A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

Soviet Central Asia 227
Sotsialistik Respublikasi (UzSSR, this acronym having the advantage of
serving also the republic’s Russian name, Uzbekskaya Sovetskaya
Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika).The form Uzbekiston, in Russian
Uzbekistan, was used too, although in less official contexts.There were
fifteen Union Republics in the Soviet Union, all modeled after the same
pattern, except that the prima inter pares enjoyed a special status: the
RSFSR, or Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.The word “federative”
expressed further internal federative structure, as this republic
included sixteen “autonomous” republics, all forming a federation with
the senior Russian partner.This usage was somewhat inaccurate or
inconsistent, since some of the other Union republics also included
“autonomous” republics such as the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic within the UzSSR, so that the latter should have contained
that epithet too: Uzbek Soviet Federative Socialist Republic,
UzSFSR.In Central Asia, Tajikistan was the only other republic to
include a unit of this kind, though with a status still a notch lower: the
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (Oblast).
A Union republic had to meet certain conditions and enjoyed special
rights, even if the latter were granted only theoretically.The most visible
condition was that some of its borders run alongside a foreign country;
of the five republics in question, Kazakhstan’s and Kyrgyzstan’s did so
alongside China, Tajikistan’s alongside China and Afghanistan,
Uzbekistan’s alongside Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan’s alongside
Afghanistan and Iran.Among the privileges of a Union republic, the
most comprehensive – if it should indeed be considered a privilege and
not an imposition – was a structure mirroring that of the Russian SFSR
and, in certain respects, of the Soviet Union as a whole.Its most striking
right, explicitly stated in the 1937 constitution, was that to leave the
Soviet Union altogether and become an independent country.
Additional symbols of each republic’s “sovereignty” were its own flag,
emblem, and national anthem.The term “sovereign,” a loanword in
Russian (suverennyi) and thence adopted also by the Central Asian languages
(usually suveren) was used in the respective constitutions, rather
than “independent” (nezavisimyi in Russian, mustaqil in Uzbek for
example), a significant nuance.By “structure” we mean chiefly administrative,
political and economic structure, but also the cultural and spiritual
institutions and even the way of life, to the extent that the latter
could be fashioned by Moscow.
A good example is the Uzbek SSR in its final Soviet form after the