Советское партийное государство и элиты казахского аула в 1920-е гг.: политика и практика
The Soviet Party State and the Elites of the Kazakh Aul (Village) in the 1920s: Politics, Practice and Results

Summary/Abstract: Based on archival materials, the article reveals certain aspects of the party state’s policy towards the autonomous elites of the Kazakh aul in the Aktobe province in the 1920s. The central party-Soviet bureaucracy believed that the Kazakh bais were capable of obstructing state actions and resisting Soviet power. In an effort to completely eliminate the political and economic influence of the Bay group on the local population and to destroy them as political opponents, the party state decided to isolate the arrested not only from their native lands but also to exile them beyond the borders of the Kazakh Republic. The criminal prosecution was not even for direct anti-government actions or calls for them, and certainly not for an attempt at armed struggle, but solely for their social belonging to the so-called bai-aksakal elements. The social order in the nomadic and semi-nomadic communities, which was based on the consensus of the majority, was deliberately destroyed by the practices of revolutionary violence. Baistvo, being a traditional and informal organization, by its conservative essence was not prone to political adventures and avoided open confrontation with the Soviet state. Traditional Kazakh elites and village residents expected the communist authorities to observe pre-October traditions when collecting taxes and to maintain a privileged position for families of elite groups. By the end of the 1920s, the bolsheviks, having returned to the practices of “war communism,” took the path of completely eliminating the institution of private property. The practices of the party state were shaped by massive discontent among the population of the village. In fact, the state directed all its efforts to create a revolutionary situation in the Kazakh nomadic and semi-nomadic society.

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