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Accepted Paper:

History of hunger: the past in the horizon of human research  
Venera Zhumalieva (Kyrgyz State University named after Arabaev)

Paper abstract:

This article tells about the terrible famine that claimed the lives of millions of people in Kazakhstan in 1932-1933, its consequences and the help of the Kyrgyz people to the Kazakh people in difficult times. There is a reason to say that there was a terrible famine, because historical archival documents are known, in which more cases of cannibalism, child murders are recorded . Such evidence is confirmed by OGPU documents stored in our archives. The problem of famine, which became the "tragedy of the Soviet people", is one of the main problems of the historiography of Kyrgyz history. We cannot deny the famine that claimed thousands of lives in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as a result of the collectivization policy pursued in the USSR. The geographic scope of the famine was also extensive. Because in 1932, on Stalin's personal order to take away all the grain from private farms and collective farms, millions of people were starved to death in Ukraine, the Volga region, the North Caucasus and Kazakhstan (Central Asia).

As a result, in the spring of 1932, Kazakhs began to move en masse to Kyrgyzstan. The death toll has increased, serious crimes have been committed, and the number of diseases has expanded. That time was tough for Kyrgyz people. Subsequent historical sources show that grain was taken abroad for the starving and that the industrialization policy of the Soviet Union called for large-scale grain exports. However, there were people who opposed Stalin's order and helped the Kyrgyz-Kazakh people. One of them was the Chairman of the SNK (Council of People's Commissars) of the Kirghiz ASSR Zhusup Abdrakhmanov. On his initiative, food stations and canteens were opened in our country, great assistance was provided to the for nation who deprived of food , especially the Kazakhs. This determination saved thousands of lives. Regrettable, by such a heroic decision he was called an "enemy of the people" and in 1938 he became a victim of repression.

The problem of the famine of 1932 and its consequences is still being supplemented by new research by historians. There are several reasons for this: the anti-peasant policy was based on the agrarian policy of the Stalinist regime. And this proposed action was based on administrative-repressive, violent and coercive methods. The famine was closely connected with the export of grain, collectivization and industrialization, and the country's anti-peasant approach.

The article was written on the basis of archival documents.

Panel HIS07
Scandals and Government Abuses in Soviet period Central Asia
  Session 1 Saturday 22 October, 2022, -