"Cotton" business
In 1986, the Soviet Union lived in anticipation of change. Perestroika was in full swing, Mikhail Gorbachev was in charge of the country. At the 27th Congress Communist Party the Secretary General announced a course towards the democratization of society and the acceleration of socio-economic development. At the congress, for the first time, the term "Rashidovshchina" was used, which became synonymous with bribery, feudalism, and clannishness. Delegates from Uzbekistan, as if competing, reported on the criminal role of their yesterday's idol - the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan Sharaf Rashidov.
A year or two will pass, and many of those who spoke from the rostrum of the congress about Rashidism and the need to fight corruption will themselves be under investigation. And the "cotton" cause will boomerang at the Party and deal it a mortal blow.
What actually happened in Uzbekistan? What was the mechanism of the colossal machinations that hastened the collapse of the USSR? Who uncovered this scam?
The problems associated with embezzlement and bribery in Uzbekistan arose in the mid-seventies, when cotton was not yet discussed. The prosecutor's office opened the first criminal case related to bribery of high-ranking officials in 1975: the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the republic and the chairman of the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan were brought to justice. We reached out to the chairman of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Yadgar Nasriddinova. The investigation managed to collect quite serious materials about the receipt of bribes by Yadgar, but at the very last moment, due to Brezhnev's intervention, the investigation was slowed down.
In 1979, several more cases were opened. In one (accused by the guild workers of the Guzal association), left-wing underground workshops appeared, in another, which arose in parallel, charges were brought against the head of the OBKhSS of the Bukhara region, Muzaffarov, and the chairman of the regional consumer union, Kudratov. The investigation of this case was entrusted to Telman Gdlyan, senior investigator for especially important cases under the USSR Prosecutor General, who left for Bukhara. From Muzaffarov, the threads of bribery stretched to the very top, to the "father of the nation" Sharaf Rashidov, who headed the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan for almost a quarter of a century.
There is no doubt that during the life of Rashidov (and he was a seriously ill person, accompanied by an intensive care unit and died right on the highway on the way to Jizzakh), nor during the life of Brezhnev, the “cotton business” would not have arisen. This became possible only under Yuri Andropov, who took over as General Secretary at the end of 1982. Andropov was preparing for a total restructuring of the Soviet state. His unexpected death saved the nomenklatura from major troubles, but he managed to deliver the first blow.
The choice of Uzbekistan as a testing ground for the "fight against corruption" was hardly accidental. While still chairman of the KGB, Yuri Andropov received a detailed report from the well-known cotton grower academician Mirzaali Mukhamedzhanov. The document deciphered the mechanism of postscripts along the entire technological chain - from the field to the factory. The "cotton" case was conceived as the first in a chain of purges of the highest echelon of power in the Soviet republics. A powerful investigative landing force has landed in Uzbekistan. In Moscow and the Moscow region, KGB officers arrested several heads of Uzbek cotton ginning associations and directors of cotton factories.
The seriously ill Konstantin Chernenko, who replaced Andropov, did not want to, and most likely, could not or did not have time to curtail the investigation. By inertia, the Andropov line was continued, although the fight against mafia groups in the periphery was no longer so active.
The investigation team opened criminal cases against a large company of Uzbek party functionaries, including the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, secretaries of the Central Committee, regional committees, city committees, district committees, ministers, as well as heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic and regional departments of internal affairs. For the first time in the dock were people who were considered inviolable. Mutual responsibility allowed them to feel completely safe, no matter what violations of the law they committed.
By the beginning of 1984, the Gdlyan group had already clearly defined its priorities, methodology and tactics of the investigation. At the first stage, her attention was occupied by two main persons: the first secretary of the Bukhara regional party committee, Karimov, and the Minister of Internal Affairs, Ergashev.
In the first days of his arrest, Karimov called himself "a white blank sheet of paper", insisting that he had nothing to repent of. Pretty soon, however, the resident of the Lefortovo prison changed his mind and began to testify. Almost daily, he received handwritten statements from him with new facts and circumstances for receiving bribes. And at the same time, Karimov insisted that he was as poor as a church mouse.
The former first secretary was cunning. In his homeland in the Kashkadarya region, he managed to seize his valuables worth six million rubles. From the bottom of ditches, under the trees in an abandoned garden, in a pottery workshop, from the walls - from where Karimov's riches were extracted. Three 100-liter milk cans, filled to the brim jewelry, asbestos pipes, with gold coins packed in them, coffee cans with rings and necklaces.
Later, the investigators of the USSR prosecutor's office were accused of not bothering to describe each piece of jewelry seized from the cache during searches in Uzbekistan, and this cast a shadow on the honesty of the investigators themselves. However, the following circumstance must be taken into account. More than two hundred investigators worked under the supervision of Gdlyan and his assistant Nikolai Ivanov, and if the leaders of the group decided to rewrite each seized thing themselves, only this work would take months! The jewels were weighed and sealed on the spot, and then, under guard, they were sent to the KGB or the prosecutor's office, where a special commission removed the seal and carefully rewrote each item.
Cotton is a strategic raw material, and, apparently, like the politician Brezhnev, he wanted to throw dust in the eyes of external enemies, the same Americans, to show the enviable economic prosperity of the USSR. Uzbekistan received endless orders to increase cotton production. In response, the Uzbek elite reported ever higher figures for irrigation of fields and cotton harvests with the help of “postscripts”.
One of the defendants, former first secretary of the Communist district party committee (Tashkent region) U. Mirzakulov, told the investigators about the existing system of postscripts and theft: its observance. On the basis of the regional committee schedule, the party gives the appropriate order to the collective farms and state farms. They see there: either the pace is unrealistic, or the amount of cotton laid down by the plan is simply not available. And then they go with a bow (there was a calculation for this bow from the very beginning) to the cotton plant - for a paper on the acceptance of non-existent raw cotton. Of course, they do not go empty-handed - with gifts and money received according to fictitious report cards for the work performed.
Cotton registrations - and they were carried out in the republic on an amazing scale - had to be hidden, so frauds were transferred to the raw cotton processing industry and light industry. Shrinkage, shrinkage, fumes in factories begin. Under the guise of cotton of the sixth grade, its waste was supplied - lint and oolyuk. And here by railways In the USSR, empty wagons ply (but, as it were, filled to capacity), and representatives of cotton factories ride in passenger cars, in whose briefcases there are fictitious documents stating that empty wagons are filled to the brim with cotton, in order for factories to turn a blind eye to the quality and quantity of raw materials gave bribes. For an empty car, the fee was ten thousand rubles, for a half-empty one with sorting - from five to six thousand.
At the weaving and sewing enterprises of Ivanovo and many other regions of Russia, Ukraine and other republics, the heads of factories and combines accept a suitcase with money, in return they give documents stating that they received the cars, and not empty, but full. And now the shaft of additions and write-offs is already rolling here.
As a result, the plans of the party, they are also socialist obligations, were fulfilled ahead of schedule. The district committee reports to the regional committee, the latter to the Central Committee, on all the squares of Tashkent and regional centers huge banners are hung out about another labor victory - the harvest of five to six million tons of cotton. Rashidov reports to Brezhnev about another victory and sends to Moscow a proposal for conferring the titles of Heroes of Socialist Labor, submissions for orders. Those who have already stolen millions on the postscripts of cotton are no longer imaginary, but real awards and honors.
After a series of arrests made in early 1984, Vladimir Kalinichenko, an investigator for particularly important cases under the USSR Prosecutor General, was assigned to conduct the “cotton” case. The investigators were given the task of identifying the mechanisms for the attribution of cotton, establishing the real amounts of bribes, which already amounted to hundreds of thousands of rubles (one-time reached 200-300 thousand or more), find out how this money was embezzled, isolate the system of attributions, theft and bribery and complete the investigation in a short time.
“When we were given the task of identifying the main organizers of the registrations,” recalls Kalinichenko, “we contacted Usmanov, the Minister of the Cotton Processing Industry of Uzbekistan, and almost all of his deputies. It was a separate criminal case that went to court, and only a few dozen have been completed.”
It was found that the annual additions of cotton amounted to at least a million tons, that is, in the best, harvest years, under good weather conditions, no more than five million tons could be harvested in the republic, and in the reporting it was six million. And the state paid for six. How much did you have in your pockets? “I conducted a planning and economic examination for five years,” continues Kalinichenko. - Only for this period, the minimum - I emphasize, the minimum! - cotton postscripts amounted to five million tons. For mythical raw materials from the state budget - that is, from our common, all citizens Soviet Union money - three billion rubles were paid. Of these, 1.6 billion were spent on the infrastructure that was being created in Uzbekistan: roads, schools, hospitals, and 1.4 billion wage, which no one received, because no products were produced. In other words, at least 1.4 billion rubles have been stolen from the postscripts over five years. This money was distributed in the form of bribes from top to bottom.”
Part of the funds went to Moscow. According to the investigation, responsible officials from the central office, from the union ministry, received bribes. But their scale is not impressive. One received a thousand, another one and a half, and the third a golden ring. “Regardless of the size of the bribe, I do not justify anyone, and yet the facts are stubborn things,” says Kalinichenko. - Taking these meager sums, they signed documents that allowed them to steal hundreds of thousands, millions of rubles, to purchase gold items in kilograms ... I always asked them: “It didn’t humiliate you purely as a human being that the businessmen who rowed millions gave you a penny? They simply despised you as complete scum, for whom it is enough to pour a bottle of vodka, roughly speaking, set the table in a tavern”… They reacted differently. Ohah, ahah… What am I getting at? No fabulous bribes were received in Moscow ... "
By the beginning of 1989, the courts had considered 790 cases of this category, which included more than 20 thousand people involved in criminal activities. This figure, of course, is amazing, but out of these twenty thousand, only 4,500 people were prosecuted, of which only 700 were arrested.
Among those convicted in the so-called cotton cases: 430 directors of state farms and chairmen of collective farms and 1,300 of their deputies and chief specialists; 84 directors of cotton factories and 340 chief specialists of these factories; 150 light industry workers in Uzbekistan, the RSFSR, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Azerbaijan; 69 party, Soviet workers, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor's office. Among those brought to criminal responsibility, Russians and Uzbeks were almost equally divided.
When everyone who could be arrested in Uzbekistan, the investigators of the Gdlyan-Ivanov group pulled the string further, and it led to Moscow. Arresting brother-in-law Brezhnev along the way, former first Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yury Churbanov, the investigators dealt with representatives of the highest echelons of power. They said that the “Uzbek” case is in fact only a part of the “Moscow” case, and the main corrupt officials are sitting in the Kremlin.
On October 19, 1988, the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, I. Usmankhodzhaev, was arrested on suspicion of bribery. During interrogations, he willingly told how he gave money to union ministers, heads of law enforcement agencies, secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee, and members of the Politburo. The authorities didn't like it. As a result, Gdlyan and Ivanov were removed from further prosecution of the case by the USSR Prosecutor General Sukharev.
As if on command, laudatory articles and reports were replaced by revelations: it turns out that the investigators grossly violated the law and did not comply with any procedural norms. But what about the gold and banknotes in the caches? The newspapers explained: it was not Gdlyan and Ivanov who discovered the caches of treasures in Uzbekistan, but the KGB apparatus, which did all the main work for them. Ivanov and Gdlyan appropriated the fruits of someone else's investigation in order to speculate on the feelings of the Soviet people.
Gdlyan Telman Khorenovich
The fight was long. The authorities threw the obstinate people out of the prosecutor's office, tried to arrest them, the people rose to the defense of their favorites, and Gdlyan himself threatened to throw suitcases with "Kremlin" compromising evidence to the public. In response, the defendants in the “Uzbek case” filed a lawsuit against the investigation team, accusing it of “extorting” testimony.
At three congresses of people's deputies of the USSR, this matter was in the center of attention, it was the subject of heated discussions and discussions. Repeatedly returned to him and at the sessions of the Supreme Council.
Everything ended calmly: Gdlyan and Ivanov were not imprisoned, suitcases with compromising evidence, probably, are still gathering dust somewhere in the attic. Despite all the loud statements, none of the top party leadership of the former Soviet Union was brought to criminal responsibility as a bribe-taker. The "cotton" case fell apart by itself, along with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the departure of the USSR prosecutor's office into oblivion.
From the book Big Soviet Encyclopedia(DE) author TSB From the book Criminals and Crimes. From antiquity to the present day. Conspirators. terrorists author Mamichev Dmitry Anatolievich the author Lapidary business From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GR) the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GO) of the author TSB From the book Great Soviet Encyclopedia (HL) of the author TSB author Serov Vadim VasilievichAnd with me, what’s the matter, what’s not the case, / My custom is this: / Signed, so off my shoulders From the comedy “Woe from Wit” (1824) by A. S. Griboyedov (1795-1829). The words of Famusov (act. 1, yavl. 4). Ironically about the bureaucratic conduct of business in
From book encyclopedic Dictionary winged words and expressions author Serov Vadim VasilievichA matter of honor, a matter of glory, a matter of valor and heroism From the Political Report of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to the 16th Party Congress, which I. V. Stalin (1878-1953) read on June 27, 1930. This is how the leader of the party expressed himself about work and due to it relation in the USSR. Used as a playful
Many have probably heard about the "cotton case" - the main criminal process of perestroika. Do you know how it happened? There is a reason to remember - exactly 22 years ago, 12/25/1991. (that is, the day before the legal consolidation of the cessation of the existence of the USSR) President of Uzbekistan I. Karimov pardoned all those convicted in the "Uzbek case" who were serving sentences on the territory of the republic. And now in Uzbekistan that story is evaluated as follows: “At the end of the 80s, a “cotton case” was fabricated, which was referred to as the “Uzbek case”, which brought humiliation to the national pride of the Uzbek people”.
By 1980, cotton in the USSR had become a strategic raw material, a source of currency, and it was exported. At the same time, on average, out of 8 million tons of cotton officially produced in the USSR annually, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan each gave one million, and a little Azerbaijan. And 6 million tons were produced in Uzbekistan, and cotton then occupied 65% of all irrigated land in Uzbekistan, which was turned into the main cotton base of the Soviet Union (currently Uzbekistan produces 5% of the world's cotton production).
To put it simply, it's just pieces of cotton on the branches
From about the 60s, every year, plans for the production of cotton began to increase annually, until they reached the limit of the possibility of its production in the republic. In the really best, fruitful years, under good weather conditions, no more than five million tons per year could be collected in Uzbekistan. But the never-ending orders to increase cotton production, regardless of weather conditions, continued to come. And then, in response, there were "subscriptions" - reports on ever-higher numbers of cotton harvests.
It was done this way: an unrealistic order for the extraction of raw cotton was dumped on state farms and collective farms. They see that the amount of cotton set by the plan simply cannot be collected. And then they write fictitious time sheets for allegedly harvested cotton, and go to the cotton plant for a paper on the acceptance of a non-existent crop. The money received on fictitious reports for cotton, which is not available, basically goes to the management of the cotton plant.
This job is not easy
But the cotton factory also needs to hide the fact that it does not have cotton, and money is already flowing into the industry for processing raw cotton into raw materials for light industry. They write out papers on the acceptance of non-existent cotton from the cotton plant, and receive suitcases with money for this.
But they also need to hide that they have nothing to process, and then wagons are sent from Uzbekistan to the weaving and sewing enterprises of the Union republics, in which, under the guise of first-grade cotton, third-grade cotton is transported. Or under the guise of third grade cotton, cotton waste - lint and hoot. Or under the guise of wagons, to the eyeballs stuffed with cotton, the wagons are empty and half empty.
The leaders of the cotton enterprises of the Union republics issue documents stating that they have received full wagonloads of high-grade cotton in exchange for suitcases with money. Fixed fees were even set: for an empty Uzbek cotton wagon - a fee of ten thousand rubles, for a half-empty one with sorting - three to six thousand. And the shaft of postscripts and write-offs is already rolling through the weaving and sewing enterprises further - into trade.
Throughout this chain, the amount of cotton harvested in Uzbekistan decreased on paper due to its shrinkage, shrinkage, and fumes. And in Uzbekistan they reported on the early fulfillment and overfulfillment of the plans of the party and government (they are also socialist obligations). State farms-collective farms reported to the district committees, those to the regional committees, those to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR, the latter to the Central Committee of the CPSU, with submissions to Moscow for orders and titles of Heroes of Socialist Labor.
I repeat, under the most favorable circumstances, no more than five million tons per year could be harvested in the republic. In bad years - four tons. And the reporting cost was six million annually, and the state paid for these six million. The postscripts on cotton are now estimated at one and a half billion Soviet rubles, but no one knows the exact figure.
Tashkent metro
Part of this money went to the infrastructure that was being created in Uzbekistan: schools, roads, hospitals, including the construction of the Tashkent metro at the expense of part of this money. The resolution on its construction was adopted with the condition of the republic's equity participation, otherwise Moscow refused to finance the project.
Part of the money was spent on bribes from top to bottom along the entire chain from the Uzbek collective farm / state farm to the weaving / clothing factory / combine. With this money, the “bai order” was revived in Uzbekistan: paying tribute to the top, each participant in this scheme fed from his patrimony, managing money, equipment, buildings, and even ordinary workers as his property. Amidst the horrendous poverty of the villages, this money was used to build luxurious palaces of collective farm chairmen and state farm directors, as well as family estates Soviet nomenclature with courts and swimming pools.
And part of these funds went to Moscow, but in an interesting way (and this was a trifle compared to the total amount). Suppose an employee of the Central Committee of the CPSU is called before the holiday by a petty official from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the UzSSR: “We want to give fruits to your family - we have such a custom”. A box of apples, grapes and other sultanas is loaded onto the plane and delivered to the apartment of the party apparatchik. The wife opens the parcel in the kitchen, and there are 10 thousand rubles.
The person does not know who transferred this money to him, for anything in particular. Knows just from Uzbekistan. So what should he do? Go and write a memorandum: so they say so, I don’t know who, I don’t know why they threw 10 thousand? They drag you in, torture you with questions, and even make you guilty. And a petty official from Tashkent will say: I don’t know anything about any money, I handed over fruit. And don't throw money away...
This is how it all went on for years, until Brezhnev died ...
Leonid Brezhnev and Sharaf Rashidov
Moscow investigators came to grips with Uzbekistan under Andropov, and it is believed that this caused the sudden death of the owner of the republic, Sharaf Rashidov (there were rumors of his suicide). The investigative group worked in Uzbekistan for six years until 1989, by the beginning of which, within the framework of the “cotton case”, 790 criminal cases were considered by the courts, in which more than 20 thousand people were involved.
Of these, about 4,500 people were prosecuted, including: the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, Usmankhodzhaev; Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic Khudaiberdiev; 3 secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan; 7 first secretaries of regional committees; 430 directors of state farms and chairmen of collective farms and 1,300 of their deputies and chief specialists; 84 directors of cotton factories and 340 chief specialists of these factories; 150 light industry workers in Uzbekistan, the RSFSR, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Azerbaijan; party, Soviet workers, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor's office.
Brezhnev's son-in-law General Churbanov also fell under the distribution, and with him 6 more generals of the Uzbek police. Four high-profile defendants committed suicide before trial. Usmanov, the minister of the cotton-cleaning industry of Uzbekistan, and Muzafarov, head of the OBKhSS of the Bukhara region, were sentenced to death. During the searches, jewelry and money worth hundreds of millions of rubles were seized.
April 28, 1988 in the Marble Hall of the USSR Prosecutor's Office, an exhibition was held
Among those prosecuted in this case, Uzbeks and Slavs were almost equally divided, so calling the “cotton case” an “Uzbek case” is indeed not entirely correct. And you know what I'll say? Compared to what began in the Soviet Union after 1989, and continues in the fragments of the USSR to this day, it all looks so small...
Galima Bukharbaeva
The Uzbek intelligentsia suddenly had the strength to yelp at a distant enemy who is unlikely to hear them, much less harm them, but they still have neither the courage nor the conscience to tell the whole truth.
Historian Shukhrat Salamov, one of the activists who recalled the "Cotton case", in an interview with the state agency UzA published on May 7, went so far as to call the investigation conducted in the UzSSR in the 1980s by the USSR Prosecutor General's Office a "crime against humanity".
Earlier, he and four other comrades called on the Prosecutor General's Office of Uzbekistan to initiate a criminal case against the head of the investigation team from Moscow, now 78-year-old pensioner Telman Gdlyan, and even demanded the involvement of international mechanisms for his extradition to Uzbekistan, like his colleagues.
The "cotton case" was investigated in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic between 1983 and 1989, becoming the first and largest action in the USSR against corruption and embezzlement of the state treasury, Gdlyan claims.
But, according to him, the investigators were not going to stop only at Uzbekistan, but intended to continue the fight against corruption in other republics of the Land of Soviets, including in the regions of Russia.
But, as Gdlyan C-1 said, many corruption threads led to Moscow, which was shown by developments already in Uzbekistan, for this reason this case was hushed up, and new ones were not initiated.
The fact that the UzSSR was drowning in corruption, and it could not give 6 million tons of cotton under any circumstances, but only thanks to postscripts and bribes that went into the pockets of all checking bosses, including from Moscow, everyone will surely agree.
But nevertheless, the "Cotton business", the scope with which it was carried out, the coverage in the Soviet press, where the Uzbeks were often presented as medieval savages, became a matter of honor for the citizens of the country, it was perceived as an act of public humiliation and flogging of the entire Uzbek people.
Many carried this feeling in themselves in the 80s, it escalated in the first years of the country's independence, during a surge of national ideas and self-awareness, and now, apparently, it has revived again with the coming to power of a more liberal leader, Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
These feelings are understandable. I share them. Knowing especially closely the story of the main person involved in the "Cotton Case" - Akhmadjon Adylov, remembering the tears of his brothers, adult strong men who talked about the death of their mother - in the absence of the arrested sons, the old woman knocked over a cauldron with boiling water and died ...
But I don't understand how a historian like Shukhrat Salamov can have such a short memory. Or, to be quite direct, why push the country again with half-truths, hypocrisy? Who needs it?
The historian must remember that the "Cotton business" was used by Islam Karimov, the first president of independent Uzbekistan, he undertook the rehabilitation of the entire republic, which means the rehabilitation and return of Akhmadjon Adylov to the country, and then he himself imprisoned him for many years ... In including the charges brought by Gdlyan!
A resident of the village of Gurumsaray in the Pap district of the Namangan region, the head of the most advanced agro-industrial complex in the USSR, which employed 40 thousand people, which included 14 state farms and 17 small enterprises, Adylov has been under arrest in Moscow since 1984 - he was a key figure in the "Cotton case" .
After seven years of investigation, in April 1991, the trial of Adylov and a group of people began in Moscow, but the case fell apart: there was no evidence of their guilt.
On November 15, 1991, Karimov personally wrote a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR Smolentsev E.A. with a request to transfer the consideration of the case of Akhmadjon Adylov to the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan.
“Adylov himself has been in custody for 8 years without a sentence, and the case has dragged on so long that it causes serious criticism from the population,” Karimov said in a letter to Smolentsev.
Moscow was glad to hand over the Adylov case, which failed. In November 1991, he returned to his homeland, and on December 24 the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan released him from custody on a written undertaking not to leave.
Rumors spread throughout Uzbekistan that Karimov had given freedom to Adylov. The release came just days before the presidential election in which Islam Karimov and his rival, the chairman of the Erk Democratic Party, Muhammad Salih, ran.
Adylov called on the people in the Ferghana Valley - the largest part of Uzbekistan - to vote for Islam Karimov.
But Akhmadjon-aka is not the kind of person who could remain in the shadow and subordination of Karimov for a long time. He could not live away from politics, and in 1992 he created the Timur social justice party, and was also frank about the fact that he intended to punish everyone who participated in the fabrication of the case against him.
As a result, at the end of 1992, Akhmadjon Adylov was again arrested. The accusation against him sounded ridiculous: he allegedly stole 5 tons of ammophos (mineral fertilizer. - Note C-1). Despite the lack of evidence, he was sentenced to five years in prison.
In addition, in 1994 Uzbekistan initiated a continuation litigation, started in Moscow based on the materials of the investigation team of Telman Gdlyan. But, as Adylov's relatives told me, the attitude towards all the defendants and their relatives was much worse than in Moscow.
Initially, it was decided to hold the trial in Yangiyer, a small town near Tashkent, 400 km from Namangan, where the main witnesses in the Adylov case live. But in this small town there were no conditions for people who came from afar: no hotels, no water, no toilets.
In the end, it was possible to transfer the court to the Papal District. There, on July 15, the verdict was announced for crimes allegedly committed during the years of the USSR in the Pap region - Akhmadjon Adylov was sentenced to 10 years in prison, his younger brother Muminjon Adylov was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.
In 1996, Akhmadjon Adylov's term in prison was supposed to end, taking into account the time spent under investigation since 1984, he had to leave prison. But unexpectedly, “drugs are found” on him and again condemned to three years.
On similar charges, Adylov's term was further extended in 2001, then in 2004, and for the last time in 2007 for three years.
Adylov was released only in 2008 at the age of 83. By this time, he had almost lost his sight, and from the moment he was released, he did not show any claims to political activity, did not participate in public life, and did not speak to the press. He died in 2017 at the age of 92.
Will today's historians of the country have the courage to talk about the mockery of Akhmadjon Adylov already in independent Uzbekistan? About 16 years in an Uzbek prison at the behest of Islam Karimov, about the ruined life of that very symbol of the "unfair" "Cotton business"?
Or is Gdlyan the only one to blame for everything?..
Galima Bukharbaeva - Chief Editor C 1
On May 20, 1986, the military cordoned off the central square of Tashkent. Soldiers opened the memorial of the former first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan Sharaf Rashidov. The remains of the party functionary were buried in a common cemetery. Rumors spread among the population: it was not Rashidov, but his double. Allegedly, the first secretary himself disappeared along with a huge amount of money received from the postscripts of the cotton harvest - a grandiose scam, which was first called the "Uzbek case", and then, in order not to offend national feelings, the "Cotton case".
Republic of contrasts
Since the 1960s, cotton in the USSR was considered a strategic raw material, part of it was sold for export. The country produced up to 8 million tons per year, of which 5.5 to 6 million were supplied by Uzbekistan. But this was done only on paper.
Inflated production plans were simply unbearable for the republic. Therefore, at all stages of the delivery of cotton to the state, fictitious reporting flourished.
At first, registrations were made at the brigade level. Then they were continued by the chairmen of collective farms. Next are the heads of regions and the head of Uzbekistan. The state regularly paid for non-existent cotton, about half of this money went to the needs of the republic, a quarter went to bribes, and the rest ended up in the pockets of the republican authorities.
In order to somehow justify postscripts, a whole system was developed related to the work of light industry. Wastes were sent to factories under the guise of cotton, instead of full wagons they were empty (the signing of the relevant documents in this case was accompanied by a bribe of 10 thousand rubles), cotton regularly "spoiled" and "burned" in warehouses.
But the production plan of the republic was considered fulfilled, and its leaders were honored as advanced workers. In particular, Sharaf Rashidov in 1974 and 1977 twice became the Hero of Socialist Labor, had 10 (!) Orders of Lenin and a large number of other awards.
Vladimir Kalinichenko, an investigator for particularly important cases under the USSR Prosecutor General, who participated in the investigation of the Cotton Case, cited the following figures in an interview: from 1979 to 1984, at least 5 million tons of cotton were attributed. For them, 3 billion rubles were paid from the state budget. 1.6 billion went to the infrastructure of Uzbekistan: roads, hospitals, schools. The remaining 1.4 billion rubles were spent on bribes and stolen by the nomenklatura leadership of the republic.
Thanks to this money, feudal orders were revived in Uzbekistan: each boss, paying tribute “upstairs”, disposed of the people and resources of the collective farm or district as his own property. The horrendous poverty of ordinary workers contrasted sharply with the luxurious palaces and family estates of the chairmen of collective farms and secretaries of district committees.
East is a delicate matter
The most odious figure in Uzbekistan was considered Akhmadzhan Adylov, who headed the largest association in the USSR of 17 collective farms, 14 state farms and became the actual owner of the Ferghana Valley. The newspapers were full of stories about him. outstanding achievements in area Agriculture. But the local population knew something else: Adylov turned the working collective farms and state farms into his slaves. He arbitrarily increased the amount of working time, even pregnant women had to go out into the fields, and a special prison was built for the recalcitrant, where people were tortured and starved.
Adylov became one of the main defendants in the Cotton Case, he was arrested in 1984, he spent eight years in Butyrka prison - until the Soviet Union collapsed. Then the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov got his case considered by the court of the republic, Adylov was taken to Tashkent and released on bail.
But relations with Karimov did not work out for the former feudal lord. The released prisoner decided to take up political activities and organizing his own party. Soon Adylov was sentenced to four years for stealing five tons of fertilizer, then, already in prison, the term was constantly extended for disobedience to the administration and possession of drugs. As a result, he was released only in 2008 at the age of 83.
Sudden death
Attempts to stop fraud with cotton registrations in Soviet Uzbekistan began as early as 1948, when the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Sergei Kruglov, informed the country's top leadership that extracts of fictitious receipts for the receipt of products were widely used there. But neither Stalin, nor Khrushchev, who succeeded him, nor Brezhnev, who later came to power, attached importance to the scale of corruption in the republic. Only in 1983, when the former head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, became Secretary General, a group of investigators from the USSR Prosecutor General's Office led by Telman Gdlyan and Nikolai Ivanov was sent to Uzbekistan.
The "cotton business" began with the fact that in Bukhara, while receiving a bribe of 1000 rubles, the head of the local OBKhSS A. Muzafarov was detained. During a search in his house, valuables worth 1.5 million Soviet rubles were found (Muzafarov's salary was 180 rubles a month). The head of the Bukhara OBKhSS did not deny and told about his accomplices, after which the arrests went one after another. Testimony was obtained that bribes were taken by the leaders of the high level up to the head of the republic.
On October 31, 1983, Sharaf Rashidov, who led the Communist Party of Uzbekistan for a quarter of a century, died under circumstances that were not fully clarified. By official version from cerebral hemorrhage. According to those who worked with him, he committed suicide, because on that day Andropov called him and directly asked: how many real and how many attributed tons of cotton will be this year? According to rumors, Rashidov disappeared, leaving behind a dead double.
The former first secretary (most historians believe that there was no double) was buried in the center of Tashkent, and a luxurious memorial complex began to be built at the burial site.
Why milk cans are needed
Investigations related to the Cotton Case continued until 1989. The new first secretary of the Communist Party of the Republic, Inamjon Usmankhodzhaev, who replaced Rashidov (before that, he was the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR), brought in as an accused, testified against members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU - E. Ligachev, V. Grishin, G. Romanov, M. Solomentsev .
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, who headed the restructuring of the country, could not allow this. The top leaders of the party and the country were to remain beyond suspicion. After all, no one expected that the Soviet Union would collapse in two years.
First of all, we had to change public opinion. Show that employees of the Prosecutor General's Office are wrong, not bribe-takers.
In 1989, Literaturnaya Gazeta published an essay by Olga Tchaikovskaya, The Myth, about the incorrect methods of work of investigators Gdlyan and Ivanov. The baton was picked up by other printed publications, because almost all of them were organs of the Communist Party. Employees of the Prosecutor General's Office were accused of not observing procedural norms and knocking out testimonies from detainees in order to become famous and become people's deputies of the USSR. Many defendants in the case have filed lawsuits alleging that they were mistreated during interrogations.
The investigators were also blamed for the fact that during the searches they did not carefully describe the seized jewelry. But many of the arrested had gold and jewelry worth hundreds of thousands of rubles in hiding places, large milk cans and earthenware vessels buried in the ground were stuffed with jewelry. If each thing had to be given a detailed written description, this work would take several months. Therefore, the jewelry was weighed, placed in sealed bags and sent to the Prosecutor General's Office, so that later a special commission would carefully examine and evaluate them.
The position of the investigators was aggravated by the fact that in some cases they actually violated the law. And although Telman Gdlyan loudly promised to present "compromising suitcases" to the top leadership of the party, the final confrontation between the investigation team and the top of the CPSU turned out to be calm: Gdlyan and Ivanov were quietly fired from the prosecutor's office, but they were not put on trial, the "compromising suitcases" disappeared somewhere, no one from the top leadership of the Soviet Union was not prosecuted for taking bribes.
Blame Moscow?
The "cotton case" could not be brought to an end, although about four thousand defendants were convicted as a result of it, and only the head of the local State Security Service, Islam Karimov, retained his post from the top leadership of Uzbekistan. As soon as it became clear that the top of the CPSU was involved in corruption schemes, the work of the investigators was frozen. Nevertheless, it was the "Cotton business" that played essential role in the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union, whose population learned about the extent of the theft of the party elite.
In 1991, Islam Karimov, who became president of Uzbekistan, pardoned all those convicted in this case who were serving sentences on the territory of the republic (there were an overwhelming majority of them). At present, the local press, historical works and even school textbooks say that the "Cotton case" was fabricated by the union center in order to humiliate the national pride of the Uzbek people.
Margarita KAPSKAYA
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Until now, this whole case is associated with the names of Ivanov and Gdlyan (the investigation team of the USSR Prosecutor General's Office ("Gdlyan-Ivanov group"), which investigated corruption in the highest echelon of power in Uzbekistan) ...
Many have probably heard about the "cotton case" - the main criminal process of perestroika. Do you know how it happened? There is a reason to remember - 12/25/1991. (that is, the day before the legal consolidation of the cessation of the existence of the USSR) President of Uzbekistan I. Karimov pardoned all those convicted in the "Uzbek case" who were serving sentences on the territory of the republic. And now in Uzbekistan that story is assessed as follows: “At the end of the 80s, the “cotton case” was fabricated, which was referred to as the “Uzbek case”, which brought humiliation to the national pride of the Uzbek people.”
To put it simply, it's just pieces of cotton on the branches
By 1980, cotton in the USSR had become a strategic raw material, a source of currency, and it was exported. At the same time, on average, out of 8 million tons of cotton officially produced in the USSR annually, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan each gave one million, and a little Azerbaijan. And 6 million tons were produced in Uzbekistan, and cotton then occupied 65% of all irrigated land in Uzbekistan, which was turned into the main cotton base of the Soviet Union (currently Uzbekistan produces 5% of the world's cotton production).
From about the 60s, every year, plans for the production of cotton began to increase annually, until they reached the limit of the possibility of its production in the republic. In the really best, fruitful years, under good weather conditions, no more than five million tons per year could be collected in Uzbekistan. But the never-ending orders to increase cotton production, regardless of weather conditions, continued to come. And then, in response, there were "subscriptions" - reports on ever-higher numbers of cotton harvests.
It was done this way: an unrealistic order for the extraction of raw cotton was dumped on state farms and collective farms. They see that the amount of cotton set by the plan simply cannot be collected. And then they write fictitious time sheets for allegedly harvested cotton, and go to the cotton plant for a paper on the acceptance of a non-existent crop. The money received on fictitious reports for cotton, which is not available, basically goes to the management of the cotton plant.
This job is not easy
But the cotton factory also needs to hide the fact that it does not have cotton, and money is already flowing into the industry for processing raw cotton into raw materials for light industry. They write out papers on the acceptance of non-existent cotton from the cotton plant, and receive suitcases with money for this.
But they also need to hide that they have nothing to process, and then wagons are sent from Uzbekistan to the weaving and sewing enterprises of the Union republics, in which, under the guise of first-grade cotton, third-grade cotton is transported. Or under the guise of third grade cotton, cotton waste - lint and hoot. Or under the guise of wagons, to the eyeballs stuffed with cotton, the wagons are empty and half empty.
The leaders of the cotton enterprises of the Union republics issue documents stating that they have received full wagonloads of high-grade cotton in exchange for suitcases with money. Fixed fees were even set: for an empty Uzbek cotton wagon - a fee of ten thousand rubles, for a half-empty one with sorting - three to six thousand. And the shaft of postscripts and write-offs is already rolling through the weaving and sewing enterprises further - into trade.
Throughout this chain, the amount of cotton harvested in Uzbekistan decreased on paper due to its shrinkage, shrinkage, and fumes. And in Uzbekistan they reported on the early fulfillment and overfulfillment of the plans of the party and government (they are also socialist obligations). State farms-collective farms reported to the district committees, those to the regional committees, those to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR, the latter to the Central Committee of the CPSU, with submissions to Moscow for orders and titles of Heroes of Socialist Labor.
I repeat, under the most favorable circumstances, no more than five million tons per year could be harvested in the republic. In bad years - four tons. And the reporting cost was six million annually, and the state paid for these six million. The postscripts on cotton are now estimated at one and a half billion Soviet rubles, but no one knows the exact figure.
Tashkent metro
Part of this money went to the infrastructure that was being created in Uzbekistan: schools, roads, hospitals, including the construction of the Tashkent metro at the expense of part of this money. The resolution on its construction was adopted with the condition of the republic's equity participation, otherwise Moscow refused to finance the project.
Part of the money was spent on bribes from top to bottom along the entire chain from the Uzbek collective farm / state farm to the weaving / clothing factory / combine. With this money, the “bai order” was revived in Uzbekistan: paying tribute to the top, each participant in this scheme fed from his patrimony, managing money, equipment, buildings, and even ordinary workers as his property. Amidst the horrendous poverty of the villages, this money was used to build luxurious palaces of collective farm chairmen and state farm directors, as well as family estates of the Soviet nomenklatura with courts and swimming pools.
And part of these funds went to Moscow, but in an interesting way (and this was a trifle compared to the total amount). Suppose an employee of the Central Committee of the CPSU is called before the holiday by a petty official from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR “We want to give fruits to your family - we have such a custom”. A box of apples, grapes and other sultanas is loaded onto the plane and delivered to the apartment of the party apparatchik. The wife opens the parcel in the kitchen, and there are 10 thousand rubles.
The person does not know who transferred this money to him, for anything in particular. Knows just from Uzbekistan. So what should he do? Go and write a memorandum: so they say so, I don’t know who, I don’t know why they threw 10 thousand? They drag you in, torture you with questions, and even make you guilty. And a petty official from Tashkent will say: I don’t know anything about any money, I handed over fruit. And don't throw money away...
This is how it all went on for years, until Brezhnev died ...
Leonid Brezhnev and Sharaf Rashidov
Moscow investigators came to grips with Uzbekistan under Andropov, and it is believed that this caused the sudden death of the owner of the republic, Sharaf Rashidov (there were rumors of his suicide). The investigative group worked in Uzbekistan for six years until 1989, by the beginning of which, within the framework of the “cotton case”, 790 criminal cases were considered by the courts, in which more than 20 thousand people were involved.
Of these, about 4,500 people were prosecuted, including: the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, Usmankhodzhaev; Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic Khudaiberdiev; 3 secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan; 7 first secretaries of regional committees; 430 directors of state farms and chairmen of collective farms and 1,300 of their deputies and chief specialists; 84 directors of cotton factories and 340 chief specialists of these factories; 150 light industry workers in Uzbekistan, the RSFSR, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Azerbaijan; party, Soviet workers, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor's office.
Brezhnev's son-in-law General Churbanov also fell under the distribution, and with him 6 more generals of the Uzbek police. Four high-profile defendants committed suicide before trial. Usmanov, the minister of the cotton-cleaning industry of Uzbekistan, and Muzafarov, head of the OBKhSS of the Bukhara region, were sentenced to death. During the searches, jewelry and money worth hundreds of millions of rubles were seized.
April 28, 1988 in the Marble Hall of the USSR Prosecutor's Office, an exhibition was held
Among those prosecuted in this case, Uzbeks and Slavs were almost equally divided, so calling the “cotton case” an “Uzbek case” is indeed not entirely correct. And you know what I'll say? Compared to what began in the Soviet Union after 1989, and continues in the fragments of the USSR to this day, it all looks so small...
Gold for the party. The secret of Rashid's millions.
Night from 20 to 21 May 1986. The central square of Tashkent is cordoned off by the military. Several people in civilian clothes are watching as the soldiers move the tombstone and open the grave, located in the park on the square. Here was buried the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR Sharaf Rashidovich Rashidov. But who is really in the grave? Is it really a double, and that one, the other, disappeared, taking the stolen millions? Where did the fabulous money from cotton additions go? Who promoted the famous "cotton business"? How did it all start and how did it end? How did Rashidov's promise to Brezhnev to pick more cotton turn into a tragedy for the Uzbek people?
Released: Channel 5
