Uzbek cotton: the turn of uzbekistan into the cotton raw materials base of the soviet state

Journal of History Culture and Art Research 
4 
"Almost 50% of annual gold mining in the Union is accounted for by 
Uzbekistan, but only 1% of its value is transferred to the budget of the republic. 
This monstrous mechanism was colonial in character and bore no resemblance to 
an alliance of equality, friendship and brotherhood or socialist cooperation. Gold, 
rare metals, uranium, and other strategic raw materials floated out of the 
republic almost free at night, in strict secrecy. They did not find it necessary to 
inform the local party organization and official organizations about it. As a result 
of such "Leninist" national policy, the republic with the richest natural resources 
became one of the poorest in the Union. The standard of living in Uzbekistan was 
the lowest in the state. Per capita income was half of the national average. 
It was equal to 2118 rubles in the USSR, and 1093 rubles in Uzbekistan. The 
situation was worse only in Tajikistan (948). 
Due to the policy of the Soviet government that led to the monopoly of 
cotton in the republic, the expansion of cotton fields at the expense of other 
traditional crops worsened the situation of the national economy of Uzbekistan. 
As a result, Uzbekistan became completely dependent on Russia and other grain-
growing regions in the field of grain and bread. Kahramon Yakubov, the former 
deputy minister of agriculture of the Uzbek SSR, said that "as a result of this 
imbalance, the main food products - wheat, potatoes, meat, dairy products, eggs 
and sugar - were imported from other republics of the USSR. and foreign 
countries. For some reason, it is assumed that Uzbekistan received a large 
amount of compensation in exchange for cotton. This is basically a myth. Yes, 
there was something called "unity" in industrial monocities like Tashkent and 
Navoi, Almalyk, Chirchik, but in other regions food was a disaster, and auxiliary 
farms could not maintain the republic-wide situation. 
Rapid population growth in rural areas has exacerbated the problem. 
Labor migrants are the result of the Soviet policy on the development of 
cotton cultivation 
Guest workers, who have become the "symbol" of Uzbekistan, are also the 
result of the Soviet policy to develop cotton growing in the Uzbek SSR. Today, 
Uzbekistan has a bad reputation, but few people have an excess of labor 
resources, as a result of which the labor migration of the population of 
Uzbekistan, which had a huge scale in the years of independence of the republic, 
occurred. related to intentional omissions. 
During the Soviet era, the Uzbek SSR lagged behind Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, 
Kazakhstan, the Baltic states and other republics of the USSR in terms of urban 
planning. Urbanization processes in Uzbekistan were deliberately delayed due to 
the republic's specialization in the giant cotton industry, which fueled the demand 
for slave labor. As a result, the population has increased in the rural areas of the 
republic, where monoculture, which has been the only source of livelihood for 
many years, has been produced. 

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