SUMMARY:

This article examines the way that de-Stalinization and Soviet engagement in the Third World provided Central Asian elites with an opportunity to redefine the terms of their republics’ cultural and economic participation in the Soviet Union. Drawing on archival materials, memoirs, and interviews, the article traces the careers of a number of key figures and examines their efforts to negotiate cultural and economic modernization by positioning themselves as Khrushchev’s allies in de-Stalinization and the struggle for the Third World. The wave of decolonization occurring beyond the USSR’s borders provided the impetus to complete the “decolonization” of the Central Asian republics within a Soviet framework.