In the early 20th century, the turmoil of World War I and the Russian Civil War plunged the Kazakh people into one of the most tragic periods of their history. The promise of a new Soviet era, which advertised equality and prosperity for all, quickly soured. Instead of liberation, Moscow launched a brutal campaign of social engineering that aimed to shatter Kazakhstan's national identity, dismantle its traditional way of life, and ultimately decimate its population.
A Society Divided by Decree
Beginning in the 1920s, the Soviet regime deliberately sowed class division within Kazakh society. Wealthy pastoralists, known as bais, along with middle-class peasants, were systematically branded as “class enemies” and enemies of the state. During the 1923 3rd Party Conference in Orenburg, the Communist Party of Kazakhstan officially shifted its focus from addressing national interests to instilling “class consciousness” among the rural poor.
This strategy was a clear attempt to crush any movement toward national autonomy and undermine the influence of the Alash intelligentsia, who had previously championed Kazakh self-determination. Visionary figures like Smaǵul Sädwakasov, a prominent Kazakh communist, warned against this forced class struggle, arguing for a path of peaceful reform and gradual economic development. For their dissent, he and his supporters – including N. Nurmakov, J. Myńbaev, and S. Qojanov – were labeled “nationalists,” a charge that marked them for persecution.
Goloshchyokin and the 'Little October' Revolution
The campaign intensified dramatically in 1925 when Moscow dispatched Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin to serve as the First Secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee. A ruthless enforcer of the party line, Goloshchyokin declared that Kazakhstan had never experienced a true socialist revolution and therefore required its own “Little October” (Kishi Qazan).
His goal was to violently drag what he saw as a feudal society into the communist future, bypassing any organic development. Under his leadership, any consideration for national culture or local conditions was abandoned in favor of absolute central control, ideological suppression, and a radical restructuring of the rural economy fueled by manufactured class conflict.
The War on the Steppe: Confiscation and Forced Settlement
In 1928, the state unleashed a full-scale assault on the traditional Kazakh economy. A campaign to confiscate the property of wealthy families began, targeting over 700 large-scale herding households. These families, the cornerstones of the pastoral economy, were stripped of their livestock, land, tools, and homes. In a particularly cruel turn, more than 600 families were exiled to remote, barren regions. The campaign's enforcers were often fellow Kazakhs from poorer backgrounds, a tactic that successfully poisoned communities with suspicion and resentment.
Immediately following the confiscations, the regime initiated the forced sedentarization of nomadic and semi-nomadic herders. This policy shattered a way of life that had sustained the people of the steppe for a millennium. With no meaningful financial or material support, hundreds of thousands of Kazakhs were herded into hastily built settlements on lands completely unsuitable for agriculture, leading to mass impoverishment and social collapse.
Silencing a Generation: The Purge of the Intelligentsia
To ensure its revolution faced no intellectual opposition, the Soviet regime systematically hunted down the Kazakh national intelligentsia. The primary targets were the former leaders of the Alash movement, who represented the intellectual heart of the nation.
By the late 1920s, the most brilliant minds of a generation – figures like Akhmet Baitursynuly, Mirjaqip Dulatuly, Khalel Dospamqameduly, Jaqyp Aqbaev, and Magjan Jumabayev – were arrested. Many were executed or died in the gulags. The Soviet authorities viewed these men not just as political rivals, but as living symbols of national liberation. Their physical elimination was a calculated act to erase the historical and ideological foundations of Kazakh identity and silence any alternative vision for the country's future.
The Machinery of Famine: Requisitions and Repression
From 1928 onward, Kazakhstan was bled dry by relentless grain and meat requisition campaigns. The state imposed impossible quotas, even on pastoralist regions that produced little to no grain. Failure to comply was not an option. Under Article 107 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, anyone caught withholding food – even to feed their own family – faced imprisonment or execution.
The state’s cruelty was codified in the infamous “Law of August 7, 1932,” which made all collective property sacred. This law effectively meant that a starving peasant who took a handful of grain from a collective field could be sentenced to death. A climate of terror descended upon the countryside, turning neighbors into informants and local officials into instruments of a merciless state.
The End of a Way of Life: Collectivization
The final blow came in 1930 with the official start of forced collectivization. In Kazakhstan, this process was executed with a speed and brutality that exceeded almost every other region of the USSR. By 1933, more than half of the republic's 1.2 million peasant households had been economically and socially destroyed.
Special tribunals known as “troikas” were created to accelerate the deportation of so-called kulaks. Tens of thousands of families were rounded up and exiled to desolate, uninhabited regions with no resources, shelter, or even water. This policy did more than just ruin the economy; it destroyed the very social fabric of the Kazakh nation.
Asharshylyq: The Great Famine
These destructive policies culminated in the catastrophic famine of 1932–1933, known in Kazakh as the Asharshylyq. The combination of confiscation, forced settlement, impossible requisitions, and collectivization left millions without livestock, food, or shelter.
The human cost was staggering. Out of a total population of 6.2 million in the republic, an estimated 2.1 million people died. The toll on ethnic Kazakhs was even more horrific: nearly 40% of their entire population perished. Another million people fled their homeland, seeking refuge in neighboring republics, China, and Iran. Eyewitness accounts from this period describe unimaginable horrors of mass starvation, cannibalism, and the complete disintegration of society. This catastrophe, born directly from state policy, is regarded by many historians and the nation of Kazakhstan as an act of genocide.
Conclusion
The 1920s and 1930s represent a period of profound trauma in Kazakh history. The Soviet regime's brutal campaign of social engineering led to the annihilation of the traditional economy, the execution of the national elite, and the death and displacement of millions of its people. The scars left by the Asharshylyq, political repression, and cultural erasure are etched deeply into the collective memory of the Kazakh nation.
Remembering this history is not simply an academic exercise. It is a vital act of honoring the victims and a solemn reminder to the world of the human cost of totalitarian ideologies, ensuring such a tragedy is never forgotten and never repeated.
References
Qoygeldiev, M. The Alash Movement. Almaty, 1995.
Abylkhozhin, Zh.B. Kazakhstan: The People and Power in the 1920s. Almaty, 1993.
Tursynov, Q. National Intelligentsia and Soviet Politics. Astana, 2014.
Qudaybergenova, B. Collectivization and Famine in Kazakhstan. Almaty, 2009.
Central State Archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
