page_title: Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic
section_title: Pre-independence
hierarchical_section_title: Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic / History / Pre-independence
caption_attribution_description: English: “First stage in the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan”. A ceremonial march. Soviet soldiers-internationalists returning from the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Русский: «Первый этап вывода советских войск из Афганистана». Торжественный марш. Возвращение советских воинов-интернационалистов из Демократической Республики Афганистан. Туркменистан, Кушка
context_page_description: The Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly known as Turkmenistan or Turkmenia, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union located in Central Asia existed as a republic from 1925 to 1991. Initially, on 7 August 1921, it was established as the Turkmen Oblast of the Turkestan ASSR before being made, on 13 May 1925, a separate republic of the USSR as the Turkmen SSR.
  Since then the borders of the Turkmenia were unchanged. On 22 August 1990, Turkmenia declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. On 27 October 1991, it became independent as Turkmenistan.
  Geographically, Turkmenia was bordered between Iran, Afghanistan to the south, Caspian Sea to the west, Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the east.
context_section_description: Beginning in the 1930s, Moscow kept the republic under firm control. The nationalities policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) fostered the development of a Turkmen political elite and promoted Russification. Slavs, both in Moscow and Turkmenia, closely supervised the national cadre of government officials and bureaucrats; generally, the Turkmen leadership staunchly supported Soviet policies. Moscow initiated nearly all political activity in the republic, and, except for a corruption scandal in the mid-1980s that ousted longtime First Secretary Muhammetnazar Gapurow, Turkmenistan remained a quiet Soviet republic. Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika did not have a significant impact on Turkmenistan, as many people there were self-dependent, and settlers of the territory and the Soviet Union's ministers rarely intertwined. The republic found itself rather unprepared for the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the independence that followed in 1991.
  When other constituent republics of the Soviet Union advanced claims to sovereignty in 1988 and 1989, Turkmenia's leadership also began to criticize Moscow's economic and political policies as exploitative and detrimental to the well-being and pride of the Turkmen. By a unanimous vote of its Supreme Soviet, Turkmenistan declared its sovereignty in August 1990. After the August 1991 coup attempt against the Gorbachev regime in Moscow, Turkmenia's communist leader Saparmurat Niyazov called for a popular referendum on independence. The official result of the referendum was 94 percent in favor of independence. The republic's Supreme Soviet had little choice other than to declare Turkmenistan's independence from the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Republic of Turkmenistan on October 27, 1991. Turkmenistan gained independence from the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991.
caption: Soviet soldiers returning from Afghanistan. 20 October 1986,  Kushka, Turkmen SSR.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5174", "Image ImageLength": "3678", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "644463 20.10.1986 \u0422\u043e\u0440\u0436\u0435\u0441\u0442\u0432\u0435\u043d\u043d\u044b\u0439 \u043c\u0430\u0440\u0448. \u0412\u043e\u0437\u0432\u0440\u0430\u0449\u0435\u043d\u0438\u0435 \u0441\u043e\u0432\u0435\u0442\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0445 \u0432\u043e\u0438\u043d\u043e\u0432-\u0438\u043d\u0442\u0435\u0440\u043d\u0430\u0446\u0438\u043e\u043d\u0430\u043b\u0438\u0441\u0442\u043e\u0432 \u0438\u0437 \u0414\u0435\u043c\u043e\u043a\u0440\u0430\u0442\u0438\u0447\u0435\u0441\u043a\u043e\u0439 \u0420\u0435\u0441\u043f\u0443\u0431\u043b\u0438\u043a\u0438 \u0410\u0444\u0433\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0441\u0442\u0430\u043d. \u042e\u0440\u0438\u0439 \u0421\u043e\u043c\u043e\u0432/\u0420\u0418\u0410 \u041d\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0441\u0442\u0438", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2012:01:25 12:31:14", "Image Artist": "\u042e\u0440\u0438\u0439 \u0421\u043e\u043c\u043e\u0432", "Image ExifOffset": "544", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "730", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7863", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "1986:10:20 00:00:00+03:00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "728"}