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