SEVENTY - SECOND HALF (1976 - 1979)

SEVENTY - SECOND HALF (1976 - 1979). THE PARTY-BUREAUCRATIC MARKET

In the late 1970s, 2.2 million people in the USSR as administration workers. This rapid increase in management staff naturally caused the growth of corruption. The shadow economy, which received a good impetus in the Khrushchev era, was gaining more and more strength, covering not only the economic sector, all other areas as well, and the party was not an exception.

IN THE BREZHNEV ERA, IT WAS NO LONGER A COMMAND SYSTEM, BUT AN "ECONOMY OF APPROVALS" – A COMPLEX PARTY-BUREAUCRATIC MARKET. IT WAS BUILT ON AN EXCHANGE-TRADE SYSTEM EMPLOYED BY PARTY AND ADMINISTRATIVE BODIES, AS WELL AS BY INDIVIDUALS.

In it, sectoral bodies "traded" resource production and distribution plans, regulatory bodies – economic activity accounting methods, control bodies – administrative instructions, and party bodies – all the values of the administrative system, regardless of hierarchical affiliation.

The laws of the "bureaucratic market" began to penetrate into all corners of the country and areas of economic activity. Uzbekistan and the cotton industry were no exception. In the developed bureaucratic market conditions, some heads of cotton farms in Uzbekistan overrated cotton production indicators. But this practice was not of a local, Uzbek nature – it became a Union-wide practice.

Did Sharaf Rashidov see what was happening in the country as a whole and in Uzbekistan in particular? Could he, as the head of one of the largest Soviet republics, be independent of the political and social relations that developed in the Soviet Union? Could he influence corruption in cotton production?

LEVITIN ANSWERED THIS QUESTION IN A GENERAL WAY: "COULD RASHIDOV," HE ASKED, "REFUSE TO SUPPORT THE RECKLESS KHRUSHCHEV PROJECTS AND FIGHT DISSENT? COULD HE, UNDER BREZHNEV, ERADICATE CONSERVATIVE TENDENCIES IN PUBLIC LIFE, AND PREVENT THE GROWTH OF NEGATIVE PROCESSES IN THE ECONOMY, SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL SPHERES? AND IF HE COULD, HOW LONG WOULD HE HAVE STAYED IN THE OFFICE IF HE ALLOWED HIMSELF TO PLAY AGAINST THE RULES OF MOSCOW?"

The all-Union crisis of socioeconomic relations in Uzbekistan was expressed in a special form in accordance with its national specificity. Externally, it was expressed in the famous "cotton case", which defeated almost all governmental bodies in Uzbekistan. Moreover, it simultaneously revealed Moscow's gravest miscalculations on the brink of a crime in conducting national policy in the republic.

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