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Abstract
This article examines everyday realities of the state-building process in early Soviet Tajikistan. The work concentrates exclusively on the experiences of ‘European’ state workers, that is, their uncertain position as ‘imperialists’, and points to nuances of the early Soviet state building. By observing the mundane micro-level experiences of the state actors from the European parts of the Soviet Union in Central Asia, the author proposes to treat sentiments of state actors as important indicators of the Soviet statehood practices and poses the following question: why did the European state workers feel isolated, unsupported and even helpless and how can we understand their experiences as an integral part of the Soviet empire state-building process? The author argues that individuals' power and powerlessness was at the core of the early Soviet political structure since individual state representatives were to palliate institutional and legal deficiencies – a task that required enormous physical and emotional sacrifices and also included personal responsibility for anything that might have been deemed by the top as a failure.
Acknowledgements
Research for this publication was made possible by the financial support of the Volkswagenstiftung (Hannover). The author would like to thank Gregor Thum and Maurus Reinkowski for their inspiration to treat helplessness on a conceptual level; and also Andreas Oberender, Christian Teichmann, Tadzio Schilling, Thomas Loy and reviewers of this journal as well as John Heathershaw for the useful comments made to the earlier drafts of the paper.
Notes
Documents from the following archives were used: Central State Archive of the Tajik Republic (TsGA RT); Russian State Archive of Economics (RGAE); Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGASPI); and State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF).
The original title of the work was ‘Poor Imperialists’, but participation at the Freiburg Research Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS) conference titled ‘Helpless Imperialists: Imperial Failure, Radicalization and Violence between High Imperialism and Decolonization’ where the paper was originally presented in January 2010 inspired the current title.
In Russian the term ‘European worker’ (Evropeiskii rabotnik) or simply ‘European’ (Evropeets) referred to Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Armenians and others who came to work in Tajikistan from European parts of the Soviet Union, but also Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Armenians and others who came from within Central Asia. The division was still problematic because often Muslim Tatars, Azerbaijanis and others were also seen as Europeans but sent to work in Central Asia because of their ‘Muslim origin’. In the 1920s and 1930s the workers in Central Asia were divided in official texts into ‘Europeans’ and ‘Muslims’, the latter being often explained in terms of ethnic origin, such ‘Tajik’, ‘Uzbek’, and so on. Interestingly, although Europe as a political unit was highly criticized by Soviets as exploitative capitalist and imperialist, they saw themselves as Europeans in its Asian territory. In Central Asian context, the Europeanness did not seem to mean corrupted political and economic structures, but rather ‘progress’.
From 1924 to 1929 it was a Tajik Soviet Socialist Autonomous Republic (TASSR) within the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic; from 1929 on it received the status of a Soviet Socialist Republic (TSSR). I will use ‘Tajikistan’ throughout the paper since the title was used throughout 1920s and 1930s locally as well.
For a thorough review of works treating the Soviet Union as a colonial empire see Meyer Citation(2002); for critique of interpretation of the Soviet Union as colonialism and imperialism see Khalid (Citation2006, Citation2007); Slezkine Citation(2000); for approaches to the Soviet Union as imperial state see Suny Citation(2001), Martin Citation(2001), Edgar Citation(2004), Hirsch Citation(2005), Beissinger Citation(2006) and Kandiyoti Citation(2007).
Christian Teichmann discusses but denies Karl Wittvogel's model (pp. 2–3) and implications of ‘Oriental despotism’ as a socio-economic model by which ‘hydraulic states’, due to their ownership of land and managerial tasks, concentrate political power in the bureaucratic top ‘to keep the non-bureaucratic elements fragmented and powerless’. See Wittvogel (Citation1963, p. 633).
Despotic rule, unlike traditional patriarchal governance (that is, based on personal familial ties and loyalty and regulated by groups' norms and rules), involves ad hoc decision-making and violence: its decisions are not based on certain norms and rules that would make decisions and decision making clear, understandable, predictable and legitimate.
E.A. Rees writes that by 1932 it was only Stalin, Molotov (Chair of the Council of People's Commissars [SNK]) and Iakovlev (Chair of the People's Commissariat for Agriculture) who received sensitive OGPU reports on the countryside. See Rees (Citation2004, p. 51).
Like Lev Vassil'yev, a representative of St Petersburg intelligentsia, a son of a professor of economics, who upon graduation from the university decided to leave to the periphery since the situation in Moscow was too chaotic and dangerous; see Vassil'ev Citation(1954). The letters to the National Justice Committee from graduates of Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg Universities and experienced jurists who received legal education in pre-Soviet Russia also resemble the trend to flee the European parts of the Soviet Union. TsGA RT, fond 485, opis 1, delo 76, ll. 9, 14, 15, 29, 30, 36, 37, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 115, 118, 130, 134, 139, 146, 150, 155, 157, 158, 178, 179, 187, 188, 191.
From 1929 Dushanbe was renamed Stalinabad, meaning ‘developed by Stalin’, until 1961. In this paper, for the sake of simplicity, I will use Dushanbe throughout.
An old Russian measurement that equals 16.38 kg.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 72, l. 5.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 25, l. 250.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 41, l. 27.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 42, l. 148.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 9, l. 86.
TsGA RT, fond 329, opis 18, delo 13, l. 17
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 177, ll. 2-3.
TsGA RT, fond 493, opis 3, delo 7, l. 307.
RGAE, fond 5675, opis 1 fond 7. ‘Piatiletnii perspektivnyi plan pereselencheskih meropriyatii na 1928-1933’.
In December 1925, the Dushanbe town Executive Committee ordered a compulsory degree stating that all persons coming to Dushanbe for more than three days were obliged to register with the militia. Chaihanas (traditional teahouses) and kitchenettes, places that usually functioned as local hotels, could take people overnight until 3 p.m. and only with the registration at a militia's office. Chaihana and kitchenette owners were obliged to keep personal identification documents of guests and register them no later than the next day at a militia's office. Those who did not follow the rule paid a 300-rouble fine or risked a three-month term of forced labour. TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 42, l.3.
On the issue of medical certification in the Soviet Union see Field Citation(1957).
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 2, delo 64, l. 194.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 178, l. 46.
TsGA RT, fond 27, opis 1, delo 40, l. 15.
TsGA RT, fond 27, opis 1, delo 40, l. 17.
RGASPI, fond 62, opis 2, delo 185, l. 17.
Ibid., l. 18.
RGASPI fond 62, opis 2, delo 241, l. 18.
Andrei Vyshinsky was the Procurator General of the USSR from 1935 to 1939 and is known for his attempts to promote authority of law and, paradoxically, his role in the Great Purges. For explanations see Solomon (Citation1996, pp. 156–157).
TsGA RT, fond 329, opis 18, delo 13, l. 17
Kommunist Tadzhikistana (newspaper), 22 Feb. 1933.
Kommunist Tadzhikistana (newspaper), 22 Feb. 1933.
Peter Solomon writes that in Russia ‘[t]he two most common pretexts for prosecutions against officials in industry during the 1930s were accidents and the production of defective goods’ (p. 143).
Communist Tadzhikistana, 18 June 1934.
RGASPI, fond 85, opis 27, delo 456, l. 37.
In an interview, Muhamadjon Shakuri complements the story with facts from his family history, explaining his father's arrest in 1932. During the gold rush, as the gold discovery failed in the soil, gold was searched for among the people, who were put in jail unless they submitted their personal gold. See Mirboboi Mirrahim Citation(2001).
TsGA RT, fond 9, opis 3, delo 134, l. 99.
On 12 April 1925 the Revolutionary Committee of TASSR introduced martial law in the Dushanbe, Kurgan-Tyube and Kulyab regions. According to it, OGPU organs and special departments of military units, in order to secure revolutionary order, received the right to extra-judicial punishment of basmachi and their supporters. See Masov (Citation2004, p. 405).
TsGA RT, fond 493, opis 4, delo 32, l. 87.
TsGA RT, fond 493, opis 4, delo 32, no page number.
TsGA RT, fond 493, opis 4, delo 32, l. 141; l. 142, 149.
TsGA RT, fond 493, opis 4, delo 32, no page number.
TsGA RT, fond 493, opis 4, delo 32, l. 181–183.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 197, l. 18.
TsGA RT, fond 493, opis 4, delo 32, l. 98.
TsGA RT, fond 386, opis 1, delo 25, l. 86–87.
RTsKhIDNI [RGASPI], fond 81, opis 3, delo 100, l.2 cited in Benvetti (1997, p. 1038).
TsGA RT, fond 329, opis 18, delo 3, l. 195–196.
TsGA RT, fond 329, opis 18, delo 3, l. 218.
Introduced in 1933 political departments of the Machine Tractor Stations were in charge of state control over collective farms and peasants. They participated in planning and executing agricultural plans as well as fighting ‘enemies’ in the agricultural sector. The political departments included a member of the political police and were not responsible to the local government.
RGASPI, fond 66, opis 2, delo 3246, l. 98.