Akmal Ikramovich Ikramov (
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
: Акмаль Икрамович Икрамов;
Uzbek: Akmal Ikromovich Ikromov; 1898 – 13 March 1938) was an Uzbek politician active in
Uzbek SSR
Uzbekistan (, ) is the common English name for the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR; uz, Ўзбекистон Совет Социалистик Республикаси, Oʻzbekiston Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikasi, in Russian: Уз ...
politics and served as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Uzbekistan
The Communist Party of Uzbekistan (russian: Коммунистическая партия Узбекистана, uz, Ўзбекистон Коммунистик Партияси), initially known as Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Uzbekistan, ...
from 1929 to 1937. He was arrested and executed in 1938 as part of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
during the
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
period.
Life
Career
Ikramov was born in 1898 in an Uzbek family in
Tashkent
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...
, then part of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. In 1918 he joined the Communist Party.
[Keller; p.109] From 1921 to 1922 he was secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Turkestan
The Communist Party of Turkestan (russian: Коммунистическая партия Туркестана; uz, Turkiston Kommunistik partiyasi; tg, Ҳизби Коммунистии Туркистон; ky, Түркстан коммунис ...
. In 1922 he moved to Moscow where he studied at the
Sverdlov Communist University
The Sverdlov Communist University ( Russian: Коммунистический университет имени Я. М. Свердлова) was a school for Soviet activists in Moscow, founded in 1918 as the Central School for Soviet and Party Work ...
. While in Moscow, Ikramov kept on campaigning within the Party for raising the cultural level of Turkestan by increasing literacy and building more schools. Meanwhile, Ikramov became involved in a power struggle among the Communists between those favoring a
Pan-Turkist
Pan-Turkism is a political movement that emerged during the 1880s among Turkic intellectuals who lived in the Russian region of Kazan (Tatarstan), Caucasus (modern-day Azerbaijan) and the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey), with its aim bei ...
government like
Turar Ryskulov
Turar Ryskululy Ryskulov ( kk, Тұрар Рысқұлұлы Рысқұлов, ''Tūrar Rysqūlūly Rysqūlov''; Russian: Турар Рыскулович Рыскулов; 26 December 1894 – 10 February 1938) was a Soviet politician, the chair ...
, and those in favor of dividing the
Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
The Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (initially, the Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic; 30 April 191827 October 1924) was an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic located in Soviet Central A ...
into smaller ethnic or regional units, such as
Fayzulla Khodzhayev Faizullah, also spelled Fayzullah or Feizollah ( ar, فيزالله ) is a male Muslim given name, composed of the elements '' Faiz'' and ''Allah''. It means ''Success from God'' or ''Victory from God''. In modern usage it may appear as a surname. ...
and Ikramov. The latter group won, as
national delimitation in Central Asia
National delimitation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the process of specifying well-defined national territorial units (Soviet socialist republics SR autonomous Soviet socialist republics SSR autonomous oblasts rovinces raions ...
began in 1924.
In January 1925 he became secretary of the
Tashkent Oblast committee in the newly formed Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and was also for a time active as chief editor of the magazine ''Communist''. In 1929, he became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan and thus de facto head of government in Soviet Uzbekistan. He was the first ethnic Uzbek in this office, which he held until 1937. In 1930 his predecessor
Isaak Zelensky tried to depose him, but since the
Central Committee supported Ikramov, this attempt failed.
[Ikramov Akmal Ikramovich](_blank)
at rin.ru Ikramov led the forced introduction of collectivised agriculture in Uzbekistan, in line with the policy set in Moscow by
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
, and implemented a decision to make Uzbekistan the main source of cotton in the USSR. In 1934, he was elected to the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the only representative of any of the ethnic Asian minorities.
Anti-religious policies
Ikramov bore the most responsibility for designing the specifics of the design of anti-Islamic actions during the
first five-year plan
The first five-year plan (russian: I пятилетний план, ) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was a list of economic goals, created by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, based on his policy of socialism in ...
.
Sometimes he personally ordered the arrest of clergymen. Further measures to struggle against the clergy were taken, as Ikramov put it, "not by prohibitive measures, but by measures developed from broad party-organizational and cultural enlightenment work."
Great Purge
In February 1937, near the start of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
, Ikramov took part in a plenum of the Central Committee which determined the fate of two leading
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
,
Nikolai Bukharin and
Alexei Rykov, who had led the opposition to forced collectivisation. He denounced them as "renegades", accused them of leading an "uprising against the party, against soviet power" and called for them to be put on trial. In June, after he had returned to Uzbekistan's capital,
Tashkent
Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...
, his rival, Khodzhayev, was denounced, sacked, and later arrested. Yet, despite these displays of severity and loyalty to Stalin, Ikramov was publicly censured on 8 September 1937, after the Politburo member
Andrey Andreyev had descended on Tashkent, for being sufficiently vigilant in rooting out 'enemies of the people'. On 10 September, he was violently denounced in ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' for defending a '
Trotskyite
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
' Secretary of the Uzbekistan Central Committee. On 12 September, it was announced that he had been expelled from the party and was under investigation. In October, news broke that he was arrested, together with Khodzhayev.
In March 1938, Ikramov was a defendant in the last of the great
Moscow show trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of t ...
, alongside Bukharin and Rykov, whom he had denounced as renegades a year earlier, and his old rivals Zelensky and Khodzhayev. He 'confessed' to having been a Trotskyite since 1923, a leader since 1928 of a secret nationalist movement plotting independence for Uzbekistan, and to having been recruited by Bukharin to the 'right opposition' in 1933. He also 'confessed' that the waste that resulted from over ambitious targets for cotton production and uncompleted construction work had been deliberate sabotage, and that he was a British spy. Ikramov was quoted saying: "We had to rely on a strong European Power to help us. We thought England most reliable because she is so strong."
He was sentenced to death on 13 March and shot on 13 March (other sources indicate 15 March) 1938.
Rehabilitation
During the
Khrushchev Thaw, Ikramov's son Kamal requested that the first secretary of Uzbekistan rehabilitate his father. The secretary brought the case to
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
personally, who then asked
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
to look at it. After a year, in 1957, Akmal Ikramov was reinstated in the Party,
although the document reinstating him was classified as "Confidential". He was the first defendant from any of the Stalinist show trials to be rehabilitated.
References
Sources
Ikramov, Akmal’ Ikramovicharticle from
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...
, 3rd Edition (1970-1979).
To Moscow, Not Mecca: The Soviet Campaign Against Islam in Central Asia; 1917-1941By Shoshana Keller; Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ikramov, Akmal
1898 births
1938 deaths
Politicians from Tashkent
People from Syr-Darya Oblast
Bolsheviks
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Party leaders of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of Uzbekistan politicians
Executed politicians
Soviet rehabilitations
Great Purge victims from Uzbekistan
20th-century Uzbekistani politicians