GreyAtlas’s Reviews > The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire > Status Update

In the
mid-1960s and again in the late 1970s, the Bulgarian
leader Todor Zhivkov had even applied to
the Soviet Union to incorporate Bulgaria as the
sixteenth republic of the Union

Administratively, Central Asia was initially
organized into two union republics - Uzbekistan
and Turkmenistan - and three autonomous republics,
Kazakhstan, Kirghizia and Tajikistan. (In
the 1930s, the last three were upgraded to full
union status ) This was a classic example of
divide and rule by the Soviet government.