COTTON MONOCULTURE: THE COTTON BUSINESS AND ITS NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES FOR THE REGION

Abstract

In the history of Soviet Uzbekistan, the second half of the 20th century was a period of profound socio-economic, environmental and political changes associated with the cotton monoculture policy introduced by the center. The transformation of the republic into the main raw material base of the Soviet Union was accompanied by the destruction of traditional agriculture, environmental degradation and a sharp decline in living standards. The state management system, based on strict centralization and administrative-command methods, did not take into account national and regional differences, which led to large-scale environmental disasters and deformation of the social structure. A special place in this history is occupied by the "cotton case" of the 1980s - one of the largest political campaigns of the late Soviet era, which became a symbol of the fight against corruption and at the same time evidence of the arbitrariness of the investigative bodies, repressions against national cadres and political manipulations by the center.