Latest / The Story of Uzbekistan: Silk Road Kingdoms and Soviet Legacy — Fexingo History / The Soviet Famine in Uzbekistan: Starvation on the Cotton Front
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Soviet Uzbekistan — the cotton drive, the Aral Sea, the Basmachi revolt. But there's one catastrophe we haven't touched on, and it's one of the deadliest: the Uzbek famine of the early 1930s. Luna: I know about the Kazakh famine — Asharshylyk — but I didn't realize there was a separate famine in Uzbekistan. Lucas: Exactly. Most people don't. The Kazakh famine of 1931–33 killed something like 1.5 million people, maybe more. But in Uzbekistan, the famine of 1930–34 is far less known, even though it killed hundreds of thousands — some estimates go as high as half a million. Luna: What caused it? The cotton monoculture we covered in episode 152? Lucas: That's part of it, but the root was Stalin's collectivization policy. In 1929, the Soviet leadership launched a crash program to turn Uzbekistan into a cotton monoculture — the famous paxta campaign. But they also demanded that Uzbekistan become self-sufficient in grain, even as more and more land was planted with cotton. And when the harvests failed in 1930 and 1931, Moscow kept taking grain. Lucas: The local party boss was a man named Akmal Ikramov. He's not as famous as Shorof Rashidov, but he was the First Secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party from 1929 to 1937. He was a loyal Stalinist, and he pushed the cotton quotas ruthlessly. Luna: So he prioritized cotton over feeding people? Lucas: That's exactly what happened. In 1931, Uzbekistan was supposed to deliver 1.1 million tons of grain to the state, but the actual harvest was less than half that. Moscow didn't care. They sent in grain requisition squads that stripped villages of every kernel, including seed grain for the next planting. People were left with nothing. Lucas: And this was happening in the Ferghana Valley, the Hungry Steppe — the Golodnaya Step — and along the Chirchik River. These were the same areas where the Basmachi had been fighting just a few years earlier. Many of those former rebels were now peasants on collective farms, and they were starving. Luna: How did people survive? Did they resist? Lucas: There were food riots, attacks on grain stores, and even a few armed uprisings. The Soviet secret police, the OGPU, reported 'mass unrest' in 1932 in the Ferghana Valley and near Tashkent. But the repression was brutal. Thousands were arrested, deported, or shot. Lucas: One particularly tragic episode involved the Shaikh ul-Islam of Uzbekistan, the highest Muslim religious authority. In 1931, he appealed to Moscow to release grain for the starving. He was arrested and executed in 1932. Luna: So even the religious leaders couldn't help. Lucas: No one could. The Soviet system was designed to extract, not to nourish. And the famine was hidden. Soviet statistics from the period show no increase in deaths, because they simply stopped recording. It wasn't until the 1990s, when archives opened, that scholars began to piece together the scale. Lucas: There's also a cruel irony: Uzbekistan was once the breadbasket of Central Asia. Under the Tsars, the Ferghana Valley produced wheat and barley. But by 1932, most of that land was planted with cotton. The country became dependent on grain imports from Russia and Kazakhstan — and when those shipments stopped, people died. Luna: What about the comparison with the Kazakh famine? Was it worse or better? Lucas: The Kazakh famine was more extreme in percentage terms — maybe 40% of ethnic Kazakhs died. But in absolute numbers, the Uzbek famine was also enormous, and it's been overshadowed. Partly because of Soviet censorship, and partly because the post-Soviet Uzbek government didn't want to dwell on it. The current regime prefers to focus on the Timurid era, not Soviet suffering. Lucas: And unlike in Kazakhstan, where the famine is now officially commemorated, in Uzbekistan it's still a kind of taboo. There's no monument, no memorial day. The dead are buried in unmarked graves. Luna: That's heartbreaking. And it makes me think about how much history is still hidden. Lucas: It does. And speaking of hidden — if today's conversation felt worth a coffee to you, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a gentle reminder that listener support keeps this show ad-free and allows us to dig into these overlooked stories. Luna: Yeah, it really makes a difference. And we appreciate everyone who chips in. Lucas: So back to the famine. One of the really telling details is the Soviet response to the crisis. In 1932, the Politburo in Moscow actually considered evacuating people from the worst-hit areas of Uzbekistan to the North Caucasus. But they decided against it — too expensive. Luna: So they just let them starve. Lucas: Effectively, yes. And the cotton kept flowing. In 1932, Uzbekistan set a record for cotton deliveries to the state — over 1.4 million tons. The 'Cotton Front' was a success, even as the human cost was catastrophic. Lucas: One more thing: the famine also hit the Karakalpak Autonomous Republic, which we talked about in episode 142. The Karakalpak people, already suffering from the Aral Sea disaster, lost a huge portion of their population. The Soviet census of 1939 showed a drop of over 100,000 Karakalpak — about a third of the population. Luna: A third? That's almost as bad as the Kazakhs. Lucas: It was a demographic catastrophe. And it wasn't just starvation — disease followed. Typhus, dysentery, and especially pellagra, which is caused by a lack of niacin — a classic symptom of a corn- or cotton-based diet without variety. Lucas: So when you look at the bigger picture, the Uzbek famine fits into a pattern of Soviet famines — the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Kazakh Asharshylyk, the Volga famine of 1921. They were all man-made, driven by ideology and extraction. Luna: But why is the Uzbek one so little-known? Lucas: Partly because the dead were mostly rural and ethnically diverse — Uzbeks, Tajiks, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, a few Russians. There was no strong diaspora to advocate for recognition. And in Soviet times, the official line was that there was no famine — just 'temporary difficulties'. Lucas: After independence, Uzbekistan's leaders didn't want to undermine the narrative of Soviet-era progress. So it remained a kind of family secret. But the archives are there. Scholars like Niccolò Pianciola and Sarah Cameron have started to uncover the truth. Luna: It's good that there are historians doing that work. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's a reminder that history isn't just about kings and battles — it's about ordinary people, the ones who paid the price for grand experiments. Lucas: If you want to learn more, I'd recommend looking up the work of the historian Sergey Abashin, who's written extensively on Soviet Central Asia. Also, the memoirs of the Uzbek writer Abdulla Qodiriy, who lived through those years. Luna: I'll check those out. Thanks for bringing this story to light. Lucas: Thanks for listening. That's all for today — we'll see you next time.