Sharof Rashidov

Sharaf Rashidov Шароф Рашидович Рашидов
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan
In office 15 March 1959 – 31 October 1983
Preceded by	Sobir Kamolov
Succeeded by	Inomjon Usmonxo‘jayev
Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
In office 21 August 1950 – 24 March 1959
Preceded by	Sobir Kamolov
Succeeded by	Amin Niyazov or Yadgar Nasriddinov
Candidate member of the 22nd, 23rd, 24th , 25th, 26th Politburo
In office 31 October 1961 – 31 October 1983
Full member of the 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th Central Committee
In office 31 October 1961 – 31 October 1983
Personal details
Born	(1917-11-06)6 November 1917 Jizzakh, Russian Republic (now Uzbekistan)
Died	31 October 1983(1983-10-31) (aged 65) Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union (now Uzbekistan)
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1939–1983)

Sharaf Rashidovich Rashidov (Uzbek Cyrillic: Шароф Рашидович Рашидов; Russian: Шараф Рашидович Рашидов Sharaf Rashidovich Rashidov; 6 November [O.S. 24 October] 1917 – 31 October 1983) was a Communist Party leader in the Uzbek SSR and a CPSU Central Committee Politburo candidate member between 1961 and 1983.

Born the day before the Russian Revolution to a poor peasant family in Jizzakh, Uzbekistan, Sharaf Rashidov worked as a teacher, journalist and editor for a Samarkand newspaper. He returned home in 1942 with wounds suffered on the German front in World War 2. He became head of the Uzbekistan Writers Union in 1949, and was elected to the post of Chairman of the Praesidium of the Uzbek Supreme Soviet in 1950. In 1959, he became First Secretary of the Uzbek Communist Party, a post he held to his death in 1983.

In the Soviet Union his name became synonymous with corruption, nepotism and the Great Cotton Scandal of the late Brezhnev period. As orders from Moscow to grow increasing quantities of cotton, the Uzbek government responded by reporting miraculous growth in land irrigated and harvested, and record improvements in production and efficiency. Today it would seem that most of these records were falsified. The Uzbek leadership used these exaggerated figures to transfer substantial amounts of wealth from central Soviet funds into Uzbekistan. Rashidov died on 31 October 1983 in Jizzakh. Immediately after his death, rumors spread that he had realized he was about to be disgraced and thus committed suicide. However, this has never been confirmed.

Sharof Rashidov Street in Tashkent.

During the decade following the death of Rashidov, Moscow attempted to regain the central control over the Uzbek SSR, which had weakened in the previous decade. In 1986, it was announced that almost the entire party and government leadership of the republic had conspired in falsifying cotton production figures. A massive purge of the Uzbek leadership was carried out, with prosecutors brought in from Moscow, leading to widespread arrests, executions, and suicides. It may never be known how high the corruption extended, as Brezhnev's own son-in-law, Yuri Churbanov was implicated in the affair. In the rest of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan became synonymous with corruption even though such corruption was widespread throughout the whole Union. After Uzbekistan's independence, Rashidov re-emerged as a national hero. He is seen in Uzbekistan as having been a strong leader who found a way to cleverly defy Moscow and "beat the system" while managing to create a situation where Uzbekistan became quite autonomous of central control.

See also

• The Pyramid. The Soviet Mafia