In September 1925, Soviet state and party leader Josef Stalin appointed party comrade Filipp Goloshchyokin as First Secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee of the Communist Party. Shortly after taking office, Goloshchyokin declared the expropriation of the property of wealthy citizens. The expropriation was not limited to the wealthy classes. The forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture had devastating consequences not only for Turkic-speaking Kazakhstan, but also for Ukraine and other republics. According to a 1917 census, the total population of Kazakhstan was over six million, which shrank to 2.3 million according to a 1939 census.
Over 5 million Kazakhs lost their lives from 1918-1932
Archive documents show that around 1.2 million Kazakhs lost their lives during the great famines of 1918-1919, around 1.7 million in 1921-1922 and around 1.7 million in 1930-1932. The great famine led to many uprisings among the civilian population, which were bloodily suppressed by the communist rulers. Kazakh intellectuals, who were declared “enemies of the people” and sentenced to death or imprisonment in camps in show trials, also fell victim to the “Red Terror”. Over 100,000 people were deported by court order and over 25,000 were sentenced to death.
Another victim of Stalinist terror were the Kazakh farmers and nomads, whose property and livestock were to be taken away from them and handed over to the collective farm system. The violent expropriation of farmers and nomads led to the destruction of the nomadic culture and to famines that cost the lives of millions of Kazakh civilians. In Soviet times, it was considered taboo to talk about forced collectivization and the devastating famine that claimed millions of lives. May 31 is a day of remembrance in Kazakhstan for the victims of political repression who lost their lives during Soviet rule. In Turkish and Azerbaijani historiography, the term technicus Mezalim has become established for mass violent crimes against the Muslim civilian population.