A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

262 A history of Inner Asia
overwhelmigly voted to preserve the Soviet Union (97 percent on the
average).Here we can see one of the aforementioned contradictions of
the liberation process.We have mentioned the explicitly or implicitly
defiant stance Central Asians of all hues – from Communist Party stalwarts
to genuine patriots – had assumed against Moscow’s crackdown.
On that level they were victorious, despite the purges of “corrupt”
officials, and they were united in this victory.When it came to the question
of full-fledged independence, however, things became complicated.
The intellectuals and independent professionals made no secret about
their wish to see their countries fully independent.However, the Party
professionals and government bureaucrats who had survived the purges
– and they were, after all, the vast majority – knew they owed their privileges
and security to the Soviet system, and did not want to rock the boat
too much.Consequently they availed themselves of the still formidable
control and propaganda apparatus of the state to ensure the outcome of
the referendum.They had indeed kept their options open by the time
the third and final stage of liberation dawned over Central Asia.
20 August 1991 was the day when in Moscow Russia and the other
republics that had approved the Union’s modified preservation were to
sign the new pact.On the 19th, however, the notorious coup staged by
a junta of generals and politicians proclaimed its seizure of power, dismissal
of Gorbachev who was vacationing in the Crimea, and cancellation
of the whole array of perestroika measures and glasnost freedoms.The
rest is well known: Boris Yeltsin’s and his supporters’ triumphant
defiance from the Russian Chamber of Deputies, Gorbachev’s return,
the collapse of the coup, and the rapid dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan declared independence on
31 August, Tajikistan on 9 September, Turkmenistan on 27 October,
and Kazakhstan on 16 December.History has drawn the logical conclusion
of a process conceived with the 1924 National Delimitation.