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TASHKENT Soviet Islam

What effect will Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost have on Moscow’s Moslem subjects in Soviet Central Asia? The inhabitants of the Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kirghiz Republics are still colonial peoples, incorporated into Russia through conquest only at the turn of the century. They are directly comparable to Moslem populations that were colonized by the West in the same period but that have long since become free and independent nations. Moscow has taken pains to prevent any kind of uprising or guerrilla action that could paralyze or ultimately dismember its Central Asian possessions. Living standards have been subsidized in these regions for the last fifty years to avoid discontent, and have gone up at a faster rate than those in the Soviet Union itself, or even those in adjacent Moslem countries. The only place in the Soviet Union where anti-glasnost demonstrations have occurred is Kazakhstan, which says much as to how comfortably local Communist Party officials have settled in over the years. Nevertheless, by all historic logic, the Moslem territories must once more become a threat to the integrity of the Soviet state.

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TASHKENT Soviet Islam

What effect will Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost have on Moscow’s Moslem subjects in Soviet Central Asia? The inhabitants of the Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kirghiz Republics are still colonial peoples, incorporated into Russia through conquest only at the turn of the century. They are directly comparable to Moslem populations that were colonized by the West in the same period but that have long since become free and independent nations. Moscow has taken pains to prevent any kind of uprising or guerrilla action that could paralyze or ultimately dismember its Central Asian possessions. Living standards have been subsidized in these regions for the last fifty years to avoid discontent, and have gone up at a faster rate than those in the Soviet Union itself, or even those in adjacent Moslem countries. The only place in the Soviet Union where anti-glasnost demonstrations have occurred is Kazakhstan, which says much as to how comfortably local Communist Party officials have settled in over the years. Nevertheless, by all historic logic, the Moslem territories must once more become a threat to the integrity of the Soviet state.