The name Tajik refers to the name of a pre-Islamic tribe that existed before the seventh century A.D. Based on the Library of Congress's 1997 Country Study of Tajikistan, it is difficult to definitively state the origins of the word "Tajik" citing due to its "embroiled in twentieth-century political disputes about whether Turkic or Iranian peoples were the original inhabitants of Central Asia.

"[1] The name of the country was often spelt "Tadzhikistan" in the English language during Soviet times due to it being borrowed directly from the Russian spelling "Таджикистан", where the letters 'дж' produce a 'j' sound.

At that time, its capital was renamed Stalinabad, after Joseph Stalin, and the territory that is now northern Tajikistan (Sughd Province) was added to the new republic.

Even with the additional territory, the Tajik SSR remained the smallest Central Asian republic.

The first state schools, available to both children and adults and designed to provide basic education, opened in 1926.

Most people still lived in rural qishlaqs, settlements that were composed of 200 to 700 one-family houses built along a waterway.

[citation needed] After Stalin's death in March 1953, Stalinabad was renamed Dushanbe on 10 November 1961 as part of the de-Stalinization program.

Yaqub Salimov, a future Interior Minister, and some youth activists were convicted for participation in the riots.

[citation needed] Later on 24 August 1990, Tajik SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws.

By 1991, Tajikistan participated in a referendum in March as part of the attempt to preserve the union with a turnout of 96.85%.

On 9 September 1991, Tajikistan seceded from the Soviet Union months before the country itself ceased to exist on 26 December 1991.

[citation needed] Tajikistan was the only Central Asian Republic to not form an army under the Soviet Armed Forces.

Mining activities concentrated on the extraction of brown coal and oil and natural gas.

Chemical industrial plants included one for nitrogen fertilizer in Kurgan-Tube, electrochemical products in Yovon, and plastics in Dushanbe.