To the question about the stages of political repression in Kazakhstan in the 1920s-1980s

Repressions in Kazakhstan during the Soviet period were carried out in stages, corresponding to the main directions of the socio-economic and national policies of the party and state. The purpose of the article is to analyze the repressive policy in the Soviet period. The publication proposes the author's version of the main stages of massive repression in Kazakhstan. They did not affect individuals but entire categories of the population according to the corresponding intellectual, social and property qualification or ethnicity. A general description of each of the stages is given, the features of the repressive policy in the XX century in Kazakhstan are highlighted. The author examines the consequences, rehabilitation problems, victirns rehabilitation srages of political repression in Kazakhstan.

Introduction

The formation of a totalitarian system in the Soviet state was accompanied by political repressions, which were systematic, planned, and massive; they were unprecedented in scale, number of repressed, and coverage of all social categories and population groups. Totalitarianism in the Soviet country not only impinged on the actions and behavior of its citizens, it also restricted the freedom of thought of the Soviet man. Describing totalitarianism, the British publicist George Orwell wrote: «Totalitarianism has infringed on freedom of thought in a waythat has never been imagined before...they dictate what must be thought;they create an ideology that must be accepted by the individual, they seek to control his or her emotions and impose on him or her a pattern of behavior... The totalitarian state necessarily tries to control the thoughts and feelings of its subjects, at least, as effectively as it controls their actions...” [1; 245]. It was the control over the actions, over the freedom of thought, over the feelings of “homo soveticus” that became the main task of the repressive mechanism of the Soviet state.

Punitive measures used by state organs in the USSR were applied primarily to create a society ruled by the system on the basis of fear. Action (or inaction) was in no way commensurate with the degree of punishment. All of this together contributed to the creation of a “new” controlled society, which was governed by punitive measures. Repression in the Soviet state was the main method of struggle for power, which led to the physical destruction not only of real but also of potential (or perceived) rivals and opponents. Social strata and social groups, which resisted or demonstrated disagreement with the authorities, or were capable of such a manifestation, were punished or eliminated. In addition, the repressive policy made it possible to relocate large masses of people to sparsely populated regions of the country without additional capital investments by expanding the system of corrective-labor camps and using freely available labor to solve major social and economic problems. For example, large-scale industrial construction, the development of new territories, and the provision of labor resources for sparsely populated areas of the country [2; 510].

Experimental

During the study the following methods were used: scientific general logical methods of research, such as analysis and synthesis, analogy, generalization, systematic approach, methods of empirical research, i.e. comparison and description, methods of theoretical knowledge, namely, formalization, abstraction, etc. Special historical methods were applied. In particular, historical-systemic and problem-chronological methods llowed to formulate the author's version of the stages of repressions in Kazakhstan. Comparative-historical method was used in comparing and contrasting the general and the particular stages of repressive policy, etc.

The source base of the article is mainly represented by three main types of written historical sources of the Soviet period. They are legislative (normative-legal) acts, clerical documentation, and statistical materials. The complex of sources used in this article was taken from published documentary collections, in particular, “Political Repressions in Kazakhstan in 1937–1938. Collection of Documents” (Almaty, 1998); “Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. 1954–1964. Draft Minutes of Meetings. Verbatim records. Resolutions” (Moscow, 2006) and others. The article also uses documentary material from archival fonds of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation: for example, from the Archive of the President of Kazakhstan, Fond 708 — Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, Fond 141 — Kazakh Territorial Committee of the VKP(b) (The All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks). Documents from the State Archive of Karaganda Region were also used (Fonds 1p and 205). Materials from the Fund 9401 — Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1934–1960) of the GARF (State Archives of the Russian Federation) were used as well.In our opinion, these archival sources allowed to argue and detail the author's concepts about the stages of repressive policy in the Kazakh SSR with factual material.

Results and Discussion

In Soviet historiography, repression was one of the most taboo subjects: in the scientific and public field, it was impossible even to mention the name of a repressed political figure, a representative of culture, science, etc. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the subject of repression and the repressive policies of the Soviet state became one of the most popular subjects both in journalism and historical scholarship: thousands of articles, hundreds of monographs, dissertations and documentaries were published, both in foreign and Russian historiography. Foreign historiography includes fundamental works of leading Sovietologists (R. Conquest, N. Werth, M. Malia, V.N. Zemskov, N.F. Bugai, etc.). It is represented by major research centers. The study of political repressions is one of the aspects of the study of the Soviet state and Soviet society in them.

Various aspects of repressions are being developed in Kazakhstan. They are activity and destiny of national intelligentsia (M.K. Kozybayev, K.N. Nurpeisov, M.K. Koigeldiyev and others); repressions against sharua and peasantry, implementation and consequences of forced collectivization (T.O. Omarbekov, Zh.B. Abylkhozhin and others). The camp systems of GULAG and GUPVI were studied by D.A. Shaimukhanov, B.O. Zhangutin, T.K. Allaniyazov, S.D. Dilmanov, N.O. Dulatbekov and others. Kazakhstan historiography of deportations was actively developed by works of K.S. Aldazhumanov, G. Kim, G.V. Kan, M.P. Laiger and others.

Today the problems of repressions are being developed by historians I.M. Kozybayev, A.S. Zhan- bosynova, A.S. Musagaliyeva and others. However, there is still a gap in a number of subjects in this research field. The Kazakhstani specifics of the mechanism and scale of repressions and their consequences are insufficiently studied. Regional aspects of repressions remain underdeveloped. The Stalinist system of mass informing, as well as the role and place of informing as a social and psychological phenomenon, which significantly influenced the scale of repressions, are not investigated. Most historians are not interested in the «ordinary” person and his or her fate in the system of mass repression. As a rule, the objects of study were representatives of national elite or well-known individuals. There are few/no works about the heads of Kazakhstan's punitive agencies and their role in the creation of the repressive machine in the KazSSR. The first studies on the daily history of repression and terror have just begun to appear. In modern national historiography, the data on the Kazakhstani segment of the GULAG camp system has not been analyzed and generalized. In particular, the number of GULAG camps in Kazakhstan is still not specified. This is only an insignificant part of not / underdeveloped sections of a large problematic.

The process of the gradual declassification of archival documents “fascinates” researchers, stimulating them again and again to address this interesting, but still not fully studied topic. In spite of the fact that this topic is well-developed, the authors rarely address the stages of repressive policy, in general, for the entire Soviet period; in this article the author aims to offer her own variant of the statement of the problem.

In analyzing repressive policies during the Soviet period, we distinguish nine main stages of large-scale repression in Kazakhstan. They had a mass character and affected not individuals, but entire categories of the population according to their respective intellectual, social, property, or ethnic backgrounds.

The 1^st stage is repressions carried out from the first days of the Bolshevik seizure of power, from October 1917 to the mid-1920s, in relation to national intelligentsia associated with the activities of national parties (“Alash”, “Shura-i-Islami” and others) and the governments of national autonomies (“Alash-Orda”, “Turkestani Mukhtoriyat”). This list of names is headed up by A. Bukeikhanov, A. Baitursynov, M. Dulatov, H. Dosmukhamedov, Zh. Dosmukhamedov, S. Lapin and others. It was during this period that the authorities managed to isolate or distance themselves from the Kazakh society and deprive of influence the most educated, politically mature and active part of the Kazakh society, the elite of the national intelligentsia. The mechanism of this “socio-political ostracism” had the same algorithm for all representatives of the national elite who were subjected to repression. Initially, representatives of the national intelligentsia were “squeezed out” of the government, and they were forced to go into the sphere of culture — education, science: teaching at universities, working in newspapers and magazines, scientific work in research institutes, etc. After a couple of years, the authorities realized that the change in the sphere of national intelligentsia (from political to cultural) did not affect the way of thinking, the freedom of thought. The next step of isolation, «squeezing out” from the social environment, was taken — house arrest, exile, imprisonment. By the mid-1920s, the old national intelligentsia, which had the most significant influence on the minds and sentiments of Kazakh society in the first quarter of the XX century, was out of it.

The 2^nd stage is the repression of the Communist Party and Soviet elite, i.e. the “old” Bolsheviks who established the Soviet power in Kazakhstan and the Communists of the “younger generation”, the representatives of the “new wave” of Soviet national intelligentsia who were in opposition to the first secretary of the Kazkrai committee of the VKP(b), F.I. Goloshchekin during his “Little October” from the mid-1920 to early 1930s. This stage of repressions included persecution and arrests of S. Seyfullin, T. Ryskulov, S. Sad- vokasov, S. Khodzhanov, S. Mendeshev and others. The above-mentioned representatives of Kazakh Soviet intelligentsia tried to prevent, stop the implementation of socialist transformations in Kazakhstan by the methods of F.I. Goloshchekin. They foresaw the results of these Bolshevik measures and warned of the catastrophe, which could break out in the Kazakh steppe, if the specifics and features of the traditional nomadic economy of the Kazakhs were not taken into account. Opposition of this group of national party-soviet elite to the first party leader of the region, F.I. Goloshchekin, caused both him and the central authorities not only irritation, but also a desire to eliminate it, which was carried out, in fact, by the middle of the 1930s. The result of the repressions were exiles, arrests, and imprisonment.

The 3rd stage is the repression in relation to the prosperous peasantry (first of all the Kazakh Bais) during the period of total collectivization and forced sedentarization in the late 1920s — early 1930s. This phase of repressions, when the struggle for the liquidation of the kulaks and baists as a class started, allowed the authorities to implement the “great breakthrough”, “breaking the back” of the peasantry by destroying the strongest, most economic and thus the most influential part of the agrarian population. Theprosperous representatives of aul and villages of Kazakhstanwere the most influential opposition to the authorities in agrarian sector during forceful collectivization when there was “Asharshylyk” catastrophe which the representatives of the Kazakh Soviet elite (T. Ryskulov, S. Sadvokasov, S. Khodzhanov and others) warned about, when about 2 million Kazakhs died of hunger and diseases. The entire power of the Soviet repressive machine was aimed at their extermination. The scale of this “class onslaught” allowed to conclude that the state already had a powerful and effective repressive apparatus. A number of researchers characterize this stage as “Bolshevik social class genocide” [3; 52–53]. It is no coincidence that exactly during this period, in 1930, the first GULAG camps appeared in Kazakhstan. A significant mass of their prisoners were peasants.

The 4^th stage is the repressions of engineers and workers at industrial enterprises on charges of “sabotage and subversion” in the 1930s (the “Ridder case”, the “Balkhash case”, etc.). At this stage, under the labels “Japanese-German agents”, “counter-revolutionary organizations”, “Trotskyists”, “rightists”, “nationalists and other spy gangs”, the repression was carried out against independently thinking representatives of the technical intelligentsia, engineers and workers. As a justification for this stage of repressions, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan L. Zalin in his speech, in June, 1937, emphasized: “... the main line of subversive work is political, economic and military espionage, subversive sabotage in our industry, in our transport, in our agriculture, in our cattle breeding and preparation for terror... We, especially the Chekists, have the task of uncovering and crushing to the end all that remains undiscovered of Japanese- German agents, all kinds of fascist, Trotskyist, right-wing, counter-revolutionary, nationalist organizations...” [4; 111–112]. The same pretext was used to purge the technical intelligentsia. Representatives of the managerial staff of the largest constructions and enterprises of Kazakhstan were subjected to “cases of sabotage” (Y.I. Mikhailenko, P.P. Spiridonov, A.I. Kelmanson, M.G. Grolman, P.K. Poddubny, N.M. Prasolov and many others). The result of the repressions of this stage was arrests, imprisonment, and executions by shooting.

The 5^th stage is “The Great Terror”, the repressions of 1937–1938 as the peak and logical conclusion of all previous waves of repression — the physical destruction of all those who were in any opposition to the government or accidentally fell under the “pressure” of the repressive mechanism. At this stage, all those who had fallen under repression during the previous stages, but remained alive, were repressed a second time, but now with the “entencing to be shot” article.

The forerunner of mass shootings during the repressions of 1937–1938 was a closed letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) to all party organizations dated July 29, 1936, that brought to the extreme, to the absurd demand to reveal and eradicate existing shortcomings «in terms of vigilance and inability to recognize the enemy”. In order to implement the tasks of this letter in Kazakhstan, in the same year, the Kraikom made a decision “to mercilessly expose all enemy nests of fascists, Trotskyite-Zinovievites, spies, scouts, saboteurs, Alashorda members and other nationalist elements”, and “work on exposing the enemies and their accomplices must be conducted daily by all party organizations and every communist “in any area and in any situation” [5; 502–503]. In carrying out their task of “mercilessly uncovering enemies' nests,” jealous Communist officials put people under the pressure of the repressive machine. They (people) were labeled, for example, as members of a “counter-revolutionary group”. When considering the activity of this “counterrevolutionary nationalist group” at the construction of the Karaganda state district power station at the meeting of the bureau of the Karaganda city committee of the All-Union Communist Party (of bolsheviks) in 1937, it was fixed that the task of the group was “to spread counterrevolutionary agitation against the Soviet power by holding closed evening meetings, where anti-Soviet speeches were delivered and counterrevolutionary nationalist songs were sung”, the latter charge — singing “counterrevolutionary nationalist songs” was considered serious grounds for exclusion from the party and referral of the case to investigative bodies [6; 27– 28].

During the repressions of 1937–1938 first the entire staff (more than 80–100 %) of the senior officials of the republican, regional, city and district party and Soviet bodies and NKVD bodies were arrested, then shot.

The 6^th stage is the repressions in the 1930s — the late 1940s connected with the deportation of the peoples to Kazakhstan (the Koreans, the Poles, the Germans, the Chechens, the Ingush, the Crimean Tatars, the Meskhetian Turks, etc.). The forced deportations of peoples at this stage were unprecedented even on the scale of the USSR. Hundreds of thousands of people were evicted from their areas of residence within 24 hours on indiscriminate charges. Tens of thousands of them died during the deportation.

According to the United State Political Administration, 55,441 people died in Kazakhstani special settlements just in 1932–1933. In 1933 on the territory of Northern Kazakhstan, the number of repressed citi- zenswho died was 19 times more than that of born.While in South Kazakhstan the number of the repressed dead was 13 times more than that of born [7; 20]. Russian researcher N.F. Bugai notes that the situation was no less difficult in the 1940s, when the flow of immigrants — victims of political repression to the territory of Kazakhstan- was endless. The number of those killed during deportations, the period of difficult adaptation in the most difficult conditions of the cold Kazakhstani climate, is known very approximately.

The 7^th stage is the repressions in the post-war decade from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s against all segments of the population — prisoners of war, peasants, workers, intelligentsia, etc., associated with the tightening of the Stalinist regime in the post-war decade. In the post-war period, a system of special gulag camps for political prisoners “with a strict regime for keeping especially dangerous state criminals” was created in the USSR, with stricter conditions of detention. The GULAG flourished, although it seemed that the period of the “Great Terror” was in the past, but the repressions continued. In 1953, the GULAG held about 2.5 million prisoners, there were 2.75 million special settlers in exile [8; 8].

Among the prominent representatives of the national intelligentsia, who fell under the Stalinist post-war repressions, the names of Ye. Bekmakhanov, B. Suleimenov, K. Mukhamedkhanov, B. Ismailov, M. Aue- zov, K. Satpayev and others can be mentioned.

The post-war situation, the researchers note, has changed the content of sentences, capital punishment by the judiciary is used less frequently than in the 1930s, and sentences with long terms of imprisonment are passed. Based on the materials from the State Archives of the East Kazakhstan region, historian A.S. Zhan- bosynova states that 41 % of those repressed in the post-war decade were sentenced to 10 years in prison, 31 % — to 5 years, 22 % — to 8 years, 3 % — to 25 years, 2 % — to 15 years and 1 % — to 12 years in prison. The largest group of the repressed for political reasons (91 %) was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda and counterrevolutionary propaganda: in the post-war period everyone who, in the opinion of the authorities, could carry a threat to the state system by talking or acting [9; 29–30]. Since 1948, repeated arrests and convictions have been carried out, which demonstrates a new circle of repressive policies.

The 8^th stage is the repressions from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s in relation to all “dissidents” — representatives of the creative intelligentsia, scientists, the party-Soviet elite, and other social strata. The death of I.V. Stalin and the “Khrushchev thaw” somewhat changed the policy towards some liberalization. At this stage, the methods of repression were somewhat “softened”: instead of executions there were imprisonment, compulsory treatment in psychiatric clinics, expulsion from the USSR, etc. However, the system did not fundamentally change: dissent, opposition and freedom of expression were still taboo.

The 9^th stage is the repressions in the second half of the 1980s, when the most striking fragment of the repressive policy in the period of“glasnost and perestroika” was the repression of the participants of the events of December, 1986. The Soviet repressive machine, like the merciless Moloch, grinded the fates and lives of those who protested against the system. During the December, 1986 events in Kazakhstan, more than 2.5 people were injured during the“Blizzard” operation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs(they were taken to a medical institution, hospitalized, injured, etc.). The power structures detained about 8.5 thousand people, 103 of them were convicted, more than 800 people were expelled from the Komsomol, according to some data about 270 students were expelled from the republic's universities [10], according to others — more than 300 students were expelled [11; 94].

Much has been said and written about the events of December, 1986. However, today there are still many unclear / unspecified moments. The December, 1986 events were of an all-Kazakhstani character. The events of December, the 17^th and 18^th in one way or another echoed in all 16 regions of the republic, including in Karaganda. According to official data, 288 young people took part in the events in the city of Karaganda: 182 university students, 73 students of technical schools and colleges and 33 workers [12; 141–142; 13; 144]. The general results of the consequences of the December demonstrations of the Kazakhs in Karaganda are as follows: 66 students who took part in the events were expelled from educational institutions, 168 Komsomol members were reprimanded, 65 people were expelled from the Komsomol ranks.Disciplinary sanctions were announced to 29 teachers, and 17 instructors received party reprimands “for poor organization of educational work” [12; 30].

All stages of repression are characterized by a number of common features. At the initial stage of their implementation, intensive political and ideological preparation was carried out, namely, justification of the ongoing mass repressions associated with the mechanism of influence on public consciousness, because well-known people, who often had great authority among the population of the country or region, were under the “pressure” of the system. As a rule, people who were the most outstanding, initiative, in own position and able to defend their point of view, personalities, fell under the control of the repressive mechanism. It was enough to have a bright charisma, not to fit into the pattern of behavior and thinking indicated by the system, and repression could not be avoided. The more prominent the figure of the potential “opponent” of the authorities was, the more absurd accusations were brought against him or her with large socio-political or economic actions of the state were brought to the beginning of a new circle of repression. In contrast, a new circle of repression caused large socio-political or economic actions of the state.

The forms and methods of repressive measures changed depending on the socio-political situation. Ifin the first half of the 1920s at least a kind of freedom of polemics, the possibility of discussions, exchange of opinions (repressive measures during this period was “ousting” from party and state structures, isolation, deprivation of political and civil rights, etc.) still existed, then by the end of the 1920s, by the time of the “great Stalinist breakthrough” an atmosphere of intolerance to any form and degree of dissent and opposition had developed, and repressive measures were tightened accordingly. Enemies were sought among “elements alien to the party and the people,” and a “witch hunt” began. These “elements” were found primarily in the party itself, in the ranks of the intelligentsia and all dissenting citizens of the country. All party, Soviet, law enforcement agencies, public organizations, the press — all were aimed at the immediate and strict implementation of the directive statements of the “leader of the peoples”. They were implemented through the adoption of decisions by the governing bodies of the party (congresses, plenums, conferences, the Politburo of the Central Committee), on the basis of which the directives, similar in essence, were adopted by the republican and then local party bodies [6; 6].

The ideological basis of the program of repressive actions was V.I. Lenin's thesesabout “the Red terror in response to the White” initially, and later Stalin's theory about the intensification of the class struggle as the socialist society strengthened, which had to be backed up by the fact of the actual “presence of enemies.” On July 9, 1928, the General Secretary of the Communist Party I.V. Stalin, speaking with a speech “On industrialization and the grain problem” at the plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) expounded the thesis of the intensification of the class struggle as socialism being built [2; 115]. “Our policy can definitely in no way be considered a policy of inciting the class struggle... We are not interested in the class struggle taking the form of a civil war. But this does not mean that the class struggle is thereby abolished, or that it will not intensify at all... As we move forward, the resistance of the capitalist elements will increase, the class struggle will intensify, and the Soviet power, whose strength will increase more and more, will carry out the policy of isolating these elements, the policy of demoralizing the enemies of the working class, and finally, the policy of suppressing the resistance of the exploiters...” [14; 170–171].

A legal basis was prepared for carrying out mass repressions. Based on the materials of the Soviet normative legal acts, one can trace how the criminal legislation changed in the 1920s and 1930s, and how the penalties for “anti-Soviet actions” were tightened. The vast majority of the repressed were carried out under Article 58 of the criminal code of the RSFSR. In the 1926 edition of the special part of the RSFSR criminal code, counter-revolutionary crimes were classified as state crimes. According to the сriminal сode of the RSFSR for 1926, the use of capital punishment was provided for 12 out of 17 specific types of counterrevolutionary crimes. Since 1934, changes in criminal law have become systematic and increasingly distant from a truly legal basis. A period not exceeding 10 days was allotted for the investigation of cases of terrorist organizations and terrorist acts against the Soviet regime. In 1937, the NKVD authorities were officially allowed to apply “physical measures” to the arrested (that is, the use of torture was legalized), the possibility of appealing against sentences was excluded, and death sentences began to be executed immediately [6; 6].

It should be noted that in the pre-war period, prominent figures of science and culture became targets of persecution, repression was more widespread. The 1930–1940s were characterized by the processes of forcible resettlement of huge social and ethnic flows. In the 1950s and 1960s, the researchers note, the emphasis was on “personifying political accusations.”

Archival documents allow to conclude that the repressions were not only massive but also planned. In the Archives of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, there is a declassified document classified as “Strictly secret. Special folder”. The “Special Folder” mark was classified as a top secret. Signed by seven members of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Kazakhstan, the document contains the decision to further increase the number of repressed anti-Soviet elements. What is more, the basis for this decision was a survey of these members of the Politburo. Not judicial decisions, not an analysis of investigative cases, but a survey of party workers of the highest echelon. These figures are presented in Table 1 [15; 170–171].

Table 1

Data on the increase in the number of repressed anti-Soviet elements

What are these numbers, what are we talking about? The implementation of Stalin's plan for mass repressions began with a decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on July 2, 1937. Then operational order No. 00447 signed by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Yezhov was issued. According to the order, 268,950 people were to be repressed in the USSR in 4 months. 75,950 of them were killed at once. However, this seemed insufficient and “counter planning” was organized from the field. In this connection, this document was probably prepared. Nevertheless, the figures proposed seemed insufficient for the country's leadership, and on December 3, 1937, the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) approved the proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Kazakhstan to increase the number of repressed by 600 people in category 1 (instead of 75) and by 1000 in category 2 (here an increase was not provided). Category 1 included the “most hostile” anti-Soviet elements subject to execution, category 2 contained people subject to imprisonment in camps or prisons for a term of 8 to 10 years. [6; 253]

A number of major cases were “solved” during several months of 1937 and 1938 in the Karaganda region alone.January 1937 — “a counter-revolutionary-nationalist group on the construction of the Karaganda State District Power Plant” (the leaders are Tulegenov and Uyspekov). Actions of the “group”: on January 12, a gathering in an apartment and a choral performance of “counter-revolutionary nationalist songs directed against the leaders of the party and government.” Measures are expulsion from the ranks of the party and the transfer of the case to the investigating authorities [16; 108–110]. June 1937 — the speech of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. Zalin on the exposure of the “spies of Japanese-German intelligence” who created a counter-revolutionary organization in the mines of Karaganda (the heads are the chief engineer Ku- perman, Fedorovich, Drey, Belenko, etc.). The case was handed over to the investigating authorities [17; 99– 112]. September — the decision to organize a show trial of the participants of counter-revolutionary groups that harmed in the field of agriculture in the Karaganda region (the leaders are Asylbekov, Nurseitov, Gatau- lin) [18; 4–5]. By March, 1938, 190 teachers were dismissed and arrested by the NKVD, only in the Karaganda region, andthat was one of the highest percentages (7.6) in the republic [6; 177–180]. There were a great many motives of various kinds for the beginning of the repressions: “Trotskyists and Zi- novievites,”“having connections with the Trotskyists,”“anti-party speeches and conversations,”“loss of vigilance towards enemies,” and so on. Such accusations subsequently led to extreme punishment.

Another feature of the repressions was as follows: in the 1930s — 1940s, they were often directly con- nectedwith denunciations of fellow countrymen, neighbors, colleagues, enemies and simply envious people. Often mass repressions were the result not only of the “vigilance” of the NKVD organs. To a large extent, the mass character of punitive measures was due to the massive denunciations that “vigilant” citizens of the Soviet country wrote to these bodies. Denunciations appeared as a result of politics: the authorities expected and provoked these denunciations. That is why they appeared, therefore, they “reacted” to them, more precisely, the authorities vividly “responded” to them. Such denunciations played a significant role in the birth of party directives. Without removing responsibility from the Stalinist repressive system, without justifying it, we consider it necessary to note that this important circumstance is overlooked in the study of repression in the complex collisions of repressive policy. This problem, as a rule, is bypassed by researchers in their publications. We are sure, if there were no such flow of denunciation letters in Kazakhstan, the fate of several hundred (or maybe thousands?) of people would have had a different outcome, not so tragic. In our opinion, it is necessary to speak openly about the responsibility of these “sycophants” to history, to the memory of those who died in the dungeons of the GULAG. However, in the history of Soviet Kazakhstan, only one of the largest repressive cases of this period, the “Bekmakhanov epic,” names “anti-heroes” (Kh. Aidarova, T. Shoinbayev, A. Yakunin and others) who wrote letters, statements, etc. and who awakened the “Bekma- khanov problem” as soon as itfaded away. A clear assessment of the role of these historians and the consequences of their publication in the “Bekmakhanov case” was given by the academician M.K Kozybayev, calling them “fatal” for the historical science of Kazakhstan. M.K. Kozybayev notes that “taking advantage of an opportunity, the envious and enemies unleashed a smear campaign. The highest instances were filled with accusations against K.I. Satpayev” [19; 9]. We have published an article about the repression against K. Satpayev in the 1950s.In the article, we found out how “denunciations” letters of T. Shoinbayev contributed to the activation of party inspections and, as a consequence of these inspections and directives, repression of the President of the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences was executed [20; 83–104]. However, such publications in the Kazakh historiography are few.Unfortunately, this topic is still taboo in the historical science of Kazakhstan for various reasons.

There arepolitical cases recorded in the archives, which were absurd in nature. In particular, the students of the Almaty Pedagogical Institute received from 2 to 7 years in concentration camps with loss of political rights for creating the “Association of Lovers of Drinking and Snacking” (ALVIZ). This was the kind of organization created by the student youth of Almaty in February 1937, not anticipating the consequences of such actions. They wrote a program, a charter, and distributed the roles of prime minister, minister of hack, goddess of love, etc. among themselves. Moreover, a memo from a member of the Special Board of the Supreme Court of the Kazakh SSR noted with indignation thatthese 20-year-old “ministers of hackwork” had chosen a 27-year-old, five-pound woman, Sh. as the goddess of love”. ALVIZ members were accused of creating an anti-Soviet organization [6; 37].

Archival documents record isolated cases of slander exposure and bringing slanderers to justice. Kantarbayev, the controller of the UKPK for Kazakhstan, records a case in the Karaganda Region (September 1938), when party member O. wrote a statement against Smagulov, “accusing him of being the son of a bai”. The latter was expelled from the party. Later, during the inspection it turned out that “O. himself did not personally know Smagulov's father, he heard from his mother-in-law about some bai Smagul, blind in one eye. And further in this document: “Smagulov's father was not a bai and died in 1934 with two eyes. O. was reprimanded for that. Smagulov was restored in the party” [6; 243]. It seems that Communist Smagulov was lucky in 1938, because one of the most common motives of exclusion from the Party in those years and bringing to trial was “concealment of social origin”.

Today, there is not a single expert who can name even approximately the number of victims of political repressions in Kazakhstan in the 1920s-1980s. According to the materials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, from 1921 to the beginning of 1954, 3777380 people were convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU Board, NKVD troikas, Special Board, Military Board, courts and military tribunals. 642980 prisoners were sentenced to capital punishment [21; 214]. In Kazakhstan, during the period under review, 118,000 people were repressed and more than 25,000 were shot, while 1.5 million people, representatives of 61 nationalities, were deported [22; 193].

The processes of rehabilitation began in the Soviet period during “Khrushchev's” de-Stalinization. In the process of rehabilitation of victims of political repressions 5 stages can be distinguished (2 stages took place in the Soviet period and 3 stages — in conditions of independence of the RK): rehabilitation in the periods of 1953–1960s and 1989–1990s, in the RK the process of rehabilitation began in 1993–1998 and continued in the beginning of 2000s till 2014, and a new stage began just in 2020.

The first stage of rehabilitation beganin 1953, after Stalin's death: according to official data of “Memorial”, about 500,000 people were rehabilitated starting from 1954 to 1965[23; 20]. During the second stage, during “perestroika,” the problem of rehabilitation of repressed USSR citizens was raised in 1989: the Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet “On Additional Measures for Restoring Justice to Victims of Repressions of the 1930s-1940s and Early 1950s” was signed (January 16, 1989). In 1990, the USSR President's Decree “On the Restoration of the Rights of All Victims of Political Repressions of 1920–1950” (dated August 13, 1990) abolished all extrajudicial decisions rendered by the so-called “troikas” or “dvoika” (special meetings) against the illegally repressed [24]. In the 1988–1990s, about 1 million citizens in the USSR were rehabilitated [25; 8–9]. In 1988, a resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan rehabilitated prominent representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia: Sh. Kudaiberdiyev, A. Baitursynov, A. Bukeikhanov, M. Zhumabayev, Zh. Aymauytov, M. Dulatov and others.

After the establishment of Kazakhstan's sovereignty in 1993–1998, the state turned to the problems of rehabilitating victims of political repression. In 1993, the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On Rehabilitation of Victims of Mass Political Repressions” (dated April 14, 1993) was adopted [26]. In 1997–1998, citizens' appeals on rehabilitation issues were the most numerous. The largest number of citizens' cases was examined in 1997: 3118 archived criminal cases on 5392 persons were examined by prosecutor's offices and 4419 persons were rehabilitated [27; 14]. In 1998, 9381 criminal cases against 14960 persons were considered. 2901 persons were rehabilitated [27; 71]. In the 2000s, regardless of the incoming applications, prosecutor's offices carried out continuous work to rehabilitate victims of political repressions. As of January 1, 2010, prosecutor's offices had examined 20,524 archived criminal cases against 31,666 individuals. 25,924 were rehabilitated, including 92 participants of the December, 1986 events. The cases of 240,004 special settlers were considered and 204,389 of them were rehabilitated. By January 1, 2010, over 305,000 illegally repressed citizens of Kazakhstan had been rehabilitated. In 2013, the prosecutor's offices reviewed more than 20,600 archived criminal cases against 31,820,211 Kazakhstan individuals; 25,960 individuals were rehabilitated. While in 2013 there were a total of 327,000 rehabilitated citizens in the republic, in 2014 their number was about 350 thousand [22; 210–212].

Conclusion

To date, despite the intensification of domestic research on repressive policies and victims of political repression of Soviet totalitarianism, it should be noted that there is still no generalized data on the number of people subjected to political repression in the Kazakh SSR at all stages, there is no complete information on all categories of repressed citizens. Many archival funds and files related to the 74-year Soviet period are still closed and classified (in contrast to the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and other countries).

In 2020, the State Commission on Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions was created on the initiative of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan K.-Zh. Tokayev. Eleven working groups comprised of Kazakhstani historians and lawyers were formed to collect and study archival sources and other materials, and to prepare conclusions for the meetings of the State Commission on the full rehabilitation of victims of political repressions.The work on the new stage of rehabilitation and declassification of archive documents has started, and time will show the future results of these processes.

Acknowledgements

The article was executed within the framework of the project “Mass political repressions in Kazakhstan in the 20–50s of the XX century and the rehabilitation process: creating a unified database” of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2021–2022.

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