If a nation does not know its history, if the country loses its history, then its citizens have nowhere to go.
Mirzhakyp Dulatuly

Collectivization in Kazakhstan: Historical aspects

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Collectivization in Kazakhstan: Historical aspects - e-history.kz
(from COLLECTION OF MATERIALS of International scientific conference «GREAT FAMINE IN KAZAKHSTAN: TRAGEDY OF THE NATION AND THE LESSONS OF HISTORY») published in Astana, 2012

The tragedy of collectivization is actually, inexhaustible subject, requiring the creation of multi-volume scientific researches, the detailed analysis of fi les, the comprehensive studying of statistical data. However, only in the years of the independence, the scientists of our country received the possibility to study this problem in full. It’s known, that in the 1988-th the scientific conference «Collectivization in the republics of the Central Asia and the Kazakhstan: experience and problems» took place. Just from this period the new vision of problems of collectivization, free from ideological cliches and limitations has been created. At the period of the 20-th years the Soviet government carries out complex socio-economic transformations, attaching importance to the industrialization of the country. Plenum of the CPSU (b) approves the high rates of collectivization on a legal level, and this gives rise to a race pace for the complete collectivization in the shortest time. The destruction of the Kazakh village has become the basis of Stalin’s experiment, deployed in the well-known marxist theory «possible move backward peoples from feudalism directly to socialism, bypassing capitalism». «The main result of power’s activity is the destruction of traditional forms of management and the suppression of the potential protest, which could be several times stronger than in the economically strong village. The well-known demographer M. Tatymov underlined: «The brutal campaign to complete collectivization was hastily, without any preconditioning». Three thousand years of nomadic animal husbandry practice was to «terminate» in just three years (1931–1933)» (ТатимовМ., ТатимоваМ. ТрагедияВеликойстепи // Мысль. -2009. -№6.). The central government was at pains to fulfill by any price targets setting for the procurement of agricultural products which was performed even the most diffi cult period of mass starvation – in the winter of 1932. «In the famine of the 30-s years, of the XX-th century killed 2 million 300 thousand of Kazakhs and 200 thousand of representatives of other nations» (ТəтімовМ. Қазақ əлемі. Алматы, 1993). Analyzing the tragic events, the American historian, M.B. Olcott, stresses: «In Kazakhstan, a rare exception is the family, senior representatives who did not die in the process of collectivization and repressions. Countless families have died out completely, leaving no one who could restore their names today » [ОлкоттМ.Б. СоветскоенаследиеКазахстана. www. asia kz.com /rus/ article. 103.].

Based on the above, the history of collectivization requires a thorough, comprehensive study, poses new challenges to national historical science.

Data was given from the Institute of State History, Committee of Science of The Ministry of Education and Science