> What feudal lords? From the article's description it seems like they were basically on their own before the Soviet Union came in.

The Alai region was not "feudal" in the European sense but it was a tribal system where power was centralized in a layer of elite lords. While pastures were communal and not "owned" by individuals, livestock was private and literate, wealthy aristocratic elites owned massive herds using their prestige to command the loyalty of poorer tribal members

The Soviet government was actively working to replace the Arabic literacy of these elites with Latin and Cyrillic script to break the their influence