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 of wealthy classes did not stop there. The forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture had devastating consequences not only for Turkic-speaking Kazakhstan, but also for Ukraine as well as other republics. According to a 1917 census, the total Kazakh population 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
Archival documents indicate that about 1.2 million Kazakhs lost their lives during the Great Famines from 1918-1919, about 1.7 million from 1921-1922, and about 1.7 million from 1930-1932. The Great Famine led to many uprisings among the civilian population, which were bloodily put down by the communist rulers. Kazakh intellectuals also fell victim to the “Red Terror”; they were declared “enemies of the people” and sentenced to death or imprisonment in camps in show trials. 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 peasants and nomads, whose property and livestock were to be taken away from them and handed over to the collective farm system. The forcible expropriation of the peasants and nomads led to the destruction of the nomadic culture and to famine, which cost the lives of millions of Kazakh civilians. In Soviet times, it was considered taboo to address the forced collectivization and devastating famine that killed millions. In Kazakhstan, May 31 is considered a day of remembrance for the victims of political repression who died during Soviet rule. In Turkish and Azerbaijani historiography, the term technicus mezalim has become established for mass violent crimes against the Muslim civilian population.