SHARAF RASHIDOV'S LITERARY AND JOURNALISTIC ACTIVITY NOT ONLY REVEALED HIS TALENT AS A WRITER AND PUBLICIST, BUT ALSO SHOWED HIM AS AN OUTSTANDING PERSONALITY, IN PARTICULAR, IN THE POLITICAL LIFE OF HIS COUNTRY. AS HE GREW AS A JOURNALIST, HE INVOLUNTARILY WAS BECOMING INCREASINGLY MORE INVOLVED IN THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF UZBEKISTAN.
A war veteran that knew all its hardships, tragedies and pain for every family in his native Jizzakh, he was a true patriot of his big country. Sharaf Rashidovich's literary work is difficult, if possible, to separate from his political activities. Their unity is based on the very personality of Sharaf Rashidov, rooted in its very depths. He was a true patriot of Uzbekistan – he never lost faith in his homeland, in its great future. He loved it on weekdays and holidays, during the years of adversity and in the days of prosperity, and did everything to ensure the development of all its aspects.
Uzbekistan invariably was at the core of his thoughts and ideas. He subordinated even his most ambitious plans to concerns about the welfare of the republic, its prosperity – material and spiritual. If he aspired to high positions in the government and party – and this is quite natural for a person endowed with appropriate intellectual and spiritual qualities to devote himself to political activity – it was only in the belief that he would be better able to use them for the benefit of his people than many others would. And this belief was reasonable in every way.
WE CONSTANTLY SEE HIM IN THE THICK OF THE EVENTS THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE REPUBLIC. HE WAS CONSTANTLY ON THE MOVE, MEETING PEOPLE FROM VARIOUS PROFESSIONAL FIELDS – COLLECTIVE FARMERS, INDUSTRIAL WORKERS, ARTISTS, SCIENTISTS AND POLITICIANS – MOREOVER, NOT ONLY BECAUSE THIS WAS HIS PROFESSIONAL DUTY BUT ALSO BECAUSE HE LOVED IT.
Talking to them, he knew the real needs of individual people and groups, increased his knowledge, developing communication skills for working with people from different professional fields and different social status, and at the same time gaining political experience. In this communication process, it was not only him who learnt about the life and people around him, but also people got to know him better, as well as his professional and political qualities.
RAPID CAREER ADVANCEMENT
In 1944, he became secretary of the Samarkand Regional Party Committee and held this post for three years. By that time, he had already had a broad state outlook, been able to see the prospects for development, and acquired a wealth of political experience. He not only realised and felt the enormity of the tasks to be implemented by the republic, but was already prepared to begin their implementation in practice. Therefore, his rapid career advancement did not look surprising or unusual. In 1949-1950, he was already chairman of the Board of the Union of Writers of Uzbekistan. In 1950-1959, he was chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Uzbek SSR and Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, and in March 1959 he was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP of Uzbekistan.
This election was by no means simple and smooth. However, in his new responsible position, Sharaf Rashidovich from the very beginning showed himself as an undisputed leader, demonstrated an unmistakable political flair in relations with both the central leadership of the CPSU and his colleagues in the republic.
RASHIDOV WAS ELECTED TO THE HIGHEST PARTY POST IN HIS REPUBLIC UNDER N. S. KHRUSHCHEV, WHEN THE LATTER, BY EXPOSING THE CULT OF STALIN, ACTUALLY DEALT THE FIRST TANGIBLE BLOW TO THE FOUNDATION OF THE SOCIALIST STATE, WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE FATAL IN THE END.
He successfully guided the republican "ship" through the entire Brezhnev "era of stagnation", in which the cracks from the Khrushchev blow began to spread more and more noticeably, faster and faster, throughout the structure of the great power. Sharaf Rashidov ended his journey at the time of Andropov. The latter is known to have made a convulsive and belated attempt, by harsh administrative measures, to somehow correct what was no longer correctable. His attempt naturally failed, and not only because of Andropov's short stay at the head of the country but, most importantly, because it was too late to change anything – the ideological and material decomposition of the world's first socialist state had already gone too far.
Moreover, the numerous diseases, including corruption, that struck the whole country were fought not all along the frontline, as was required by circumstances, but in a very selective and biased manner. As we will see a little later, this fact played a fatal role in the fate of Uzbekistan and its party leader Sharaf Rashidov.
S. N. SEMANOV WRITES IN HIS BOOK ANDROPOV: 7 SECRETS OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY FROM LUBYANKA: "THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION AND ABUSE WAS LED ONLY AGAINST PEOPLE THAT ANDROPOV DID NOT LIKE. IT SEEMS THAT IT DID NOT AFFECT THE MAIN CORRUPT OFFICIALS. THERE WAS NO ONE FROM ANDROPOV'S CIRCLE WHO SUFFERED – HEYDAR ALIYEV, VITALY FEDORCHUK, EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE OR MIKHAIL GORBACHEV...".
In the meanwhile, Sharaf Rashidov did suffer – a person who, of all the high-ranking officials of that time, was the least deserving of it.
Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985, still hoped that it would be possible to bring the country out of the crisis through a system of reforms collectively called Perestroyka. The country entered it like an aeroplane goes into a tailspin and could no longer get out of it, quickly falling apart into its component parts. But Sharaf Rashidov could not see all this. Perhaps, he was even fortunate not to.
