenii Pravoporiadka i Obespechenii Obschestvennoi Bezopasnosti v Periodakh Obrazovaniia Tadzhikskoi SSR (1918–1930) i Gosudarstvennoi Nezavisimosti Respubliki Tadzhikistan (1991–2007).' Unpublished manuscript.

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, l. 28. Apparently, the anti-drug sanctions could be also limited to short-term compulsory labour and did not always include the exile from border areas.

PAIPI TsK KP RT, f. 3, op. 1, d. 62, l. 11.

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 10, ll. 65, 70, 71 (in Khaustov, Naumov, and Plotnikova 2003, 273–274); RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, ch. II, d. 2308, ll. 1, 11, 12, 32.

RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, ch. II, d. 2308, ll. 1, 11, 12, 49; RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, d. 1504, ll. 2, 3, 9; TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 290, l. 32. For an image of “Tajik Pamiri woman smoking opium” in 1928, see Lentz (1931), photograph between pp. 288 and 289; in addition, see http://rutube.ru/video/eec653341d85534d620033b17cf0217e/ (Avtorskaia Programma Arkadiia Mamontova, ‘Spetsialnyi Korrespondent. Trafik’).

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, ll. 27, 143, 144. This goal was articulated by doctors only in 1932 (Tal'iants 1933), almost four years after it was spelt out by the militiamen. Physicians placed particular emphasis on keeping women and schoolchildren away from an ‘evil [drug] habit’, although these words remained words alone.

The adoption of this goal also has clear implications for our interpretation of the writings by external groups visiting the region in the late 1920s and early 1930s, since they might have possibly seen only the superficial, visible part of the actual picture.

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 290, l. 33.

RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, d. 1504, ll. 3, 6, 10; TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, ll. 27, 28, 144; TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 290, ll. 32, 33.

PAIPI TsK KP RT, f. 3, op. 1, d. 62, l. 11.

RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, ch. II, d. 2308, ll. 48, 51, 52.

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, l. 27; TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 290, ll. 32, 33. Concerns about the authority of the anti-opium-smoking society have been raised since the very moment it was proposed to set up that institution. In Shugnan volost', participants of the Bespartiinaia Konferentsiia believed that involving members of this society in the decision-making process of ‘all sorts of Soviet and public organizations’ on such vital issues as allocation and enlargement of land plots as well as disbursement of loans and benefits might help to raise the authority of the society and to recruit more members.

RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, ch. II, d. 2308, l. 28; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 27, d. 14, ll. 166, 168. Note that (for known reasons) Nazarshoev (1970) claims that the major part of all credits was spent as intended, on purchasing live cattle, and not on narcotic drugs.

TsGA RT, f. 10, op. 1, d. 289, l. 27; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 27, d. 14, ll. 166, 167, 168.

RGASPI, f. 62, op. 2, ch. II, d. 2308, ll. 12, 28.

TsGA RT, f. 11, op. 14, d. 10, l. 115. I am very thankful to Botakoz Kassymbekova for sharing her TsGA RT records related to this issue with me.

Another source that mentions opium smoking in Kurgan-Tube by settlers from the Pamirs is L. F. Paradoksov (1932, 1933).

APRF [The Archive of the President of the Russian Federation], f. 3, op. 58, d. 202, ll. 134–136 (in Khaustov, Naumov, and Plotnikova 2003, 517–518).

APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 202, ll. 134–136.

APRF, f. 3, op. 58, d. 202, ll. 134–136.

Paul Bergne (2007) writes that the Tajik–Afghan border was officially closed in 1936. In practice, however, control over the border remained very poor at least until late 1937, and crossing the Piandzh River from either side presented no challenge at all (other than that presented by the river itself). See A. A. Andreev to I. V. Stalin, 2 October 1937, RGASPI, f. 73, op. 2, d. 19, ll. 87–88 (in Kvashonkin et al. 1999, 377–379).

A. A. Andreev to I. V. Stalin, 2 October 1937. RGASPI, f. 73, op. 2, d. 19, ll. 87–88.

Operativnyi Prikaz Narodnogo Kommissara Vnutrennikh Del Soiuza SSR No. 00447 ‘Ob Operatsii po Repressirovaniiu Byvshikh Kulakov, Ugolovnikov i dr. Anti-Sovetskikh Elementov’, 30 July 1937.

A. A. Andreev to I. V. Stalin, 2 October 1937. RGASPI, f. 73, op. 2, d. 19, ll. 87–88. For an account by one of the victims of these repressions, who provides a description of Andreev's visit to Tajikistan and subsequent arrests, see Nurmukhamedov 1988, 127–137.

According to one recent study (Zhirnov 2009) on the basis of materials from the Russian archives, Andrei Andreev initially began to use opiates in the 1940s in order to manage pain in one of his ears.

I am very thankful to the Tajik Ministry of Health and to the senior management of the Republican Clinical Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 in Rudaki District for granting me the permission to study these records.