A controversial dam in stalinist central Asia: Rivalry and “fraternal cooperation” on the Syr Darya

Abstract

The article tells the story of debates preceding the construction of the Kairakkum dam in Tajikistan in 1956. In the second half of the 1940s, Uzbek and Tajik party leaders competed over the location of the new hydropower plant. Neither side wanted it to be built in their own republic. Eventually, the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic became the construction site, which could be viewed as an indirect indicator of its subordinated position in the late Stalinist Soviet hierarchy compared to the Uzbek Republic, which became industrialized after massive wartime evacuation of factories from the European part of the country. Roberts restores the historical subjectivity of republican elites, who, even during high Stalinism, could object to Moscow's plans (with varying success) and advance their own visions of the region's development.