A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

Independent Central Asian Republics 281
that there is no central government or authority in Moscow ruling its
subordinates in the republics.
Why did the Central Asians even bother to join the new commonwealth?
For practical reasons.Obviously, decades of Moscow’s rule,
central economic planning and population movement had created
bonds that, although not indissoluble (one of the favorite slogans of the
former regime), were deemed worth keeping if modified in positive,
mutually beneficial directions.
The legacy of the past of course includes problems and even scars of
many kinds.One is the simple fact that much of the political leadership
and bureaucratic infrastructure still is the same as before: the same
Communist bureaucrats and their obedient staff are at the helm of the
newly independent countries.Four out of the five republics have
members of the former Communist elite as presidents: the Uzbek Islam
Karimov, the Kazakh Nursultan Nazarbaev, the Turkmen Saparmurad
Niyazov, and the Tajik Imomali Rakhmonov; Askar Akaev, President of
Kyrgyzstan, is the only exception (he too appears to have been a
member of the Party, but not as a career politician).Delegates of the
recent Communist parties fill the parliaments, and offices are staffed by
the same bureaucrats as before.Most of these people depended on the
Soviet system for their careers, privileges, and livelihood, and we could
be tempted to view their roles since 1991 with skepticism.The chief
political parties in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are the Communist
ones, except that they sport new names (“People’s Democratic Party [of
Uzbekistan”] and “Democratic Party of Turkmenistan”), while that of
Tajikistan did not even bother to change its name (those of Kazakhstan
and Kyrgyzstan, briefly banned, were revived under their old names
without, however, regaining power as the ruling parties).Worse still,
opposition parties and individuals championing a free political process
have been mistreated by the government of Uzbekistan to a degree
hardly compatible with true democracy; the situation has been similar
in Turkmenistan, where moreover the personality cult, symptomatic of
many former colonies now ruled by “strongman regimes,” has reached
almost pathological proportions: the President, Saparmurad Niyazov,
has demanded and received an adulation comparable only to that
enjoyed by Stalin (or by such present-day leaders as Saddam Hussein
and Muammar Kadhafi), and like the great Soviet dictator, he found his
civilian name incapable of expressing his greatness: he is now known as
Turkmenbashy, “Chief of the Turkmens.” In all fairness to Stalin, we
have to admit that the “Russian” dictator could plead a sensible reason