192 SHOZIMOV,
BESHIMOV,
YUNUSOVA
up for her, which led to a large-scale scuffle. As we have seen, this rather superficial
explanation soon gave way to an economic interpretation, according to which the
conflict arose from social and economic competition between impoverished Uzbeks
and more prosperous Meskhetian Turks. Osipov argues that the mass media at the
time continuously exaggerated the issue of the Uzbeks’ supposedly difficult eco-
nomic plight, their unemployment in rural areas, and other such matters. The local
press, he concludes, was enthralled with the narrative of privileged Turk specula-
tors occupying the most profitable places at the markets while the Uzbeks toiled
for pennies in hot cotton fields. Beyond journalists, this interpretation was favored
by politicians and intellectuals of the Ferghana Valley, among them the leader of
the Birlik Party, Mukhammad Salikh,
67
the provost of the Ferghana Pedagogical
University,
Sherzod Abdullaev,
68
and the writer Alim Mirzaev.
69
Notwithstanding the rise of national self-awareness and of nationalistic ideas in
the popular mind, Osipov does not place much stock in the explanation that turns
on nationalism. His argument is simple: while the USSR had numerous conflicting
ethnic groups in these years, and while nationalistic thinking was undeniably on the
rise at the time of the “Ferghana events,” in no instance did this lead to fighting un-
less a group was targeted with specific liabilities, and unless there were institutional
arrangements that restricted the rights and opportunities of such a non-titular group.
Violence does not break out on its own, says Osipov. Therefore, while nationalistic
thinking may have been a contributing factor, there is no reason to think that it
could have
caused the conflict unless these other factors were present.
Osipov breaks the political interpretation into two components, consisting of
conspiracies
against the government
and conspiracies
by the government. The first
version turns on the actions of forces that either opposed perestroika or wanted to
go beyond it. All those championing this position acted on the assumption that “the
worse, the better.” The Turkish association Vatan traces the origins of the conflict to
the Meskhetian Turks’ rejection of a proposal by the Birlik Party to combine forces
against some unspecified enemies. It is possible that this led nationalistic forces to
target Meskhetian Turks for attack. The Vatan association traces such suggestions
to the leaders of the Birlik movement, specifically the brothers Abdurahim and
Abdumanob Pulatov.
70
Articles by these persons published in the Russian journals
Ogonek
and
Novoe vremia appear to support this view.
71
Let us now turn to the hypothesis that centers on the KGB. According to this view,
the KGB was the architect of the conflict, which it achieved by taking advantage
of inter-ethnic problems and of the recalcitrance of the republican leadership. The
reason for which the KGB fomented mass rioting was to bind Uzbekistan to Moscow
at a time when that link was fast eroding.
72
A related version of this hypothesis was
voiced by the Vatan, which argued that the security forces fomented the conflict
precisely in order to resettle Russia’s depopulated farmland.
73
Osipov brands as farfetched the interpretation that the conflicts were generated
by rogue elements of the KGB. Even if the head of the USSR’s internal security
forces, Major-General Iurii Shatalin, and the head of Uzbek intelligence in the
THE FERGHANA VALLEY DURING PERESTROIKA 193
Ferghana
province, N.G. Leskov,
74
had had the intention
of fomenting a fight
between Meskhetian Turks and Uzbeks, why would they have chosen the small
town of Kuvasai to launch it?
Given the multi-faceted character of the conflict, several of Osipov’s hypotheses
are probably necessary in order fully to explain the events. However, Osipov’s own
conclusion is that “the frustration and aggressiveness that were the product of the
‘Cotton Affair,’ as well as the diminished fear of the government after 1989, when
the government began to lose its status as the major target of discontent, led to a
situation in which accidentally arising local confrontations, perceived by the public
as ethnic conflicts, could create an opening through which aggression could be chan-
neled.”
75
This explanation, which might be called a “primordial” hypothesis, is at
odds with the hypothesis that the clash was deliberately engineered. Osipov’s own
title, “The Ferghana Events of 1989 (The Engineering of the Conflict),” leads one
to expect him to embrace this view, but he does not. In his interpretation, Osipov
considers the economic factor mainly through its absence. Virtually all of the ver-
sions,
except for the political one, take us back to primordial social issues.
The view that a nationalistic conflict assumed a broader character focusing on
the institutional framework is not quite convincing. Many conflicts in the Soviet
and post-Soviet space arose spontaneously. Interestingly, it is precisely the politi-
cal explanation of the conflict that dominates the interpretations of Uzbek intel-
lectuals themselves, while elsewhere the conflict tends to be viewed in terms of
primordial conditions on the ground. Yet Osipov is right to remind us that events
in the Ferghana Valley have many dimensions, each with its own logic, and these
require correspondingly multi-faceted explanations.
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