This article examines the fact that the Uzbek SSR devoted a large part of its natural resources and human capital to cotton cultivation, while other sectors of agriculture and industry remained underdeveloped. It highlights the fact that extensive irrigation systems were built to increase cotton yields, which ultimately led to the drying up of the Aral Sea - a global ecological disaster. It also highlights and analyzes the strengthening of the cotton monopoly policy in the agriculture of the Uzbek SSR and its consequences from a historical perspective.
Choriyev Fazliddin Nasriddinovich (2025) studied this question.