WA HEN Negro Americans
came to Detroit to
aid in their country’s war
effort, Nazi-inspired forces
playing on the prejudices of
Southern whites created a
riot that harmed production
for months afterward. And no
one can be certain that it will
not happen again’ There are
those who excused it, or at
least attempted to explain it
away, on the grounds of war-
time conditions. The city was
overcrowded, they say; housing
was not to be found; war work-
ers of different races, unaccus-
tomed to such close contact,
were jammed into street cars
like sardines. Objective condi-
tions. ...

At the same time that South-
erners, Negro and white, were
pouring into the war plants of
Detroit, another city half-way
round the world was - going
through a similar situation.
This was Tashkent in the Uz-
bek Republic of Soviet. Central
Asia, not far from the border
of India.

The people of Tashkent are
Mohammedans, very dark in
eolor. They dress in bright
striped robes and embroidered
skull-caps, a costume entirely
different than that of Ameri-
cans—or Russians. Their lan-
guage is entirely different than
that of Russia, while that of
Americans, Negro and white,
is the same. The situation is
similar with regard to music,
eustoms, home furnishings,
food. Uzbek music has, to Rus-
sians, the weird strains of the
East (and vice-versa). Uzbeks
eat rice and lamb; Russians
bread and beef. Russians pre-
fer furniture in a house; Uz-
beks—rugs.

Se
T the end of 1941, Ukrain-

ians, Byelorussians, Rus-
sians, Jews, Lithuanians, Lat-
vians and LEstonians - began

pouring into Tashkent by the
hundreds of thousands. They
were evacuated there by the
Soviet government ahead of
the then advancing Germans.
A great many of them did not

even know which is
the only foreign language that
most Uzbeks know. And Tash-
Kent is not Detroit. There was
a housing shortage even be-
fore the refugees came. Urban
transportation was also insuf-
ficient. The water supply was
primitive, the sewage

Russian,

system

worse. This is because Tash-

kent has been developed into a
center of modern industry in a
few short years, beginning as a
town steeped in ancient Asian
backwardness.

Certainly, there were all the
conditions for a race riot to
make Detroit look like a Sun-
day school picnic. The differ-
emces among nationalities here
were far greater than among
Americans, white and Negro.
The hardships were so much
worse as to be hard to imagine.
But there was no riot. Instead,
Uzbeks turned over to the Sov-
iet “FBI” Axis agents of their
own religion and color sent in
from nearby countries with or-
ders to blame the difficulties of
wartime on the influx of “for-
eigners.”

Volunteer committees in each
block, Russian and Uzbek,
painted and repaired every
building that could be made
habitable so that the war refu-
gees would have a place to live.
As a matter of fact, they tried
to complete their work by the
Soviet Independence. Day, Nov.
7, so that their wartime guests
would also have something to
celebrate.

Later, after the first Red
Army offensive, the workers in
the consumers’ goods indus-
tries of Tashkent, under its Uz-
bek Mayor, Hussein, worked
overtime without pay to make
elothing, soap and kitchenware
for the people of the liberated
areas. Peasants donated cattle
and wool, beds and honey to
put the farmers of devastated
Russia back on their feet. Uz-
beks adopted Ukrainian and

Soviet Asia eyes jee
The Freedom of Nations

Jewish war orphans. At the
front, in the words of Time
corerspondent Richard Lauter-
bach:

“Kazakhs. and Uzbeks, many
of them volunteers, have dis-
tinguished tthemselves in the
Red Army. Hundreds of thous-
ands of them have fought for
Stalingrad, Moscow, Kiev,
Kharkov and Sevastopol — not
as a subject people but as a
free people who feel a brother-
heod with the other nations of
the Union.” .

That’s why there was no
race riot in Tashkent. Owen
Lattimore, long this country’s
official adviser to Chiang Kai-
shek, writes in his new book,
Solution In Asia.

“Whatever our own opinion
of the Soviet form of society,
we must accommodate our-
selves to the fact that there
are others who consider it dem-
ocratic, because they are al-
lowed to integrate themselves
with it, instead of being sub-
ordinated to it as colonial _sub-
jects. . .'.

“The Soviet nationality pol-
icy was reassuring. It gave to
minority peoples both freedom
to be different from the Rus-
sians in such things as lan-
guage and cultural habits, and
freedom to be like the Rus-
sians; and equal to them, in
such things as military and ad-
ministrative service and indus-
trial and technical develop-
ment.”

HE last — “industrial and

technical development” — is
most important. All the legal
equality in the world isn’t
worth much so long as a for-
merly subject people doesn’t
have industries of its own. In-
dustry means a higher stand-
ard of living. It creates a work-

ing class, which is always the

AS YOU SAY-
IN AMERICA--
THE JIG is uP!

2

SECTION

THE TIME FOR
LEVITY IS PAST!
NOW FOR-SOME / TO DO WITH
SERIOUS -
BUSINESS!

WHAT DO —y
YOU PROPOSE

us?

"YOU GOT
HIM! you
. GOT Him!

YYOU HURT
BAD BABY?
I KILLED

THE RAT!
---MILA!

most progressive and demo-
cratic class in any country.

The reason the Uzbeks help-
ed the Russians and other ref-
ugees was because for 20 years
the Soviets had helped Uzbek-
jstan rise from feudal back-
wardness to become the most
modern nation in Asia. Tsarist"
Russia had forbidden the erec-
tion of textile mills in Central
Asia, where its cotton came
from, because Moscow manu-
facturers were afraid of com-
petition. The Soviet Union, un-

der Joseph Stalin as its first
Commissar of Nationalities,
picked up existing Moscow

mills in the early twenties and
moved them to Central Asia so
as to begin the founding of a
modern industry.

In his book The Soviet Far
East, William Mandel points
out that Uzbekistan has more
tractors in agriculture than-
Germany, with a dozen ‘times
as many people. By August,
1942, he says, three-quarters of
the value of products made in
Uzbekistan came from indus-
try. -Only one-quarter came
from agriculture. Thus this is
the first country in Asia to
close the gap between East and
West. Even Japan, with large
industries, has a completely
primitive agriculture.

In the field of education, Uz-
bekistan has nearly twice as
many children in grade school,
three times as many in high
school and nearly twice as
many students in college as
does modern Sweden, with the
same populaticn.

Uzbekistan is, of course, gov-

erned by Uzbeks, men and
women, although, under ‘Mo-
hammedan law, women were

literally the slaves of their hus-
bands until 15 years ago. A
native woman, Pasha Makh-
mudova, is Vice-President of
Uzbekistan. So are several
cabinet members. Another.
Yuldashbaeva, holds the im-
portant post of Educational Sec-
retary of the Uzbek Commun-

ist party. More than 100 Uzbel

i

women have been elected to the
Gongress (Supreme Soviet
either of their own republic of]
of the USSR as a soe

ef
FFic Johnston, head of thr

United. States Chamber oF
impresser

Commerce, was so

hy what he saw in Tashkent. i.
1944 that, while there, he toast
ed “‘‘the tremendous progres
made here in the last 20 year:
under communism and the Sov’
jet system.” To which The Ney)
York Times  correspondent;,
who accompanied him, Wiilian:
Lawrence, added that it is hiv
“considered judgment thas)
more progress has been mad«j
here in the 21 years than in al:
the other years since Alexande:
the Great first captured Sam,
arkand in 329 B.C. It is no ex
aggeration to say that condi’
tions here at present are fa:
superior than those -in nearby
Iran, which has been under thr
influence of Western civiliza-
tion for a much longer period®

In that last sentence, Law
rence unwittingly pointed ow
the greatest contribution. whicl
the USSR has made to resist:
ance toe Japanese agegressior!
and ultimate victory in th'
Pacific.

A large minority of th
peoples of Asia, ~ illiterate
though they may be, know th:
truth which Lawrence ther
expressed. They know the Soy
jet nationality policy and. it}
results—Josephs - Stalin’s poli
icy, for Stalin was chiefly re’
sponsible for this aspect of th
Russian Communist progran
even during Lenin’s lifetime
(See Stalin’s bo&k in- Emeglisk
Marxism and the Nationa
Question.)

It is because they have see’
that the Marxist solution il
the national question brings it
Gependence, equality and

higher standard of living thai:
the people of China, despite th:
absence of a _ large -worlkin
class, have created the strong .
est Communist Party in th.
world, outside of the Sovie
Union. It is for that reaso
that this party, and the Com)
munists of Burma, have bee
so effective in leading resist
ance to the Japenese. ia

The Communists in India, an {
other agricultural counttry-3
have emerged as a powerftu |
force in the war years, fightin: §
famine and explaining the na}
ture of this war to the people
They looked north aeross thi
Himalayas to Soviet Centra }
Asia, which comes within nine}
miles of India. They realize.
that, despite British domina
tion of India, Soviet participa
tion in the alliance against thf
Axis made this a war for liber f
ation of all peoples.

The very existence of ‘the
Soviet Union, beeause of ite}
stirring effect on the peoples o%|
Asia, is one of the biggest fac
ters making for the defeat of
Japan.

E have described here onk @
the republic of Uzbekistan
But the entire Soviet Asiai#
border is lined with republics, |
autonomous republics and -re-

Continued on Page 14
See—SOVIET ASIA

SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 19456

i