THE KAZAKH STEPPE: FROM RUSSIAN EMPIRE TO SOVIET UTOPIA

It is telling that Viktor Naneyshvili, a revolutionary from Kutaisi who was appointed executive secretary of the Kazakh party organization in late 1924, wrote the following about Sultanbek Khodzhanov, the most active Turkestan politician who had moved to the Kazakh steppe: "He [Khodzhanov - author's note] believes that the Sirdaryo and Jetysu oblasts are the core of Kyrgyzstan, and around these oblasts, in his opinion, the Kyrgyz Republic should be formed." Moreover, "the composition of the Bureau of the Regional Committee causes him great dissatisfaction, because it does not give him the opportunity to lead in the Regional Committee. In any case, he is thinking of creating a united Kyrgyz front in the Obkom and pursuing his specific policy. He will do this with the greatest pressure (and he is capable of pressure), especially if we take into account the inactivity and sluggishness of other Kyrgyz officials."

Naneyshvili was right to point out that the Turkestanis were more attached to the newly annexed territories of Kazakhstan. For example, they insisted that the capital of Kazakhstan be moved further south, to Shymkent. However, this decision was eventually not approved, and the capital was moved to Ak-Mechet. Although Ak-Mechet (soon renamed Kyzylorda) was also part of the former Turkestan, it was in the territory of the Junior zhuz, while Shymkent was in the territory of the Senior zhuz, to which many Turkestanis belonged.

For the tribal Kazakh society of the 1920s, it was undoubtedly important where exactly the capital of the KASSR would be located. A significant number of Kazakh communists in the KASSR until 1924 came from the Junior zhuz, including Seytkali Mendeshev, by then a member of the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee. Semipalatinsk, which was also proposed as the capital, was located in the area of the Middle zhuz, to which a large group of Kazakh communists in the KASSR leadership belonged.

This situation led outside observers to claim that the political struggle among Kazakh communists could have tribal overtones. In July 1925, for example, Isaac Bekker, secretary of the Aktobe provincial party committee, wrote in a secret letter to the party's Central Committee: "The tribal grouping of the small horde led by Mendeshev, infected with ultra-leftism, is fighting against the other, which consists of the large horde led by Khodzhanov; it unites all the Kyrgyz cattle breeders, the middle and upper Bai peasantry, and, most importantly, almost all the former Alash-Orda … in its politics it plays on the national string." The third group includes "almost all the small and middle intelligentsia, led by Nurmakov, the president of the SPC, and Sadvakasov. The middle horde gathers around them, as well as a small part of the people of Alash-Orda, but most of all the intelligentsia that did not play a political role in the old days and under Alash-Orda. In politics and national issues it supports Khodzhanov's group against Mendeshev."

Of course, the Aktobe secretary, Isaac Bekker, assessed the situation on the basis of a rather schematic approach to political processes that existed among the Bolsheviks. Hence the characterization of the communists from western Kazakhstan as "ultra-leftists," as well as the assertion that wealthy Kazakhs ("bai") seemed to support precisely the communists from the Senior zhuz (Uysyn horde), as did "almost all of the former Alash-Orda." Moreover, Sultanbek Khodzhanov was actually a representative of a separate group of Khojas descended from Arab missionaries. Bekker did not have a clear idea of the Middle zhuz, so he mentioned the same Alash-Orda people and also singled out the intelligentsia.

The presence of wealthy herders in the mid-1920s was characteristic of the whole of traditional Kazakh society, not just the Senior zhuz. The former Alash-Orda members in Turkestan also came from a variety of Kazakh zhuzes, not just the Senior. For example, Khalel Dosmukhamedov came from the Junior zhuz. Moreover, it is clear that Bekker's statement about "ultra-leftism" was very tentative in relation to the position of the natives of the Junior zhuz. Political labels from the lexicon of the Bolsheviks had nothing to do with the real interests of the tribal groups of Kazakh society.

Undoubtedly, the tribal factor could not but exert its influence on the political processes in the KASSR, but one should not forget absolutely pragmatic considerations. Ak-Mechet was located on the only Kazakh railroad from Orenburg to Tashkent; at the same time, the branch of the Turksib Railroad that was to connect the two huge colonies of the former empire, Siberia and Central Asia, was to pass through Alma-Ata, the city that was finally chosen as the capital in 1927. Obviously, accessibility was more important than tribal considerations in the choice of a capital city.

Tribal relations were much more evident at the local level, where there was a struggle for influence in local government. Robert Kindler wrote that “periodically repeated votes caused permanent problems for the Bolsheviks because clan elders often turned the councils into vehicles for the articulation of their own interests. Clan élites either ran for office themselves or launched straw men who ran for office at their request. Once they had become members of the soviets, those candidates then pursued the interests of their backers, communities, and clans.” It is quite logical that traditional society adapted to the rhetoric and practices of the current government. In this sense, from a practical point of view, the local Kazakh elite perceived the Soviets as a new edition of the former Volost system of the Russian Empire and behaved accordingly.

According to the data of the OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate, the secret police) in 1926, “during the re-election of the Soviets in the Aktobe Governorate almost all aul [village], party and Komsomol cells participated in the clan struggle, in a number of cases responsible workers were connected with village groups, and the activity of the newspaper "Kedey" was directed to the interests of clans supporting some responsible workers. In Shubartaū volost of Karkaraly uyezd, one of the groups spent 36 cows and 1,000 rams on gifts. The fight between the two factions was supported by a number of auls, with at least 150 people on each side. In Leninskaya volost of Semipalatinsk uyezd a fight between two clan groups for seats in the administration lasted two hours with the participation of 200 people, then at the repeated meeting a new fight broke out, and at the third meeting another fight was planned, which was prevented by the police. It was only at the fourth attempt that the elections were held.”

The high-ranking Kazakh communists of the mid-1920s did not, of course, distribute rams. In fact, the new party and state elite and traditional society existed separately and had completely different life horizons. Of course, family ties could play a role, but one should not forget that elections took place only at the level of local soviets. The advancement of Kazakh communists depended more on the party bureaucracy of the USSR. Their main political capital was not their family name, but their place in the Soviet power system.

In this situation, patron-client relations became the main way for Kazakh communists to organize themselves in the KASSR power structures. They could be based on kinship, as in the case of Smagul Sadvakasov, the KASSR commissar of education in 1925-1927, and his father-in-law, Alikhan Bukeikhanov. It could also be on the basis of tribal ties, which gave the head of Aktobe Bekker reason to talk about the existence of tribalism among Kazakh power groups.

Most often, however, they were based on common political interests, as was the case with Kazakhs who had migrated from Turkestan. In this very separate republic, communists like Sultanbek Khodzhanov and Turar Ryskulov created working conditions for former Alash-Orda members, who came from many different clans and tribes of Kazakh society. Undoubtedly, they were more interested in general Kazakh tasks, in particular, the same issues of land, "rootification" of the administrative apparatus, research and educational activities.

To gain a place in the top party and state bureaucracy of the KASSR and to implement their plans, Kazakh politicians needed allies among Russian communists, especially in Moscow. But they also needed connections among other Kazakh communists, because this provided an opportunity to control important positions in the administrative structures.

In such a situation, patron-client relationships were the most convenient. And here the traditional bureaucratic logic was at work. In order to gain more political influence, you need to be able to appoint as many of your clients as possible to various positions in the administrative system. Then the political leadership in Moscow would take you more seriously.

Nikolai Yezhov's letter to Vyacheslav Molotov, written on August 24, 1925, in connection with the resignation of Sultanbek Khodzhanov, is revealing. Yezhov wrote that it was necessary to “take all measures to ensure that the removal of Khodzhanov is not interpreted as a struggle with all his supporters, and thus to prevent the development of the Khodzhanov opposition, which in this case will have to be reckoned with and dealt with, and in dealing with it we would inevitably have to rely on one group. For this purpose (among other things, to prevent the Sadvakasov group from triumphing) it is necessary to put a Khodzhanov man in the secretary's office; they cannot be suspended from their work, otherwise they will be in opposition forever.”

But let us return to the rather short period when Khodzhanov was still in power. Having obtained considerable powers in the leadership of the KASSR, the Turkestanis enthusiastically set about solving what they considered to be two priority tasks. First, they wanted to carry out land reform, which, unlike in Turkestan, had never been carried out in the Kazakh steppe. Second, they wanted to achieve a real rootification of the administrative apparatus.

It seems that both goals were originally proclaimed by the Bolsheviks, but the pendulum of Moscow's "divide and rule" policy had already swung the other way. Promises to send the "kulak scum" "to Kolchak on the moon" were no longer heard. In April 1925, for example, it was said at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party(b) that "the formation of separate Cossack districts (in the North Caucasus, as well as in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - author's note) could 'soften' the Cossacks' discontent with Soviet national policy." Now, as it turned out, Moscow was worried about Cossack discontent.

As part of the rootification process, the KASSR leadership adopted the so-called percentage approach. According to this approach, the number of Kazakhs in the administration should correspond to their share in the population of the republic. For example, in the administrative apparatus of the Semipalatinsk Oblast party organization, according to the Information Department of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) of August 5, 1925, there were only 10% Kazakhs out of about 1,100 employees. According to the logic of the Turkestanis, the number of Kazakh workers should have been increased to about 50% overnight. In 1925, this would have been a real personnel revolution... or a disaster for the KASSR management system. Moscow was worried about the possible loss of control over the KASSR. In addition, they understood very well that the new personnel would first of all be the clientele of the current Kazakh leadership.

As a result, Khodzhanov was recalled to Moscow, from where he was sent to the Caucasus in November 1925 as an employee of the Central Committee. In those days, a summons to Moscow was a way to strike a blow against the positions of particularly arrogant local clans, or to relieve excessive tensions among the élites and restore a balance favorable to the Kremlin. Later, arrest and the almost inevitable execution were used for these purposes.

In September 1925, a new secretary of the Kazakh ASSR, Filipp Goloshchyokin, a prominent Bolshevik and participant in the execution of the tsar and his family, was appointed to the Kazakh ASSR. Moscow's favorite "fight against occasional overzealousness" began, as always following the climax of another high-profile campaign. In December 1925, the Fifth All-Kazakh Party Conference condemned what it called "rootification overzealousness." Soon Khodzhanov and a number of other prominent workers were accused of "national deviation activities." In early May 1926, the Kazakh Regional District Bureau abolished the method of percentage norms and introduced the so-called functional method. It was assumed that from now on, rootification would take place only where the state directly interacted with the Kazakh population. This meant that, in principle, it should not concern the central and regional authorities. On May 20, 1926, the Presidium of the Kazakh Central Executive Committee (KazTsIK) abolished the rootification commission and transferred its functions to the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (Rabkrin).

The "struggle against overzealousness" in the land question could go even further. Already at the end of 1924 in Moscow, under the auspices of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Special Commission of M. Serafimov was formed to consider the question of the possible allotment of Russian districts from the Jetysu Oblast of the Kazakh ASSR, as well as from Kirgizia. In 1925 the commission worked in Kazakhstan. The report of Serafimov's commission to the Central Committee stated that "the enmity between the native and immigrant (Russian and Ukrainian) populations and the disenfranchised position of the latter is a brake that hinders the development of agriculture; meanwhile, the development of grain farming in Semirechye is of great economic importance not only locally, for Kazakhstan and Kirghizia, but also for the entire Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as Semirechye should be a breadbasket supplying wheat to the cotton-producing regions."

In this regard, the commission proposed the creation of four autonomous districts in Semirechye, where the Russian population would live compactly, and the creation of the Kalinin Oblast, directly subordinated to Moscow. It is significant that in 1926, during the re-election of Soviets in the Urals Governorate, the Russian Cossacks raised the issue of secession from the KASSR, and at the Pavlodar Uyezd Congress a group of delegates demanded that the Russian part of the district be seceded from the KASSR and annexed to Siberia. The central leadership of the Communist Party could not agree to the creation of a Russian autonomy within the borders of the KASSR. This generally contradicted the very concept of national-territorial autonomy and would have met with resistance from the national republics, especially Ukraine. As a result, in 1927 the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee limited itself to instructing the Kazakh CEC to "carry out zoning, paying special attention to the formation of national village councils and volosts."

At the same time, in the context of the New Economic Policy (NEP), the state began to think about increasing the arable land and the production of food grain, the main export commodity. Accordingly, the vast lands of the steppes of the KASSR could not but be considered as a possible reserve. Dmitry Verkhoturov wrote about this: "In the 1920s the authorities did not openly display the slogan of colonization, and one could learn about measures to colonize 'arable land' from agricultural development programs." Nevertheless, there was now a public discussion in the country that the nomadic way of life was an obstacle to increasing population density, especially in areas suitable for agriculture. The implication was that a nomad needed much more territory to feed himself than a farmer; it was argued that a handful of nomads occupied vast areas of land that could be devoted to grain production for the needs of the young Soviet republic.

The conclusion that followed was similar to the one reached in the Russian Empire before the 1917 revolution. For the growth of agricultural production, the easiest way to organize the resettlement of peasants is to assume that there is enough "extra land" in the territory where nomads live. Thus, in 1927 it was revealed that the "colonization capacity" of Kazakhstan was 7,664 thousand shares of resettlement, including 4,664 thousand shares in the south of the region.

The question of new colonization was preordained, and the principle of priority that had been promoted in the early 1920s, according to which the Kazakh population would have priority in the development of new lands, was discarded. On February 2, 1928, the Politburo of the Central Committee issued a resolution stating that "land management should be carried out for the entire population, without any priority for individual national groups of the population. All newcomers who arrived in Kazakhstan before September 14, 1925, and who were actually engaged in agriculture should be settled on an equal footing with the native population. If surplus land is found, it should be given to the native population of Kazakhstan."

In April 1928, Kazakhstan agreed to open its territory to immigration. Terry Martin wrote that “[t]his marked an important moment in the history of the Soviet nationalities policy as it determined that the policy of korenizatsiia [‘rootification’] did not mean that national majorities would be granted the right to preserve their demographic majority status.”

The resumption of colonization policies was only one line of attack on the traditional Kazakh way of life. In December 1925, Goloshchyokin announced his "intention to destroy the hegemony of the clans by dividing the territory into new administrative units with smaller divisions in order to strengthen the control of the Soviet power over the clans and to get closer to the population."

In April 1926, he noted at a plenary session of the Krai Committee that "the administrative and clan divisions of the territory do not coincide," but he emphasized that the government's approach to Soviet development was "Russian-style." He stated that the "destruction of the clan" should be carried out by such methods as would ensure the economic, political, and cultural integration of the working masses "into the general stream of socialist construction of the whole [Soviet] Union," acting with extreme caution, taking into account "the conditions of the Kazakh communist," and showing patience, training, self-education, and the greatest trust toward "evaders." Of course, these as yet inarticulate statements were no more than a precursor of future atrocities.