Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic
Beginning in the 1930s, Moscow kept the republic under strict control. The nationalities policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) led to a 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, Turkmen politicians supported Soviet policies. Moscow initiated nearly all political activity in the republic. Turkmenistan was a largely quiet Soviet republic. The only major poltiical event was a corruption scandal in the mid-1980s that ousted longtime First Secretary Muhammetnazar Gapurow. Many Turkmens were self-dependent, contributing to the low impact of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika on Turkmenistan. The republic found itself rather unprepared for the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the independence that followed in 1991.