Soviet repression in Uzbekistan: its nature and consequences
In the late 1920s and early 1930s a series of political “cases” was brought against leading officials and intellectuals in Uzbekistan: the “Group of Eighteen”, “Inogomovism”, “Qosimovism” (Sa‘dulla Qosimov, chair of the Uzbek SSR Supreme Court, and his associates; the 1930 trial was in Samarkand), “Badriddinovism” (1932), the “Narkompros” case in education (1930), and the case of the “National Union” and “National Independence” organisations. In the latter case, from 5 November 1929 first 38 and then 87 people were arrested under Munavvarqori Abdurashidxonov; on 25 April 1931 at a trial in Moscow 15 were sentenced to death and 72 to long prison terms. In these years the party ranks were “purged”: according to the textbook, 25.6 percent of the members of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan were expelled. Accusations were usually “nationalism”, “supporting basmachi” or membership of an anti-regime organisation; modern research and later rehabilitation decisions found most of them groundless. In the Great Terror of 1937–1938 the chairman of the Uzbek SSR SNK Fayzulla Xo‘jayev and the party’s first secretary Akmal Ikromov were arrested and, after a Moscow trial, shot in 1938; on 4 October 1938 Fitrat, Cho‘lpon and Abdulla Qodiriy were executed. The textbook says that in 1937–1938 over 41,000 people were arrested in Uzbekistan and 6,920 were sentenced to death (archival figures are given differently in different sources). After independence most victims were rehabilitated, on 12 May 2000 the “Memorial to the Martyrs” complex opened in Tashkent, and 31 August was set as a day of remembrance of the victims of repression.
Moment of remembrance: the teacher reads the names and professions of 4–5 people who were repressed, and students briefly recall their work or service (respectfully).