National Delimitation in Central Asia
After the Russian revolution of 1917, the entire space occupied today by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the southern part of Kazakhstan consisted of three administrative territorial units: the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkestan ASSR), created in April 1918 within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), and the two successor states of the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva, which were transformed into Bukhara and Khorezm People's Soviet Republics following the takeover by the Red Army in 1920. North of Turkestan ASSR lay the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Kirghiz ASSR, Kirgizistan ASSR on the map), which was created on 26 August 1920 in the territory coinciding with the northern part of today's Kazakhstan (the southern part of Kazakhstan, south of the Aral Sea–Balkhash Lake line, was part of Turkestan ASSR in 1920).
In 1924, Turkestan ASSR, i.e., roughly the southern half of Soviet Central Asia, was partitioned into two Soviet Socialist Republics (SSR), Turkmen SSR and Uzbek SSR. Turkmen SSR matched the borders of today's Turkmenistan and it was created as a home for the Turkmens of Soviet Central Asia. The Bukhara and Khorezm People's Soviet Republics were absorbed into Uzbek SSR, which also included other territories inhabited by Uzbeks as well as those inhabited by ethnic Tajiks. At the same time, Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik ASSR) was created within Uzbek SSR for the Tajik ethnic population and after five years, in 1929, it was separated from Uzbek SSR and upgraded to the status of Soviet Socialist Republic (Tajik SSR). Kirghiz SSR (today's Kyrgyzstan) was created only in 1936; between 1929 and 1936 it existed as the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast (province) within RSFSR. Kazakh SSR was also created at that time (5 December 1936), thus completing the process of national delimitation of Soviet Central Asia into five Soviet Socialist Republics that in 1991 would become five independent states.
Bitter debates accompanied the partition of Uzbek SSR and Tajik SSR in 1929, focusing especially on the status of Bukhara, Samarkand, and the Surkhandarya Province, all of which had sizeable, if not dominant, Tajik populations. The final decision negotiated by the Uzbek and Tajik parties, not without strong involvement of the Communist Party, left these three Tajik-populated territories within the Turkic-populated Uzbek SSR. Tajik SSR was created on 5 December 1929 as the home for most of the ethnic Tajiks in Soviet Central Asia within the boundaries of present-day Tajikistan.
Read more about this topic: National Delimitation In The Soviet Union
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