A peripheral viewpoint on the land reform in the uzbek SSR (1924-1929)

Abstract

The land-and-water reform in the Uzbek SSR was the most important mobilization initiative that the Bolshevik regime carried out in the 1920s. Its impact in terms of land redistribution was small, but it generated consensus in the countryside and produced a first cohort of rural Uzbek communists. This research (and the two articles it results in) stems out of a more general reappraisal of the reform. For the first time, the latter is studied from a bottom-up perspective, focusing on a single district (Aim, Andijan province, eastern Fergana). In addition, I show the connection between the land reform, national delimitation and boundary-making, and the anti-Islamic hujum campaign, which are usually studied in isolation.