The cotton affair and its consequences

Leonid Brezhnev died in November 1982, Yuri Andropov led in 1982–1984 and Konstantin Chernenko in 1984–1985, and on 11 March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU. In Uzbekistan Sharof Rashidov died in October 1983; Inomjon Usmonxo‘jayev led the republic in 1983–1988 and Rafiq Nishonov in 1988–1989. In April 1983 an investigators’ group led by Telman Gdlyan and Nikolay Ivanov was formed under the USSR Prosecutor General; on 23 June 1984 a plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan took up padding of cotton reports and bribery. According to the textbook, in 1983–1987 about 1,000 “landing-party” officials from Moscow, Leningrad and other cities were sent to leading posts, in 1985–1990 40,000 people were investigated and 5,000 prosecuted, and many spent long periods in pre-trial detention. The textbook assesses the affair as a political campaign and an “Uzbek case”, while admitting that padding and bribery existed in many parts of the Union; historians debate the methods used, the validity of the charges and the scale. Rashidov’s name was criticised after his death, and in later years many verdicts were reviewed.