Uzbekistan Now Rehabilitating Almost Anyone Repressed by Soviet State as Long as They Opposed Russia and Russians, Priymak Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 10 – Since 2020, Tashkent has rehabilitated approximately 1200 Uzbeks who were repressed by the Soviet government for their role in the Basmachi movement that emerged out of the 1916 Central Asian revolt against tsarist Russia, a figure it has reached by failing to distinguish the various ideological trends that were involved, Artur Priymak says.

            The Russian historian who edits the North Caucasus section of EADaily says that the only standard Tashkent is using is whether the individuals being rehabilitated opposed Russians and the Russian state, a stance that has enormous geopolitical consequences (vpoanalytics.com/istoriya/v-odnu-kuchu-dzhadidov-i-basmachey-zhertv-i-palachey/).

            Three things make this Uzbek initiative especially dangerous, Priymak continues. First, it is being copied by other Central Asian countries including those which say they want to be friends with Russia. Second, it is linking these countries with radical pan-Turkist ideas against Russia.

            And most immediately, it is having an impact on Central Asian immigrants in the Russian Federation who see the rehabilitation of such people as a sign that their home governments support actions that oppose Russia and Russians and so feel free to do so on their own as well (vpoanalytics.com/konflikty/organizatory-malykh-beslanov-pribyli-s-beregov-amudari/).

            Priymak concedes that the Soviet government often lumped genuine representatives of the national rebirth in Central Asia with notorious reactionaries and that the Central Asian governments there are not wrong to rehabilitate the former, but he insists that it is profoundly wrong for them to rehabilitate the latter as well as they are now doing.