Everyday Shipping: A Market in Early Soviet Tajikistan
This article analyzes the Tajikistan ssr’s commodity chains in the early 1930s. I argue that a market for shipping services was instrumental to Soviet economic growth in the republic’s southern regions. Dispersed and ad hoc operations dominated goods exchanges vital to development at a time when the administration in Moscow was working to further centralize control of societal change. This analysis of the relationships between shipping agencies and economic organizations in southern Tajikistan shows that individuals put the transportation of cargo ahead of concerns about conforming to government mandates, including economic and nationalities policies. Importantly, the centralizing state often licensed such activities because they supported large-scale plans.